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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue. One topic that has repeatedly been in the news over the past two weeks is the importance of animal DNA in solving cases. Approximately two years ago we all heard of the story of Lucky the dog, who through DNA was proven to be the killer of Cody the cat. Now law-enforcement officials are relying more and more on traditional forensic methods to solve crimes not only involving animals, but where animals serve as a witness in human crimes. And again making headlines is the expansion of DNA databases throughout the country. In New York, four men who served a combined 63 years in jail until they were proven innocent asked legislators that if they do expand the database, to “provide the accused more access to DNA evidence and resist setting a time limit for post-conviction appeals.” Following these stories we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence. Taking a bite out of crime with pet DNA Animal forensics increasingly used to solve cases involving critters When Marylin Christian’s beloved cat Cody was found dead under suspicious circumstances two years ago, she vowed to seek justice. But when Christian suggested that animal control officers collect saliva from a neighbor’s dog, Lucky, to see if it could be genetically linked to hair found in Cody’s mouth and claws, she was met with bewilderment. “They kind of acted like, ‘Well, you’ve been watching a little too much ‘CSI,”’ Christian recalled with a laugh. Christian eventually paid $500 for the evidence to be tested at the Veterinary Genetics Lab at the University of California at Davis, which has the largest database of domesticated-animal DNA in the country. The result? A one in 67 million chance the hair belonged to any animal other than Lucky. “Usually, people come to us because it’s a very emotional matter,” said Beth Wictum, acting director of the lab’s forensics division. “They’ve lost a pet, and for many people, pets are a member of the family and they want to get resolution.” In the time that’s passed since Christian’s loss, more and more law enforcement officials have come to share her interest in applying forensic methods to cases involving animals — whether the animal is a victim, perpetrator or even a witness. “There’s some real serious cases where animal DNA played a role in helping solve the case,” said Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, a DNA expert who has asked investigators to collect DNA samples from murder suspects’ pets at crime scenes. “I believe that it will be used more and more.” ‘Rapidly growing’ field In one case, the lab used DNA testing to match dog excrement found on the bottom of a murder suspect’s shoe to excrement found near the crime scene — a piece of evidence that helped secure the man’s conviction. In another case, a sexual assault victim couldn’t pick her attacker out of a lineup — but she remembered her dog had urinated on the man’s pickup truck. The dog’s DNA matched DNA traces found on the truck’s tire and the suspect pleaded guilty. ASPCA forensic veterinarian Melinda Merck relies on the same techniques as standard crime scene investigators — ballistics, toxicology, blood spatter analysis — to help solve animal cruelty cases across the country. “It’s rapidly growing,” she said of her specialty. “There is a tremendous interest from the veterinarians and there’s a tremendous interest from law enforcement.” Last year, Merck testified in the Atlanta trial of two teenage brothers who tortured a puppy and left it in an oven to die. Merck was able to prove the puppy was alive when it was tortured and reconstructed the animal’s grim final moments for a jury. The brothers were sentenced to a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison. Even forensic entomologists — who use insects such as maggots to help estimate a victim’s time of death — have crossed over into the world of animal-related crimes. Forensic entomologist Jason Byrd often is called on to help investigators with wildlife crimes and poaching cases. If a bald eagle is shot at a game reserve, Byrd can examine the maggots on the bird’s carcass to help determine its time of death. Investigators then can access the records at the reserve to narrow down who was in the area at the time of the shooting. “They’re not scared to spend money now to figure out who’s been poaching animals,” Byrd said. “Now they do true investigation techniques — they throw forensic science at the problem.” Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref01.html DNA expansion must include protections say those wrongfully convicted Telling tales of forced confessions, misplaced evidence and questionable law-enforcement conduct, the four now-exonerated suspects said at a state Assembly hearing that DNA should not only be used to catch criminals but free innocents. "There are more people behind that wall. These are people like me with no money, no education and no means at all," said Roy Brown, a Cayuga County man who spent 15 years in prison for a murder he did not commit and in the end solved the crime himself from his prison cell. "Every time I tried to go to court, I was told the same thing: you're too late. ... It's got to stop somewhere and you are the people who've got to help." At issue is a proposal advanced by Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, to compel anyone convicted of a crime to submit a DNA sample to the state database. Currently the database, in place since 2000, holds samples from people convicted of any felony and a few misdemeanors. The governor and the Republican-led Senate say the expansion will help police solve more crimes. They've been at odds with the Democrat-led Assembly, especially over two sticking points. Assembly leaders want to establish an independent commission to review potential wrongful convictions. The governor favors a commission but wants to house it within the state Department of Criminal Justice Services, a setup some legislators oppose as being to close to law enforcement. Also, Assembly leaders and activists oppose Spitzer's idea of putting a window (one year or three years) on post-conviction appeals based on such things as prosecutorial misconduct or inadequate legal representation. Currently there's no limit. "What should it matter how long it takes to discover prosecutorial misconduct?" asked Jeffrey Deskovic, who was freed in 2006 after serving half his life in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Deskovic was a 16-year-old Peekskill (Westchester County) student who falsely confessed, after seven hours of interrogation, to the rape and murder of a classmate. His DNA didn't match that found on the victim, but he was convicted and wasn't released until last year. Just last month, the real killer was sentenced for the crime. "It takes one year just to get into court," added Douglas Warney, a Rochester man who spent nearly 11 years in prison on a second-degree murder conviction. Post-conviction DNA testing cleared Warney and matched a New York inmate who later confessed to the killing. "They had the person in jail ... they had his DNA in Albany. Yet they kept me incarcerated for 11 years of my life I'll never get back," Warney said. "I'm very, very, very upset with the justice system for the way it handled my DNA." Warney was released in 2006. He recently marked his one-year anniversary of freedom. Brown Thursday marked his 18th day with a new liver. Released in March, he was facing death without a transplant. He received one on May 13 at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester -- he said doctors told him he was about nine hours from dying. His trip to the State Capitol was his first outing since then, an excursion he wanted to make. "My life is pretty much on borrowed time," said Brown, 46, who looked a bit sallow. "I figure this is my opportunity to give as much help as I can before I expire." Brown was convicted of murder in 1992. Through Freedom of Information requests he filed from his cell, he collected affidavits that police had obtained but not made available to Brown during his trial. In December 2003, he wrote to a local man, Barry Bench, whom he suspected of the crime, saying he was going to pursue an investigation. Days later, Bench committed suicide. Subsequent DNA tests matched Bench to the crime. Brown was freed in March. The Assembly also heard from Alan Newton, a Bronx man who served 21 years in prison on a rape conviction. His request for DNA evidence was turned down in 1994 because it was said to be lost. It was found in 2005 -- one component Democrats want in a DNA bill is to mandate strict cataloging and retention of evidence. Twenty-three New York inmates have been exonerated through DNA evidence, 16 since 2002, according to the Innocence Project, a legal clinic that fights to clear the wrongfully convicted. Ten of those cases involved forced confessions. Nationwide, 200 people have been cleared through DNA. A day earlier, Spitzer said, "We have made enormous progress" on reaching a compromise about the DNA database expansion, noting that the Assembly has signaled it would go along with an "all crimes" registry. But after the Thursday hearing, Assembly Codes Committee Chairman Joseph Lentol, D-Brooklyn, said he's not certain his colleagues would go along with a deal that limits post-conviction appeals and that doesn't create an independent innocence commission. "I would be willing to hold out," Lentol said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref02html New and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence include: NEW YORK -- Saliva from a trash basket where an ex-convict spat had DNA that matched that in skin cells from a shirt worn by a man who raped, tortured and burned a Columbia University graduate student over 19 hours, a prosecutor said. New York - A man apprehended as a result of a DNA sample that he had been required to provide in an unrelated drug case has been sentenced to up to 45 years in prison for the 1996 violent attack of a 30-year-old Richmond Hill beauty salon employee whom he raped and robbed. District Attorney Richard Brown identified the defendant as Alex Jackson, 38, who is presently serving a 2½ to five year prison term at the Riverview Correctional Facility in Ogdensburg, New York. He was convicted earlier this month of first-degree rape, second-degree burglary and first-degree robbery. Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter, who presided at the two-week jury trial, imposed the sentence of 22½ - 45 years in prison. District Attorney Brown said that, according to the trial testimony, at about 4 p.m. on April 1, 1996, Jackson forced his way into the Cedeño Hair Salon, located at 88-02 Van Wyck Expressway in Richmond Hill, after store hours. He pulled a handgun and forced the store’s lone occupant - a 30-year-old female employee - into the bathroom where he raped and robbed her of $150 in cash. Jackson warned the victim that if she told anyone he would come back the next day. Before fleeing on foot, he the victim by leaving behind a piece of paper on which he had scribbled a false name and phone number and saying, “If you like me, you can call me.” The District Attorney said the victim was treated at a local hospital where medical personnel prepared a sexual assault evidence kit, which included DNA evidence recovered from the victim. When Jackson was recently convicted of felony sale of a controlled substance in Manhattan, a DNA sample was taken by New York law enforcement officials. That sample was entered into the National DNA database known as CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) and positively matched the rape kit DNA collected in the Richmond Hill case. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref04.html Illinois - Norman Wheeler's butt is going back to prison -- thanks to a bun. The Detroit man has been sentenced to up to 90 months for a 2004 car theft. Prosecutors say the crucial bit of evidence was a partially eaten cinnamon bun, which had traces of Wheeler's D-N-A. Wheeler had a D-N-A sample on file, because at the time of the match he was already serving a sentence for an unrelated car theft. He pleaded guilty last month in the latest case and was sentenced yesterday. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref05.html North Carolina - Advances in DNA technology have led to an arrest in the 21-year-old murder of Zelma Sibbett Walters, a Columbus County sheriff’s spokesman said. Terrence Levon Munn remained jailed at the Columbus County Detention Center without bail following a first appearance hearing Wednesday morning. Munn, of Newark, N.J., was suspected in the death of Walters, who was 79 when she died in 1986, before the widespread use of DNA testing. Blood found on Munn’s jacket was tested by the SBI several years later, but technicians said the sample was too old. Advances in DNA technology made a new analysis possible, former sheriff’s Capt. George Dudley said. On May 11, the Sheriff’s Office issued a warrant for Munn, who was arrested the next day after a wreck in Hillside, N.J. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref06.html Florida - Sperm genetically identical to murder suspect Paul Durousseau's was found on the body of a woman slain in 1999, a DNA analyst told a Duval County jury Wednesday. The odds of another man having that same DNA are more than 4 billion times the number of people living on Earth, said Sheree Enfinger, who analyzed sperm left on murder victim Tyresa Mack. Mack, found with a phone cord around her neck in her Eastside apartment, was the first of six women in Jacksonville Durousseau is accused of killing. The other five died more than three years later, in a chilling spree that lasted less than two months. This is the first murder trial for Durousseau, 36, a former soldier and taxi driver also suspected of killing a woman near Fort Benning, Ga., in 1997. After a day filled with witnesses describing tests and routines of forensic serology and DNA studies, Enfinger's testimony delivered the kind of clear-cut science findings prosecutors crave. Enfinger, a former analyst for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said that in 2003 she made a genetic profile of Durousseau and compared it against sperm found on Mack years earlier. The profile mapped the makeup of 13 points in the murder suspect's DNA. Each one matched the sperm from the 1999 case, she said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref07.html Georgia - Public Safety Investigator