Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.  

Topic: NATIONAL CLEARINGHOUSE FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE LAW: www.ncstl.org – Great source of information.

In the news, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled in favor of taking DNA samples from inmates. “"We think there are constitutionally sound reasons" to distinguish between suspicion-less searches and seizures from the general public and those convicted of felonies or released on parole, said Justice Michael Gillette, who wrote the court's opinion.”

In Michigan, the state DNA labs have had very high success rates in linking cold cases to known criminals in the state's justice system. “Forensic lab workers sifted through blood, hair and other biological evidence left at crime scenes in 367 active Detroit cases. Of those, they identified 171 genetic profiles of suspects.” After running the profiles through CODIS matches were made with known criminals in 72 cases.

Following these stories we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence.  

State high court: It's OK to take inmates' DNA

Being made to give sample not an unreasonable search

Taking DNA samples from felons does not violate the state and federal constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The Legislature broadened the law in 2001 to require people convicted of any felony, not just sex crimes or burglaries, to yield DNA samples upon their convictions.

The law was sponsored by then-Rep. Jackie Winters, R-Salem, who now is in the Senate. The law enables agencies to compare the samples, which are compiled by the Oregon State Police, with other evidence that could yield clues to resolve other crimes.

Travis Ray Sanders challenged the law upon his 2003 conviction in Multnomah County Circuit Court for attempting to elude a police officer. He argued that yielding a DNA sample, normally obtained through an oral swatch or through blood, violated state and federal constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The trial-court judge and the Court of Appeals disagreed, and Sanders was ordered to submit the sample as a condition of his probation.

The Supreme Court upheld the lower courts.

"We think there are constitutionally sound reasons" to distinguish between suspicion-less searches and seizures from the general public and those convicted of felonies or released on parole, said Justice Michael Gillette, who wrote the court's opinion.

"It follows that what we may view as constitutionally unreasonable when done to those in the first group, we appropriately may view as permissible when done to those in the second."

Gillette said the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled directly on either state or federal laws, but federal appellate courts have ruled that such laws do not violate the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches.

In a footnote, Gillette wrote that the court's ruling should not be interpreted as depriving prisoners, probationers or parolees of all protections against unreasonable searches.

"Our holding is this case is limited to the relatively narrow issue presented by the present facts," he said.

Justices Martha Walters and Virginia Linder joined the court after the case was argued Sept. 6 and took no part in Thursday's decision.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref01.html 

 
DNA used to crack 72 Metro cold cases

Now police will track down suspects tied to murders, rapes, other crimes dating to 1976.

State DNA labs will inform Metro Detroit police departments by next week that they have linked 72 cold cases -- including murders, rapes and lesser crimes -- to known criminals in the state's justice system.

The genetic links, found in 43 percent of the cases the Detroit Police Department forwarded to the lab under a federal grant, mark an unusually high success rate that could lead to new charges in six homicides and almost 40 sex offenses dating to 1976. Lab officials declined to identify the cases pending notification of local police.

The success rate is "fantastic," said Julie French, who oversees the state's DNA database. "Case-to-known offender comparisons usually average out at only about 30 percent at best, and that's considered good.

"What this means is we can notify the department that definite matches have been made with known offenders. Some may even be in prison now. Where it goes from there is up to them."

The state DNA lab began notifying departments of the positive identifications last week. The evidence comes from a federal DNA grant program that gave Detroit $370,000 in 2004 to solve old cases. The 2004 grant money is just now being disbursed for use.

Forensic lab workers sifted through blood, hair and other biological evidence left at crime scenes in 367 active Detroit cases. Of those, they identified 171 genetic profiles of suspects. Those profiles were then run through the Combined Offender Data Information System (CODIS), a database of more than 210,000 convicted offenders maintained in Lansing by the Michigan State Police, and matches were made with known criminals in 72 cases.

For more information on this article, please go to:

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref02.html

New and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence include:

Florida - A Gainesville man who was already in the Alachua County jail on robbery charges will now face an additional charge after he was connected to a 2004 rape case via DNA evidence, according to jail records. 
 
