DNA tests pay off for Louisville police

By Jessie Halladay

Mary Lou Carter was working the night shift at the old Continental Inn near Louisville's main airport when a pimply-faced teenager walked in, stuck a gun in her face and demanded money from the till.

Then he forced Carter into an office and raped her.

That was April 14, 1989.

It would be 16 years before Carter would learn the name of the man who had her looking over her shoulder for years.

James Bonds, who was 17 when the crime occurred, was sentenced a year ago to 10 years in prison for the rape and robbery after Louisville Metro Police determined that his DNA -- collected after he was convicted for several robberies years later -- matched evidence at the rape scene.

"I could not believe that after all this time, they finally got him," Carter said recently.

During the past two years, Louisville police have used DNA evidence to solve more than 100 cases, including several that date back more than a decade.

Most of the cases involved sex crimes because a grant allowed old rape kits to be tested for DNA evidence. But police last year also used DNA evidence to help solve two new robberies and a 1991 murder case.

Of 118 cases where DNA was reviewed in 2004-05, 63 were matched to previous offenders. New charges were filed in 19 of those 63 cases. In the others, the offender had either already been charged or the victims would not cooperate or couldn't be found.

The matches were made by running the DNA samples through a database managed by the Kentucky State Police, which catalogs the DNA of many felons required by state law to submit it.

In the other 55 cases, a DNA profile was created, although no specific name has been connected to it. In some cases, the DNA review determined that multiple victims had been assaulted by the same person.

Police say they hope more matches will be made over time, as new offenders' DNA is added to the database.

A bill being considered in Frankfort this legislative session would expand the database by requiring that anyone convicted of a felony, including juveniles, to provide a DNA sample for the database.

The bill is in the House Judiciary Committee. All 50 states require convicted sex offenders to provide DNA samples. As of December, 43 states required DNA samples from all convicted felons.

Expanding Kentucky's database "would help tremendously," Louisville Metro Police Capt. Donald Burbrink said.

The database contains about 10,000 samples, much less than some states, said Maj. Wayne Mayfield, commander of the state's forensic crime lab. Tennessee has about 64,000 samples, Illinois more than 173,000 and Virginia about 236,000, he said.

"DNA is taking on increased importance" in law enforcement, Mayfield said. "We're getting a lot more potential DNA items submitted to us."

Burbrink agreed, noting that in the past, DNA testing was too expensive to use very often. Typically, it was used only in homicide cases, and even then only a couple cases a year could be sent to the crime lab in Frankfort, where forensic testing is done, Burbrink said.

Testing DNA in sexual assault cases wasn't even considered, he said, and officers investigating incidents didn't think much about collecting clothing, cups, cigarette butts or other items that might have DNA on them.

But as technology and science advanced, so did the view of what traces might be left behind on a crime scene. "Anything you touch … you leave a part of you behind," said Lt. Lynn Hunt, with the sex crimes unit.

And that evidence doesn't have a shelf-life: Louisville police credit DNA with helping find a suspect in a 15-year-old homicide case last year. Katherine Swan's body was found on a bank of Beargrass Creek in April 1991. For more than a decade, her rape and strangulation was a mystery.

But Alford Lee Cissell was arrested in April 2005, after an old DNA sample sent to the crime lab last year came up as a match. Earlier this month, a second man, Jerry Wayne Sandlin, 36, was charged with complicity to murder and rape.

DNA is "a strong tool for solving just about anything anymore," Burbrink said. "It's always there, so even 10 years from now you can come back and charge them."