James Dollar has made an arrest in a 2004 burglary based on DNA evidence. Back in June of 2004, an employee arrived at work at DFCS on Amelia Avenue. She found a hole had been busted through the outside wall of the building. She then saw a black male about 6 ft tall run beside the outside of the building. Public Safety Investigator James Dollar was called. Beside the hole in the building, on the ground, was a number of radios. He also found a small clump of hair on the concrete around the hole in the wall. Investigator Dollar submitted the hair for DNA to the GBI. Two and a half years later, the GBI notified him there was a match to 40 year old James Lewis, presently in prison. James Lewis is now serving his 8th different prison sentence that began in 1989, but he was out from March of 2004 to August of 2004. In February of 2007, Investigator Dollar went to Rogers Prison in Reidsville GA to obtain a DNA sample from James Lewis. He submitted the new sample to the GBI for verification. On Wednesday, he received a confirmation on the DNA match and obtained a warrant for his arrest in the 2004 burglary. James Lewis has been convicted of several burglaries, receiving stolen property and car theft. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref08.html Virginia - DNA evidence leads police to an arrest in the case of a bedroom bandit. Police say he was breaking into homes when no one was home and would lay different items of women's clothing out on the bed and in same cases steal some of those items. “We assume he's working through some form of fantasy,” said Charlottesville Police Captain Chip Harding. Police said the women would come home to find their clothing laid out on their bed. “You were seeing dresses that had been moved around, stockings, underwear even shoes and in one case we had a photograph was moved from where it was located and actually laid on the bed in conjunction with other clothes,” said Harding. Police didn't know who the bedroom bandit was until yesterday when they got a call from a backed-up lab saying DNA from a year old case on Rockcreek Road came up with a hit. “They used a light they had and something had fluoresced on the bed sheet and they sent it down to the lab and the lab is a bit behind right now on crime scenes,” said Charlottesville police said the DNA that of Lawrence Roundtree. And what made them most uncomfortable about this case is that the suspect seemed to be watching his victims breaking in when they weren't at home. “Everybody’s brain works different but we were very concerned it could escalate into where you actually had an attack on a person,” said Harding. Police said they also have finger print evidence along with the DNA and have charged Roundtree in two of the cases. He is being held without bond at the regional jail. Yesterday police announced DNA led them to an arrest in another burglary case. All total, Charlottesville has had more hits on the DNA databank than 10 states combined. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref09.html Ohio - A Fairborn man who served more than four months in jail under accusations of rape was freed Tuesday after lab results and an uncooperative alleged victim led prosecutors to drop all felony charges against him. California - It’s been more than three years since the owner of T&A Liquor was attacked, pistol-whipped, beaten with a bottle and left for dead. Virginia - DNA evidence helps solve a six-year-old crime and police find their suspect already behind bars. A convicted felon who's DNA some how never made it into the statewide data bank may now find himself facing charges in a cold case. The General Assembly recently fixed a loophole in the collection of DNA samples from convicted felons and Charlottesville Police landed a hit on an old breaking and entering case. Come June 4th, 46-year-old Martin Coye Holley was expecting to walk out of a Virginia state prison a free man, but now he'll most likely walk right into another jail. “There's a detainer filed at the penitentiary to know not to release him and we'll have two detectives go over and pick him up,” said Charlottesville Police Capt. Chip Harding. That's because DNA evidence allegedly links him to a six-year-old crime here in Charlottesville. Police believe Holley is the man who broke into the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue and stole some cash the day after Christmas back in 2000. Police said they recovered Holley’s DNA from the crime scene. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref12.html Florida - They were dumped like garbage, half-naked, raped and strangled. For years, the deaths of 25-year-old Phyliss Flagler, 20-year-old Janet Ramos and 23-year-old Sybol Dillard have gone unsolved. Now Broward Sheriff's Office homicide detectives have charged a man in two of the slayings -- and, according to the arrest affidavit, his DNA matches samples taken from the bodies of all three women. On April 5, the BSO charged Alvin A. Merrit, 57, in the Flagler and Ramos cases. He has been in the Miami-Dade County Jail for the past two years, awaiting trial on two separate armed sexual assaults. Miami-Dade police are still investigating the Dillard case; he has not been charged in that crime. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref13.html Michigan - Twenty-four years ago on May 24, Laura Jean McBride was walking from her apartment to the Eastern Michigan University campus when she was raped and stabbed to death. Over the years police have had several suspect, but the case never went solved until now, as reported by the Ann Arbor News. Kentucky - DNA tests show that Perry Bennington, who is charged with more than 7,500 counts of rape and sodomy, is the father of a 9-month-old girl buried since 1984, a detective said today. . Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref15.html Harshberger said he was "extremely happy'' the investigation finally led to the charges. California - A man police are certain killed a woman 21 years ago was interviewed by officers, but later was found dead of an apparent overdose. Banning police were finally closing in on the man wanted for one of the small town's grisliest murders, the bludgeoning death of Linda Shulman 21 years ago, when the suspect slipped away and made sure he would never be captured. Utah - A man accused of murder wants DNA evidence thrown out because he says police threatened to forcibly take DNA from him if he refused to provide it more than two decades ago. Edward Lewis Owens was arrested earlier this year in the 1980 murder of 25-year-old Karin Strom. Owens, 56, of Kaysville provided the DNA sample during the original investigation and signed a consent form. That sample matched DNA found underneath Strom's fingernails. Defense attorney Michael Studebaker says police forced Owens to sign the waiver. Studebaker's motion contends that blood samples shouldn't be presented to a jury because police didn't have a warrant. County Attorney Troy Rawlings says he doesn't think Owens' 26-year-old sample will be thrown out. If it is, he says he'll get a warrant for a new sample. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref17.html Did You Know? Topic: Genome of DNA Pioneer Is DecipheredBy NICHOLAS WADE The full genome of James D. Watson, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953, has been deciphered, marking what some scientists believe is the gateway to an impending era of personalized genomic medicine. A copy of his genome, recorded on a pair of DVDs, was presented to Dr. Watson today in a ceremony in Houston by Richard Gibbs, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine, and by Jonathan Rothberg, founder of the company 454 Life Sciences. Dr. Rothberg’s company makes an innovative DNA sequencing machine, the latest version of which proved capable of decoding Dr. Watson’s genome in two months at a cost of less than $1 million, said Michael Egholm, 454’s vice president for research. The sequence was verified and analyzed by Dr. Gibbs’s center in Houston. It was Dr. Gibbs who proposed the idea of sequencing Dr. Watson’s genome. Dr. Watson has said he will make his entire genome available for researchers to study, with the single exception of his apolipoprotein E gene, the status of which he does not wish to know because it predisposes a person toward Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Watson was “the right guy to do first” because of his discovery that DNA is the basis of heredity, Dr. Rothberg said in an e-mail. Dr. Watson was also the architect and first director of the government’s $3 billion human genome project, which completed the first human genome in 2003. But that genome sequence, at present the standard reference for the human genome, belonged to a composite of anonymous donors from Buffalo, N.Y., and cannot be matched up with medical information from a whole person. The first two genome sequences belonging to individuals are now being made available to researchers within a few days of each other. One is Dr. Watson’s and the other belongs to J. Craig Venter, who as president of the Celera Corporation started a human genome project in competition with the government. Dr. Venter left Celera after producing only a draft version of a genome, his own, in 2001, on which the company did no further work. He has now brought his genome to completion at his own institute in Rockville, Md., and deposited it last week in GenBank, a public DNA database, he said. Dr. Watson and Dr. Venter are both taking a considerable personal risk in making their genomes publicly available. As is probably true for everyone, their genomes are likely to contain mutations that could lead to disease, revealing possibly unfavorable information