Shalyn Deshay McMiller, 21, was charged with sexual battery Thursday after DNA evidence taken at a rape crime scene in 2004 positively identified him as the suspect in the case, according to an arrest report. 
 
McMiller is already charged with three counts of robbery and two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon for a case earlier this year, and he is being held at the Alachua County jail with a $350,000 bond for those five charges, according to jail staff. 
 
That bond could increase once McMiller faces his first court appearance on the new sexual battery charge. 
 
McMiller was connected to a rape case that occurred in March 2004, records indicate. The victim in the rape told police she was approached by an unknown man who pointed a gun at her and forced her into a home under construction. The victim said the man raped her and then discarded a condom at the scene, according to the report. 
 
The condom was recovered by police after the rape and was sent to Florida Department of Law Enforcement labs for analysis, the arrest report stated. The arresting officer reported that he was notified Thursday that the analysis came back and identified McMiller as the suspect. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref03.html

Texas - A man suspected in a one-night, six-victim crime spree is linked by DNA to at least one of the victims, according to testimony at his trial Tuesday.

Blood from a woman Reginald Newton is accused of sexually assaulting was found on his clothing and rental car. Her DNA was also found on his body, a forensic biologist testified.

Authorities say Mr. Newton and Joshua Danzi attacked women using a knife with a nine-inch serrated blade and a brass knuckles handle in December. The attacks occurred in Dallas, Carrollton, Garland and Richardson.

Only Mr. Newton is on trial in Dallas County court this week on charges of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery. Mr. Danzi's trial is pending.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref04.html

Louisiana - Police in Acadia parish have used DNA evidence to solve a four-year-old burglary.

29-year-old Fermand Allen is in the Acadia parish jail after being arrested by Crowley police.

A spokesman says Allen left forensic evidence at the scene on East 11th Street which the Acadiana crime lab used to link him to the crime.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref05.html

North Dakota - Jurors were told today that D-N-A evidence under Mindy Morgenstern's fingernails points to Moe Gibbs as her killer. 
 
Barnes County State's Attorney Brad Cruff talked about the evidence in his opening statement to jurors this morning. He also says a former inmate of Gibbs will testify against him. 
 
Cruff said the 22-year-old Morgenstern was strangled with her own belt and stabbed with two of her kitchen knives by a powerful assailant. 
 
Defense attorney Jeff Bredahl, said the D-N-A likely came from a doorknob in the apartment building where both Gibbs and Morgenstern lived. He said the inmate who will testify against Gibbs has a lengthy criminal history that includes giving a false statement to a police officer. 
 
Bredahl also said Morgenstern was nearly decapitated, but no blood was found on Gibbs' clothes, shoes, apartment or car. He said other men were seen around the apartment building the day Morgenstern died, and she had a blondish brown hair in her hand that could not have come from Gibbs, who is bald. 
 
The 34-year-old Gibbs is accused of killing Morgenstern last September. The body of Morgenstern, of New Salem, was found in her off-campus apartment.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref06.html

Georgia - DNA TESTS ON SEVEN dog hairs that were part of the forensic case against Wayne Williams strengthen the evidence that prosecutors used to tie Williams to 12 murders at his 1982 trial, Fulton County District Attorney L. Paul Howard Jr. said Tuesday.

But a Williams lawyer who attended Howard’s news conference insisted that while the results don’t help his client, neither do they provide a conclusive link to Williams.

The tests were conducted at the request of Williams’ defense team by the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of California-Davis—one of the foremost forensic veterinary labs in the world.

After comparing dog hairs recovered from five of Williams’ suspected victims—including the two men he was convicted of killing—with dog hairs taken from Williams’ German shepherd mix, Sheba, shortly after his arrest 26 years ago, forensic analysts at the UC-Davis lab determined that Sheba could not be excluded as the source of those hairs, according to a report sent to Howard by Elizabeth Wictum, director of the forensic lab, last Friday.

The DNA tests found that DNA sequences obtained from each of the hairs recovered from five bodies and from Sheba’s hair were the same, according to the report. Those matching sequences were mitochondrial DNA, not nuclear DNA extracted from individual cell nuclei.

