New DNA database finds suspects

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Iowa's new D-N-A database is helping investigators identify suspects in old crimes.

So far, the database has identified suspects in 40 cases since it began a year ago. The crime-fighting tool came about because of a new law requiring felons and sex offenders to provide D-N-A samples to the state.

Those samples are compared with D-N-A collected at the scenes of unsolved crimes.

Some six-thousand D-N-A samples have been collected since the database started.

Cedar Rapids police Lieutenant Kenneth Washburn says find suspects through D-N-A is becoming more common as the database grows.