DNA leads to arrest in thefts

DNA found during two burglary investigations in Bedford County earlier this year led to the arrest of a Lynchburg man last week.

Bedford authorities arrested Kevin K. Coles, 34, last Tuesday, charging him with the February burglaries of Rehabilitation Associates of Central Virginia and Central Virginia Orthopedics.

Both businesses are located in Forest.

The charges come after a state forensics lab provided a “cold hit” on DNA evidence gathered at the crime scenes that was matched to Coles through a statewide databank.

A “cold hit” means prior to the forensic analysis there was no suspect in the case.

This is the fourth cold hit in 14 months for Bedford investigators.

Lynchburg area law enforcement have had success bringing charges after a cold hit turns up a suspect, especially in the last 10 years.

“When it first came out it had to be a homicide before you could get DNA work done,” Campbell County investigator Paul Adams said. “Now it’s pretty much routine.”

State law requires any person convicted of a felony after 1990 to submit a sample of their DNA for storage in a statewide database.

In Amherst County a handful of cold hits have led to arrests in recent years, including one case two years ago when a man broke into a home and robbed an elderly woman at knife point.

Blood left at the scene later led to two arrests and two convictions.

“It has become the most popular thing in the world,” Lt. Duvall Doss of the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office said. “It’s really come into vogue and shown results in the last five years.”

One reason the number of cold hits is increasing is that the number of samples in the DNA databank is increasing all the time.

There were roughly 2,200 samples recorded in the databank in 1993. On July 31 there were more than 250,000.

One hit to the bank was recorded in 1993 while roughly 2.5 hits were made per day in 2005.

“When you walk into a room, and then you leave that room, you’ve left something behind,” Major Ricky Gardner of the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office said. “And a well-trained crime investigator knows what to look for.”

The number of cold hits is also up, according to area law enforcement, because forensic scientists are more frequently testing DNA in non-violent cases than in the past.

“We get cold hits consistently, especially on burglaries where the person cuts themselves on glass,” said Jonathan Pelletier, an investigator with the Lynchburg City Police Department.

But it doesn’t turn up hits right away.

“People watch these television shows and have this false impression that these cases can be done overnight,” Bedford County’s Gardner said of popular shows like “CSI.”

Lynchburg’s Pelletier said it can take up to eight months to get DNA results back, especially if the case isn’t high profile.

But the wait can be worth it, Gardner said.

“If you’ve got nothing else, then you go with what you’ve got,” Amherst’s Doss said.