The difference is significant because, according to the report, while mitochondrial DNA (found in the multiple mitochondria which power each living cell) is more abundant in biological material than nuclear DNA, its precision in terms of an exact match is much less because it reflects only the maternal lineage. Nuclear DNA contains more of an organisms genetic code than mitochondria. As a result, it is the form of DNA most desirable in forensic testing.

Vet lab analysts found 12 other matches to the Williams hairs in their own mitochondrial DNA database, which is comprised of DNA from 1,219 dogs representing 172 established breeds as well as a group of mixed-breed dogs. According to the report, on average, one out of every 100 dogs tested would reflect the same mitochondrial DNA profile as Sheba and the evidentiary hairs.

The mitochondrial DNA match among the dog hairs tested in the Williams case does not allow forensic analysts to narrow identification to a single animal, explained George Herrin, the deputy director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime laboratory. UC-Davis analysts performed the DNA tests after consultation with representatives of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab and the Innocence Project of Georgia. The laboratory was selected by defense lawyers whose experts also consulted in the comparison tests.

The mitochondrial DNA sequences could have eliminated Williams’ dog as the source of the dog hairs found on the victims that were linked to Williams at his trial. That is the result Williams’ defense lawyers hoped for.

When Williams was tried in 1982, DNA testing was not in use in criminal trials, and the technology had not been developed to conduct animal DNA tests.

Howard acknowledged that the “horrific” series of 29 slayings, mostly of young black men and boys, between 1979 and 1981, has captivated Atlanta since Williams’ 1981 arrest. Williams has long been considered by law enforcement authorities to be the serial killer who stalked and terrorized Atlanta for two years, leaving in his wake a string of mangled bodies. The cases collectively became known as Atlanta’s child murders.

For more on this article please go to:

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref07.html

New York - It took less than an hour, and that included lunch. 
 
In less than 60 minutes, a Niagara County Court jury concluded Monday afternoon that convicted killer Darren Bradberry was guilty of first-degree rape and second-degree burglary in an 1997 attack on a woman in the city’s LaSalle neighborhood that investigators called “horrific.” 
 
“This was a case of a young, innocent girl, sleeping in her apartment, and this guy breaks in and rapes here,” said Falls Police Detective Patricia McCune, who investigated the case. “It’s every woman’s nightmare. It’s as bad as it gets.” 
 
McCune said the case had haunted her for a decade because there was no suspect. Then, in 2005, Bradberry went to prison on a manslaughter conviction, and a stone cold case suddenly turned hot. 
 
“When an offender is convicted of a crime, their DNA goes into a statewide database known as CODIS,” said Assistant District Attorney Claudette Antholzner, the prosecutor in the case. “Then it gets compared to evidence in unsolved crimes.” 
 
When Bradberry’s DNA went into the database, there was an immediate connection to DNA evidence taken in the 1997 LaSalle rape. 
 
“This is exactly what CODIS is for,” Antholzner said. 
 
With the DNA match, investigators re-opened the rape investigation and indicted Bradberry. Antholzner said the normal five-year limit to bring charges in a rape case didn’t apply here because there was never an identifiable suspect. 
 
“There is case law that says if we don’t have a suspect, we have five years from the time we got the (CODIS) match,” the prosecutor said.  
 
McCune, who said she was pleased that “justice was served,” wasn’t the only person who had struggled with the lack of action in the case. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref08.html

Colorado - A man apprehended with El Paso County's first DNA arrest warrant has been found guilty of all charges.

A 12-member jury yesterday found Daniel Logan Hayes guilty of sexual assault and second-degree burglary after deliberating for less than three hours, a press release said. Both charges are class 3 felonies.

Hayes had been extradited from Kentucky, where he is serving a prison sentence for sexual assault on a 68-year-old woman.

Hayes forced his way into the Colorado victim's home in Green Mountain Falls on July 23, 2001. Hayes was dressed in dark clothing and had a mask on, authorities said.

Hayes then blindfolded the 56-year-old woman and repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

He later forced her to shower.

During the trial, the jury heard testimony from the victim as well as testimony from Hayes' victim in the Kentucky case.

Both cases were similar in nature, the press release said.

Authorities were able to link Hayes to the case with DNA that was collected from the scene.