about themselves and their relatives. Even though the interpretation of the human genome sequence has only just begun, they are, in principle, exposing all their imperfections to public view for the sake of advancing research. “The complexity of the analysis is such that I’m not worried about people making major discoveries that explain my idiosyncrasies,” Dr. Venter said. Amy McGuire, a medical ethicist at the Baylor College of Medicine who was involved in the Watson sequencing project, said Dr. Watson and Dr. Venter were following the medical tradition of making oneself the first subject of a new experiment and would incur unknown risks. “I think that both have been motivated by their commitment to the science and genomic medicine and advancing the field,” she said. Neither Dr. Venter nor 454 Life Sciences will talk in detail about the new individual genome sequences for fear of sanctions from the journals considering publications about them. But both genomes seem to be significantly better in many ways than the present reference standard. Both are diploid genomes, meaning that they include the DNA sequence in the chromosomes inherited from both parents, whereas the reference genome completed by the Human Genome Project did not capture these differences. Some 3.5 percent of Dr. Watson’s genome could not be matched to the reference genome. One reason may be that the project scientists had to amplify human DNA by growing it in bacteria and may have lost many regions of human DNA that are toxic to bacteria, said Michael Egholm, 454’s vice president for research. The 454 sequencer skips the bacteria stage entirely and is free of this source of bias. Dr. Venter said 454 would have assembled Dr. Watson’s genome by comparing short lengths of analyzed DNA to the reference sequence, so the company might not have detected any structural errors present in the reference assembly. Dr. Venter said his new genome has been assembled from scratch. There were many more differences than he had expected, including in single units of DNA that were extra or absent. “It’s clear we have grossly underestimated the extent of human variation,” Dr. Venter said. Both he and Dr. Egholm said it would be valuable to compare the two new genomes, especially as they were generated by different methods. “We are looking forward to getting the data and layering it on my genome,” Dr. Venter said of his former rival’s genome sequence. Dr. Venter’s new genome is “a real tour de force” and could become the new reference genome, said a researcher who heard him give a recent presentation on its technical details. Some scientists believe that it will be medically useful to sequence patients’ genomes when the cost of sequencing falls to around $10,000 or less. Dr. Egholm said that with improvements already under way, the 454 sequencing machine will soon be able to sequence a human genome for $100,000. The cost of sequencing has been dropping so fast in the hands of groups like 454 Life Sciences and Solexa Inc. that some technologists predict the $10,000 genome will be attained in a few years. At a news conference in Houston today, Dr. Watson urged that more human genomes should be sequenced, including those of successful people as well as those of medical interest. “I just want the information assessed as soon as possible,” he said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_45_jun_07/vol45_ref18.html Events and conferences for 2007 that may of interest to you include: AFDAA (Association of DNA Analysts and Administrators) Conference – August 2-3, 2007 – Austin, TX. Contact Joseph Warren 817-735-5107 Web site: www.AFDAA.org 18th International Symposium on Human Identification - October 1-4, 2007 Renaissance Hollywood Hotel - Hollywood, California Web site: www.promega.com/geneticsymp18/ The DNA Informant is a free bi-weekly email newsletter, published by DNA Labs International. DNA Labs International is a private, ISO 17025 Accredited, Forensic Serology and DNA Identity Testing Laboratory, founded in 2004 by a Board Certified Fellow in Molecular Biology with over two decades of experience in Forensic Serology and DNA Analysis in United States Crime Labs. Our primary mission is to help our clients identify criminals within their jurisdiction by providing timely, accurate and cost effective DNA testing results. To do this we created an organization based on industry best practices from over 20 State Crime Labs around the United States. We are located in Deerfield Beach, Florida, just minutes from the Fort Lauderdale airport. DNA Labs International’s services are now available for individual cases and outsourcing contracts. Please keep us in mind as you start to consider your outsourcing needs, regular and rush cases and DNA case review. 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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