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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.Topic: How reliable is a DNA test? With the amount of publicity given to the Duke Lacrosse Team case, I decided to include a brief question and answer session article that stems from questions the public may have. From a more technical perspective, we are also including the answer to the following question: With the new platforms being used in our crime lab we are using 96 well plates to set samples for real-time and amplifications. Is there an easy way to add samples to the plate so you do not add samples to the same well twice? For the answer, please see the “Technical Question” section at the end of this issue. As far as other news, issues continue to come up concerning funding and privacy as they relate to DNA testing; the ability of inmates to use DNA evidence to prove their innocence; expansion of state DNA databases; and a topic that has not been as widely covered – forensic nurses. “A lot of evidence can be found in the hospital -- on the victims and suspects themselves. And forensic nurses do the finding.” The article addresses the importance of forensic nursing and the current lack of it, in large part due to program start-up costs. Again, you will also find a number of new and ongoing cases involving DNA evidence. In New York local civil liberties advocates are raising red flags over a state commission’s recent request for legislation mandating anyone convicted of any crime to give DNA evidence. The Governor’s Commission of Investigation urged, among other crime-fighting recommendations, that New York State expand its DNA databank. This expansion would now apply to people convicted of felonies as well as misdemeanors. Advocates blasted the proposal last week, saying it would violate privacy and drain local coffers. New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman said the expansion “would enormously strain the criminal justice systems in every community in the state, exponentially increasing the requirements to collect DNA, while providing no means to do that.” Besides, Lieberman argued, the move is based on a false assumption about DNA evidence—“that a DNA match is tantamount to a criminal conviction.” Stephen Saloom, policy director for the Innocence Project, agreed. Though “DNA is incredibly useful in solving and preventing specific types of crimes," he said, "it’s not a panacea for all our criminal justice ills. It would be a mistake to shift resources to DNA databasing." But some city officials praised the commission's plan. “It’s a wonderful idea. DNA has done for us what no other crime-fighting mechanism has ever done,” said Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, Jr. “There is nothing negative [in the expansion]; There’s an expense tied to the city, and the labs may be overwhelmed, but the benefits far outweigh the expense.” Even before the recommendation, New York City had greatly expanded its own DNA database, and is in the process of building the largest DNA lab in the country, scheduled to open this November in Manhattan. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref01.html In Alabama Gov. Bob Riley signed a General Fund budget Tuesday that will help the state Department of Forensic Sciences look a little more like "CSI," the TV series where crime scene investigations never have to wait on laboratory backlogs. The new General Fund budget, which takes effect Oct. 1, will increase the forensics appropriation by $2.1 million, or 19 percent, to $13.1 million. Another $8.7 million from other sources, such as criminal case fines and federal funds, will boost the department's total budget to a record $21.9 million. Deputy Director Brent Wheeler said the increase will "help us quite a bit" by providing more staff and equipment, but it won't create a department that operates like "Quincy" or "CSI." In the real world of the Department of Forensic Sciences, there's a backlog of 1,300 DNA cases - about five to six months of work. And drug cases are coming in faster than they can be worked - 2,900 in last month and 2,500 out. The budget increase, as well as a new lab that recently opened in Hoover and another scheduled to open next year in Montgomery, will help ease the backlog, but needs that developed over several years will take time to erase, Wheeler said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref03.html In Florida the idea was simple: Allow all Florida inmates to get DNA tests to prove their innocence. But as a bill to do so, sailed unimpeded through the Legislature, it proved to be too simple for some powerful lawmakers in the conservative Florida House of Representatives, who made last-minute changes that could make it difficult for inmates to reduce unfairly long sentences and restrict who can access the tests in the future. The changes came as a shock to the Florida Innocence Initiative -- which has helped exonerate some of the five wrongly convicted Floridians freed after DNA tests -- and the sponsor of the bill in the Senate, Miami Republican Alex Villalobos. DNA tests have exonerated 175 people nationwide. But Rep. Don Brown, a Defuniak Springs Republican who chairs the State Administration Council, said he made the changes last week to ensure that inmates don't abuse the court system. Brown's changes forbid a future inmate from getting a DNA test if he or she pleads guilty after July 1 and refuses a DNA test at the time. Inmates locked away for long sentences because of ''aggravating'' circumstances -- namely the commission of multiple crimes -- would also be forbidden from getting DNA tests to prove they didn't commit those other crimes in order to lessen their prison terms. Brown said he