They put his DNA information on a national database and authorities were able to get a match, said Denise Minish, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref09.html

Texas - A court has exonerated a man who spent 10 years in prison for a gang rape that DNA evidence later proved he did not commit.

The state Court of Criminal Appeals granted James Curtis Giles a writ of habeas corpus -- a right to protest one's detention -- making him the 13th Dallas County man cleared of a crime since 2001 with the help of DNA evidence. 
 
The court ruled that "no rational jury" would have convicted Giles in light of new evidence indicating it was "another individual ... who committed the offense." 
 
The ruling Wednesday clears Giles' record and makes it possible for him to collect compensation from the state, said Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for the Innocence Project. 
 
Texas leads the nation with 29 DNA exonerations, two more than Illinois, according to Innocence Project figures.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref10.html

Connecticut - After arresting a New Haven man in connection with the 1991 rape of a North Mianus woman based on DNA evidence, detectives are hoping to soon arrest a second man implicated in the attack, Detective Lt. Mark Marino said. 
 
Four detectives are working on the case, Marino said, but he declined to say yesterday whether police had identified the second suspect in the Sept. 2, 1991, attack in which the two men allegedly entered a North Mianus home around 5 a.m. and sexually assaulted the woman who had been sleeping there. 
 
"It's extremely active," Marino said of the case. 
 
On Tuesday police arrested Brian K. Higgins, 36, of 1546 Chapel St., New Haven, and charged him with first-degree sexual assault and first-degree kidnapping. 
 
Higgins was an acquaintance of the victim, Marino said. 
 
On Wednesday, State Superior Court Judge Martin Nigro transferred Higgins' case to the Part A docket, where more serious offenses are handled, and raised his bond from $750,000 to $1 million, according to the criminal clerk's office of state Superior Court in Stamford. 
 
The Connecticut State Police Crime Lab in Meriden contacted town police last month after a check of unidentified DNA samples from crime scenes matched Higgins' sample submitted in CODIS, the FBI's DNA databank, from a September 2006 New York City sex assault arrest. 
 
Higgins still faces several charges stemming from the New York City arrest, according to court records. 
 
Marino said that DNA had recently resolved two other large cases -- a 2003 bank robbery, and the 2006 botched holdup of Betteridge Jewelers on Greenwich Avenue. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref11.html

Missouri - A former Lawrence resident living in California has been charged in three rape cases from the mid-1990s after police said DNA tests linked him to the crimes.

Cory T. Elkins, 38, appeared Wednesday in Douglas County District Court on 11 counts stemming from sexual assaults that took place in 1993, 1994 and 1995. Among the charges were six rape counts — involving each victim.

Police said Elkins lived in Lawrence from 1992 to 1998. However, he most recently resided in Sacramento, Calif., where he was required to provide a DNA sample after being placed on probation in a theft case.

That sample was placed in a national DNA database, the same system that Lawrence police and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation had used over the last few years trying to match suspect genetic profile to evidence found in two of the three unsolved rapes. After a match was found, police checked other attacks and found a third match.

Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson commended Lawrence police for their persistence.

“The Lawrence Police Department did a great job keeping a cold case alive,” he said.

Elkins remains in jail on a $250,000 bond.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref12.html

New York - A Far Rockaway man has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for the 1999 sexual assault of a 23-year-old woman in Jamaica. The arrest, prosecution and subsequent conviction were based on DNA evidence. 
 
“If this defendant had not been required to provide a DNA sample during the prosecution in an unrelated case, this crime would probably still be unsolved,” said District Attorney Richard A. Brown. “In re-testing evidence from sexual assault cold cases using newly available advanced scientific techniques in June 2005, the city’s DNA laboratory at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner positively linked semen found in the rape evidence kit of a 23-year-old victim to the defendant’s DNA profile. DNA evidence is irrefutable proof of guilt or innocence. This young woman is to be commended for coming forward and confronting her attacker and testifying at trial. Hopefully, knowing that he will now be behind bars for a long time will provide her with a small measure of help in overcoming the trauma that she experienced as a result of this horrible ordeal.” 
 
Santiago Lugo, 45, of 333 Beach 32nd Street in Far Rockaway, was found guilty of first-degree rape and four counts of first-degree sex abuse before Queens Supreme Court Justice John B. Latella Jr., who imposed the determinate sentence of 16 years in prison. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref13.html

California - A suspect in a 1992 slaying in Santa Ana was linked to DNA evidence found in a car where the victim was found beaten and stabbed, a police sergeant said. 
 
Luciano Silva Aguilar, 53, of Santa Ana, was taken into custody on a traffic warrant on Saturday and served with a DNA search warrant which led to a match using technology not available at the time of the slaying, Santa Ana police Sgt. Lorenzo Carrillo said . 
 
Rafael Tiburcio Brito, 31, was found in his vehicle on Jan. 12, 1992, Carrillo said. 
 
"He was stabbed numerous times and beaten on the head with an unknown object," Carrillo said. 
 
Investigators ran fingerprints at the time, but there were no matches, he said. 
 
When the department's "cold case" unit was established last year to look into some 250 unsolved homicides, detectives determined there was enough physical evidence to reopen the investigation, Carrillo said. 
 
Orange County Crime Lab forensic scientists identified additional DNA at the scene and used modern technology to match the fingerprints, Carrillo said. 
 
Aguilar was booked at the Orange County Jail, with bail set at $1 million, Carrillo said. 
 
Carrillo said he did not know the motive for the killing or the relationship between the men.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref14.html

Rhode Island - The prosecution rested its case yesterday in the murder trial of James Richardson, accused of killing a Warwick woman in 2005.

Margaret Duffy-Stephenson, 37, was found slain in her Blackmore Street home on Nov. 18. She’d returned a few days prior from a wedding in Florida while her husband and son stayed behind to visit relatives. Duffy-Stephenson worked as a teacher’s aide for special education students at Archie R. Cole Junior High School in East Greenwich.

Since the trial began on June 7, the prosecution has called more than 20 witnesses to the stand, presenting its case in chronological order, hearing testimony about the days before and after Duffy-Stephenson’s murder.

Yesterday, the state’s last two witnesses, Dr. Dorota Latuszynski, a physician with the state medical examiner’s office, and Sharon E. Mallard, a forensic scientist at the state Department of Health, provided the remaining portions of the prosecution’s case: the autopsy report and DNA findings.

Duffy-Stephenson’s death was formally ruled a homicide on Nov. 19, 2005, the day after she was found. The cause of death, Latuszynski said, was an embolism — air was sucked into her veins through a wound in her neck — and exsanguination — the profuse loss of blood.

Latuszynski said she found incisions — long shallow cuts — and stab wounds on Duffy-Stephenson’s body. The largest wound was a series of cuts to her neck, which left a gaping hole beneath the chin. Duffy-Stephenson’s killer had sliced through her trachea, esophagus and carotid artery, which carries blood to the brain.

Using a laser pointer, Latuszynski outlined the jagged wound to Duffy-Stephenson’s neck on the photo projected in the courtroom.

“This is an incised wound to the neck,” she told the court. “See in the background is the backbone — the spine.”

Duffy-Stephenson didn’t succumb to her attacker easily. Her hands bore a series of cuts characteristic of so-called defensive wounds, Latuszynski said. In addition to her neck, Duffy-Stephenson sustained wounds to her chest, shoulders and stomach. Grouping some cuts for identification purposes, Latuszynski said she found 11 wounds on Duffy-Stephenson’s body — 8 of them stab wounds.

As a part of the autopsy, Duffy-Stephenson was checked for signs of forcible sexual activity. No rape occurred, Latuszynski said. Duffy-Stephenson’s finger and toenails were also clipped, in an effort to recover DNA from her attacker.

Those samples were sent to be analyzed by forensic scientist Mallard, who found male DNA beneath one of Duffy-Stephenson’s fingernails. By comparing the variations of genes, or alleles, at a particular position within the DNA structure, Mallard said that 99.9993462 percent of the population could be ruled out as the source of the DNA.

Richardson, she said, could not be included in that number.