inserted the mitigation language to discourage inmates from refusing to take a DNA test ``in the hopes that the DNA evidence would either be lost or degraded, and then ask for the DNA test 10 or 15 years later. . . . They could then make the claim that their sentences can be reduced because of the doubt.'' Villalobos, one of the Legislature's leading legal minds, said Brown just didn't understand the complexities of criminal justice law. Villalobos said the issues Brown raised never came up until the bill hit the committee chaired by Brown, who was one of only two legislators to vote last year against compensating a man wrongfully imprisoned for 22 years. The House sponsor of the bill, Republican Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale, said nothing publicly when Brown altered her bill, and told The Miami Herald earlier this week that it was having no problems. Bogdanoff acknowledged Wednesday that there was at least one ''glaring'' change -- regarding the mitigation issue -- but said she'd fight to change it. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref02.html In Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed legislation Thursday increasing incarceration time for repeat sex offenders and expanding the state’s DNA database to allegations of exposure, a move which the Madison Police Department and state Sen. Tim Reynolds, R-West Allis, said will work to curb sex offenses at their earliest stage of development. The legislation will increase the option of maximum prison sentences for repeat sex offenders from 40 years to life imprisonment without parole. “Wisconsin’s sex-predator laws and penalties are among the toughest in the nation—and they’re working,” Doyle said in a statement Thursday. “We must remain vigilant, and we must keep improving our system for finding, prosecuting and punishing sex offenders.” Department of Corrections spokesperson John Dipko said no fiscal estimates are available for how much the increased sentencing would cost the state. The average cost to house a prisoner is $26,200 per year. Reynolds, who helped draft the DNA databank legislation, said the proposal received strong bipartisan support when it went before the state Assembly and Senate. He added that exposure, categorized as a fourth-degree sexual assault offense, is often a developmental stage, and the addition of exposure to the DNA database could help prevent future crimes. “Jeffrey Dahmer was first convicted of exposing himself in public, and it was just a progression,” he said. “If you can get a DNA sample from these guys early on, it could provide the clues for solving crimes later on.” Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref04.html In Nebraska, anyone convicted of a robbery or burglary will be required to give a DNA sample under a bill (LB385) approved by Nebraska lawmakers. DNA has been collected from violent and sexual offenders in Nebraska since 1997. Research shows that as many as half of violent offenders have previously committed nonviolent crimes. Of those, 25 percent have committed a robbery or burglary. The DNA profiles are entered into the FBI's national database. The bill passed on Thursday was by Sen. Joel Johnson of Kearney. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref05.html On Forensic Nursing: For those who can see it, it's everywhere. It may be lining the inside of a baseball cap, or smeared on a scrap of fabric. Or maybe it's in the distinct pattern of a bruise. It's evidence -- and it's the key to conviction of criminals and justice for victims. But evidence isn't collected only by detectives and crime scene investigators on the street or in a home. A lot of evidence can be found in the hospital -- on the victims and suspects themselves. And forensic nurses do the finding. Examining abused or assaulted patients and assembling rape exam kits used to fall to whichever nurses or physicians were available. But without specialized training, they often overlooked or even discarded crucial evidence. Today, forensic nurses -- and similar professionals called legal nurse consultants -- are helping to bridge the medical and legal worlds by providing expert knowledge in a variety of roles. The International Association of Forensic Nurses has more than 2,800 members, up from 1,400 in 2000, and it continues to grow. Meanwhile, forensic nursing is becoming a more nuanced field. Last year, Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, graduated its first class from the forensic clinical nurse specialist master's program, joining 12 other schools that offer graduate level training in the field. Earlier this month, Christiana Care Health System expanded its forensic nursing program to include trauma patients in addition to sexual assault and abuse patients. "Forensic DNA gets a lot of exposure, and it's a constantly evolving field," he said. "But the forensic nurses are the front line, and if they don't do the proper collection and documentation, then we don't have anything to work with. They have a very challenging job, since they've got the double challenge of caring for a person and their injuries and emotions as well as collecting evidence." Between law and medicine As both an attorney and a forensic nurse, Lisa Schwind is in a unique position to assess the interaction of medicine and the law. Schwind is the forensic services and education coordinator for the Delaware Office of the Public Defender and president of the northern Delaware chapter of the forensic nurses association. She works closely with forensic science specialist Gerard Spadaccini and forensic nurse Linda A. Fernandes, one of the first graduates of Hopkins' master's program. Together they assist attorneys by educating them on medical issues and