That any evidence was found beneath Duffy-Stephenson’s fingernails at all was unusual, Mallard said. Many times, even in controlled tests, scientists are unable to recover any DNA from beneath fingernails, she said. DNA constantly transfers from surface to surface through blood, sweat, skin cells and semen, among other things, all of the time, she said. For DNA to embed itself beneath Duffy-Stephenson’s nails suggests she was involved in a struggle with her assailant, Mallard said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref15.html

Louisiana - An admitted rapist's parole was canceled because his DNA matched that from a rape 22 years ago.

Clarence Mott Jr., 45, had been scheduled for parole this week from the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Instead, he was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish jail Friday, on charges of aggravated rape and aggravated burglary.

The assault occurred in September 1985 — seven months before the one to which Mott pleaded guilty and for which he was serving a 25-year sentence.

After Louisiana State Police Crime Lab technicians matched Mott's DNA to the earlier rape, a Baton Rouge Police Department detective met with the victim last week, according to the arrest warrant. It said she knew Mott "because he lived across the street from her mother."

The detective filed the warrant for Mott and police placed a hold on his scheduled release, said Angie Norwood, public information officer at Angola.

The crime lab is working through evidence in crimes that occurred before DNA testing was available or as good as it is now.

Fingerprints and a gold earring were the evidence that brought charges against Mott in the April 1986 rape and robbery. He was accused of raping and robbing the same woman in December as well. He was booked with two counts of aggravated rape, aggravated burglary and armed robbery, and pleaded guilty to forcible rape.

After serving about 13 years, he was released to the East Baton Rouge District Parole Office on Sept. 25, 1999, for "good time," Norwood said. After failing to meet with his parole officer, Mott was found in California and returned to Angola on Oct. 23, 2000.

He remained there until Friday, Norwood said. If Mott had remained at Angola, he would have been eligible for parole this week.

Louisiana law does not have any statute of limitations for aggravated rape because it is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref16.html

Pennsylvania - Philadelphia police yesterday said they matched through DNA evidence a man who allegedly raped, robbed and stomped a 77-year-old woman earlier this month inside her Olney home.

Kevin McKeither, 47, of the 2400 block of Napa Street in Strawberry Mansion, was charged with attempted murder, rape, robbery, burglary and related offenses for the June 4 assault in the 100 block of West Gale Street, said Chief Inspector Joseph Fox.

Witnesses in the neighborhood provided details for a police sketch that led detectives to McKeither, Fox said. While waiting for the DNA testing, police held him on a bench warrant for failing to appear in court for a drug case.

"Just this morning, the results came back, and we got a DNA match," Fox told reporters during a late-afternoon news conference at Special Victims Unit headquarters.

Fox said McKeither had been staying a few days with a relative who lived across the street from the woman.

Witnesses told police he was seen loitering in the neighborhood the day of the attack.

Around 2 p.m., as the woman was taking groceries into her home, McKeither grabbed her at knifepoint, Fox said. Inside the house, he raped her, stomped her in the chest, and then fled with $100, Fox said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_47_jul_07/vol47_ref17.html

Did You Know?

About the NATIONAL CLEARINGHOUSE FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE LAW: www.ncstl.org

“SHARING KNOWLEDGE TO PROMOTE JUSTICE”

Judges, lawyers, scientists and law enforcement are overwhelmed by the amount of science and technology information required to educate themselves to meet the many legal challenges. Navigating the vast terrain of information contained within the existing case law, scientific journals, reports, publications and other resources has been, in the past, an impossible task. The National Clearinghouse for Science, Technology and the Law assembles the available scientific, technological, and relevant legal resources into a comprehensive “one-stop” searchable database with equal access for all.

NCSTL continues to develop other resources for the legal and scientific communities to provide timely, accurate and useful information to promote justice. Current projects being developed include: distance education programs, extended partnerships with law schools, professional associations, law enforcement agencies, and federal and state agencies.

NCSTL provides: a searchable database of legal, forensic, and technology resources; a reference collection of law, science, and technology material; partnerships with law schools, professional associations, and federal and state agencies; national conferences on science, technology, and the law; community acceptance panels; training modules and primers with an emphasis on distance education; and training for defense counsel who are handling cases involving biological evidence on the applications and limitations of DNA evidence as stated in the President’s DNA Initiative.

Source: http://www.ncstl.org/flash/home

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  

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