screening cases. Identifying possible sources of forensic evidence early on allows attorneys to plan their course of action more thoroughly. Schwind and Fernandes also can review medical records, which sometimes reveal medical conditions relevant to the case. Assessing injuries goes beyond what can be seen When assessing a patient's injuries, seeing isn't always believing, said Dan Sheridan, director of the forensic clinical nurse specialist program at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and past president of the International Association of Forensic Nurses. Sometimes an injury isn't consistent with a patient's retelling of how it incurred. Sexual assault victims are more likely than domestic violence victims to report their incidents, said Anita Symonds, forensic nurse examiner program coordinator at Christiana Care Health System. "Sometimes we need to recognize the injuries," she said. "They may say, 'I fell,' yet they have multiple injuries at different stages of healing. With those people, you may take them aside and say, 'I'm concerned. Is someone harming you?' " In the past, sexual assault exams were sometimes assigned to rookie nurses as a rite of passage, said Debra Holbrook, forensic nursing director at Nanticoke Memorial Hospital in Seaford. But a good exam means more than collecting a few swabs of bodily fluids. Injuries need to be fully detailed -- not just location and size, but color and pattern as well. A forensic nurse knows what questions to ask to uncover less obvious sources of evidence. Saliva, sometimes invisible, can be swabbed for DNA, even after it has dried. "There's a standard kit that they process, and the kit ensures that they collect everything we need, but you're starting to see the forensic nurses becoming more creative when the situation isn't standard," Katz said. All evidence is properly maintained until it's needed by the police, Symonds said. Delaware isn't a mandatory reporting state for instances of domestic abuse and adult sexual assault, so evidence is turned over to police only if charges are filed. Growth of the field Even as forensic nurses find new ways to apply their skills, growth of such services is limited by the willingness of institutions to pay for it, Holbrook said. Many hospitals, even in major metropolitan cities, neglect forensic nursing services, most likely due to the cost of starting up such a program, she said. Holbrook estimates it can cost at least $100,000 to start a forensic program. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref06.html Cases involving DNA evidence include: Georgia - A man incarcerated in Indiana for the shooting deaths of two women has been linked by DNA to a fatal stabbing in Norcross. The GBI crime lab has confirmed a DNA sample taken from 27-year-old Anton Johnson matches DNA from a drop of blood in the apartment where a single mother was killed in 2003, authorities said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref07.html New York - An accused rapist is behind bars after a DNA match links him to a crime four months later. 16-year-old Felipe DeJesus-Flores is being charged with the December rape of a 21-year-old UAlbany student in her South Lake Avenue home. Police say a DNA sample was taken from the Mexico native after he allegedly tried to force his way into another young woman's home just a few blocks away from the scene of the rape. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref08.html Colorado - Five years after a rape new technology leads El Paso and Teller County investigators to a suspect Illinois - A Winnebago County grand jury indicted a South Beloit man on charges of criminal sexual assault Wednesday for a 1998 rape case involving a 70-year-old woman. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref10.html Wisconsin - Angela Drake was alive when she was dumped, partially clothed, in a rural Dane County culvert in December, prosecutors said Thursday as they charged Michael Desalvo with murdering her. She died of exposure and hypothermia, according to the criminal complaint accusing Desalvo of first-degree intentional homicide. DNA evidence from Drake's body matches Desalvo, and a suspected blood stain on his mattress probably came, in part, from her, according to the complaint. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref11.html Alabama - DNA test results crucial to the prosecution's case against a Conecuh County couple are in. The DNA testing shows that Glenna Cavender is the mother of both children she is accused of abusing. However, Jack Wiley is not the father of either child according to the test results. Conecuh County District Attorney Tommy Chapman wanted the DNA to identify the couple's relationship with the children. There had been a fear at first that the children may have been kidnapped. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref12.html Pennsylvania - City and Allegheny County police are now talking about a strong connection between two child abductions and sexual assaults that happened years apart. Both cases occurred late at night while people in the children's homes were sleeping. A third case may also be tied to the first two, police said at a news conference on Tuesday morning. Pittsburgh police said a 9-year-old Brighton Heights girl was abducted from her Elmhurst Avenue home on Nov. 13, 2005, then sexually assaulted in a wooded area and left tied to a pole. She was eventually able to free herself and get help. More than three years earlier, on April 11, 2002, a 3-year-old was snatched from her Sherman Street home in Wilkinsburg and sexually assaulted, then found wandering on Janero Way in Highland Park, according to police. On Tuesday, police said both cases have been linked through DNA testing. Also, detectives released pictures of bandanas found at both crime scenes. The third case happened in Pittsburgh's East Hills section, on the same night as the Wilkinsburg abduction. Police think that a burglar entered a house on Park Hill Drive through a sliding door, looking for a child to kidnap, but he was scared off by somebody in the home. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref13.html Pennsylvania - A state police DNA expert says the blood of homicide suspect Andre Staton was found on a knife handle in the kitchen of the home where he is alleged to have killed his estranged girlfriend more than two years ago. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref14.html New York - The NYPD has some bad news for Darryl Littlejohn, it seems. A month ago Littlejohn, who has been charged with the murder off Imette St. Guillen, was put in a line-up for a rape case in Queens. When he was not identified, it looked like that part of the story might've been left aside. Today the Daily News is reporting that "a DNA match has linked Darryl Littlejohn to the sexual assault of a young woman in Queens" and that charges "could be filed against the ex-con as soon as this week." Littlejohn's DNA was found on a set of handcuffs that were used to bind a would-be rape victim in Queens. "we never stopped looking at the other cases," a cop told the News, "But these things take time." Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref15.html Florida - Elbert Walker has lived most of his 68 years as a suspect in one of Sarasota County's most notorious murders. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref16.html Texas - Six months after a dead newborn was found dumped in the trash at Texas World Speedway, Brazos County sheriff's officials said Friday they had located the boy's mother and charged her with murder. Sheriff Chris Kirk said DNA testing linked Susan Chiniewicz, a 35-year-old mother of three from North Texas, to the baby boy whose body was discovered in a trash can at the southern Brazos County racetrack Oct. 3. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref17.html Maine - Michael K. Hutchinson of Bridgton had several brushes with the law during the past 12 years, and it was an arrest in 2002 that led to his indictment this week for the 1994 murder of Crystal Perry. Hutchinson, now 31, was charged with kidnapping and criminal threatening with a gun after a dispute with another group of young men in Bridgton. He pleaded guilty to the threatening charge and served six months in prison. Just before his release, the prison collected a DNA sample, as it is required to do for all felons. That microscopic sample was caught up in a backlog for almost two years, as the state waited for federal money to have it processed and the state police crime lab worked to free staff to complete the analysis. When the pieces came together, forensic analyst Jennifer Sabean found a match with DNA collected from the body of Crystal Perry, whose killing had shocked the small town and stumped detectives. Perry had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death, according to a police affidavit. The DNA attributed to her murderer was found in semen and in blood left on her body. The DNA match was made March 20. On Thursday, a grand jury indicted Hutchinson on a murder charge in Perry's death. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref18.html Missouri - A Kansas City man was charged Friday with first-degree murder in the death of a female co-worker more than 20 years ago. Prosecutors said a recent DNA match led investigators to Sidney W. Slaughter, 45, who they said admitted to stabbing Patricia McMahan, 37, multiple times in the neck and head. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref19.html Illinois - A Mt. Vernon Police Detective told the jury hearing the Joe Tucker murder trial in Jefferson County Court Wednesday that DNA evidence links Tucker to the 1988 stabbing death of Jana Marie Reynolds. Detective Roger Hayse testified the case had remained dormant for more than a decade until new testing on Reynold's clothing with an alternative light source turned up a stain that was later determined to be semen. He says DNA testing that followed by a private company eliminated Reynold's husband and an original suspect in the case. But Hayse says when hairs taken from Tucker shortly after the murder were tested the results were a match. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref20.html Arizona - Chandler police arrested a man Thursday they believe sexually assaulted a woman more than 15 years ago. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref21.html Texas - More than 20 years after being sexually assaulted, a Lewisville woman finally has justice. Dallas cold case investigators began a program nearly a year ago that encouraged sexual assault victims from the 1970s and '80s to contact the department. The goal was to solve these cases using today's DNA technology. In 1985, a stranger raped the woman, who was 13 at the time, at knifepoint in her home, police said. In May, the woman contacted police. Last month, the department was told that the Combined DNA Index System detected a match between the evidence obtained during the woman's medical exam and convicted sex offender Kevin Glen Turner. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref22.html New York - A DNA match has linked a Virginia inmate to the slaying of a 33-year-old Yonkers woman 13 years ago. Troy Cartwright, 41, pleaded not guilty yesterday after an indictment charging him with second-degree murder was unsealed in Westchester County Court. Cartwright is accused of stabbing Deborah Cobb more than 30 times after trying to rape her in her Warburton Avenue apartment on Sept. 22, 1993. Her body was discovered the following day by friends after relatives had gotten repeated busy signals when they tried to reach her by phone. Cartwright, also known as Troy Edmondson and Vaughn Allah, was arrested in an unrelated case in Virginia three months later and has been imprisoned ever since. Although an acquaintance of the victim, he never was identified as a suspect in the Cobb slaying until more than a decade later. Forensic testing matched crime scene evidence to a DNA sample he was required to give Virginia prison officials in January 1995, authorities said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref23.html Missouri - A Kansas City man is expected to appear in Jackson County Circuit Court to face a rape charge from 2004. Police arrested Vincent A. Childs, 41, Monday on one count of forcible rape for the Nov. 26, 2004 incident. He remained in custody today. DNA tests in January scientifically linked him to the crime. Prosecutors charged him last week. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref24.html The case of the Duke Lacrosse Team: North Carolina - DNA testing failed to connect any members of the Duke University lacrosse team to the alleged rape of a stripper, attorneys for the athletes said Monday. Citing DNA test results delivered by the state crime lab to police and prosecutors a few hours earlier, the attorneys said the test results prove their clients did not sexually assault and beat a stripper hired to perform at a March 13 team party. No charges have been filed in the case. "There is no DNA evidence that shows she was touched by any of these boys," said attorney Joe Cheshire, who represents one of the team's captains. The alleged victim, a 27-year-old student at a nearby college, told police she and another woman were hired to dance at the party. The woman told police that three men at the party dragged her into a bathroom, choked her, raped her and sodomized her. The Associated Press does not name alleged victims in sexual assault cases. The allegations have led to the resignation of coach Mike Pressler, the cancellation of the lacrosse season and the suspension of one player from school. Because the woman said her attackers were white, the team's sole black player was not tested. It was not known whether investigators tested for DNA other than the players'. Cheshire said the report indicated authorities took DNA samples from all over the alleged victim's body, including under her fingernails, and from her possessions, such as her cell phone and her clothes. "They swabbed about every place they could possibly swab from her, in which there could be any DNA," he said. District Attorney Mike Nifong has said he would have other evidence to make his case should the DNA analysis prove inconclusive or fail to match a member of the team. While Nifong's assistant told the AP on Monday the prosecutor would not comment on the findings, Nifong told The News & Observer of Raleigh he believes a sexual assault took place. "I'm not saying it's over," he told the newspaper. "If that's what they expect, they will be sadly disappointed." Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref25.html Later that week - The investigation into allegations of rape by members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team will continue, despite the results of initial DNA tests that don't connect the players to an attack. "My presence here means that this case is not going away," District Attorney Mike Nifong said today at an event at North Carolina Central University, the school attended by the woman who said she was raped at a Duke lacrosse team party. Nifong said today he was not discouraged by the way the investigation was going. "The fact is that this case is proceeding the way a case should proceed," he said in front of a crowd of about 700 people. "It is often said in the forensic community: 'Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence,'" Cuomo said. "It is still possible that she was raped and that the prosecutor has evidence such as pubic hair, internal injuries, etc." Nifong has generally declined to comment on the case since late last week, but The News & Observer of Raleigh quoted him as saying Monday that the DNA tests did not mean the case would not go forward. He has said there is still strong incriminating evidence, such as four of the woman's fake fingernails that were found in the house. A nurse and doctors said they found physical evidence that a rape and sexual assault had occurred. The defense has also said that it has photographs that show the victim was injured before going to the party, which Cuomo said did not speak to the internal injuries. It does indicate that the prosecutor's case may be harder to make, he said. Results are pending on a second set of DNA test results. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref26.html On another note, yet based on the same case - State chemists cranked out DNA results in the Duke Lacrosse case in less than two weeks. But they have worked for six months without finishing DNA tests in a 30-year-old Durham triple homicide. The difference in turnaround time leaves the lawyer for a man accused in the triple murder wondering why. "How come they can do 46 DNA samples for lacrosse players at lightning speed and they can't do ours, which were submitted last autumn?" lawyer Tom Loflin said Tuesday. Noting the high speed of DNA testing in the lacrosse case, Loflin said Tuesday he would seek a court order commanding the SBI to "get on with it" in testing blood samples and other evidence from the triple murder. State Department of Justice spokeswoman Noelle Talley confirmed the testing was not finished. But she said no one had asked that it be expedited -- as Nifong did in the lacrosse incident. "The average turnaround time for DNA analysis on current cases is around 60 days," Talley said Tuesday. "Cases where a rush has been requested can be worked more quickly." The rush job in the lacrosse case did not cause SBI technicians to put everything else on hold, Talley added. She said they "continued to work on other cases while conducting the analysis in this case." The SBI lab has 33 DNA experts and is in the process of hiring seven more, Talley said. Loflin represents Gary Ernest "Whitey" Bennett, one of two men arrested last year and charged with the October 1976 deaths of 63-year-old Aubrey Goss, 53-year-old Walter Dean and 37-year-old William Nick Wheeler inside a Driver Avenue garage where liquor was sold. The slayings were listed as a "cold case" one until new evidence led to the arrests of Bennett and Ronnie Lindbergh Manning last year. Loflin and defense lawyer Karen Bethea-Shields have said DNA results should indicate whether blood on a suspicious knife matched that of the victims. According to Loflin and Bethea-Shields, the knife was found inside a car on David Jerry Guy, who later was murdered near Winston-Salem. If DNA connects the knife to the 1976 triple homicide in Durham, Guy rather than Bennett was the most likely killer, Loflin has argued. But prosecutor Mitchell Garrell recently told a judge that the car in which the knife was discovered could be linked to Bennett and Manning as well as to Guy. He said evidence indicated Bennett was in the vehicle before and after the Driver Avenue slayings. "I don't feel good about it, I'll tell you," Loflin said Tuesday of the delayed DNA results. "It's delaying the court proceedings." "DNA testing is pretty complex and tedious if you do it right," Loflin acknowledged. "These chemists cannot turn around a case in half an hour. So it's amazing to me that they tested as rapidly as they did for these 46 lacrosse players." Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_16_apr_06/vol16_ref27.html Did You Know? Topic: How reliable is a DNA test? In North Carolina, DNA has played a key role in releasing innocent prisoners. After being held for 19 years, Darryl Hunt was freed in December 2003 and later pardoned by the governor after tests showed that Hunt's DNA did not match evidence at the Winston-Salem crime scene where a woman was raped and murdered in 1984. DNA also cleared Ronald Cotton, who was released in 1995 after serving 11 years for a rape and robbery he did not commit. Q. What is DNA? A. Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a thin, chainlike molecule found in every living cell on Earth. It directs the formation, growth and reproduction of cells and organisms. Q. How does DNA analysis work? A. A DNA profile is created first by collecting a sample of an individual's cells, often from blood, tissue or saliva. In the Duke case, it was taken from cheek swabs. A DNA molecule is removed from a cell, purified, and then cut and processed to reveal a unique pattern. That profile is then compared with a DNA sample taken from a crime scene. Dean A. Wideman, a forensic biologist and independent expert who performed forensic DNA analysis for state crime labs in New York City and Houston, and Bruce Weir, chairman of the University of Washington's department of biostatistics and a former N.C. State University professor of statistics and genetics, discuss how DNA works and what it can mean: Q: Could a woman be sexually assaulted with the perpetrator leaving no trace of his DNA? WIDEMAN: "That's not impossible. There are a lot of factors that go into whether you get negative DNA results, like there's no ejaculate. It depends on what activities the female did after the incident and before the evidence collection. If she went to the restroom, showered or changed clothes, then that's another reason you may not find anything. It also depends on how evidence was collected. ... It does not mean [a rape] did not occur. ... If they found no semen, you can conclude that it wasn't there or it just was never collected properly or it was so low an amount it wasn't detected through analytical work. It also depends on how well [the tester] swabbed and where they swabbed and how much of the swab was cut to do the test -- whether they used every bit of evidence and if they made a thorough collection." Q: If the perpetrator used a condom, would that block his DNA? WIDEMAN: "If they did, you could find traces of the chemicals that are on condoms on the swab. You can't immediately deduce that because you didn't find something, it didn't occur. ... What's interesting to me is if they found anything foreign to her." Q: Can a prosecutor get a rape conviction without DNA evidence? WIDEMAN: "There could be -- with bruises on her neck, arms or legs." Q: What else are you curious about? WEIR: "But what did they find? Did they find only from the victim or is there anybody else's DNA there?" Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/122/v-print/story/427395.html Technical Question Question: With the new platforms being used in our crime lab we are using 96 well plates to set samples for real-time and amplifications. Is there an easy way to add samples to the plate so you do not add samples to the same well twice? Answer: We have found a variety of ways to ensure a sample does not get pipetted into the wrong sample well and keep the sample wells covered. After you have loaded your master mix into each well:
Editor: Karen Daurie Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please click on http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/remove_newsletter.html
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