The DNA Informant
Volume 4, November 1, 2005

Please see our section on “Ask the Informant” at the end of this issue.

No matter what the subject may be, it seems that an increase in awareness or recognition goes hand in hand with controversy. I believe that if this was not the case, the breakneck pace of today’s advances in science and technology would decelerate; on the other hand dinner conversations, TV talk shows and even ‘news’ programs – for those of you who watch – would definitely lack in interest. As long as there are critics, there will be those who will or at least will try to prove them wrong, and vice versa.

This theory is definitely apparent in the use of DNA analysis in our criminal justice system. In our previous issue, we reviewed an article that mentioned efforts to “place DNA information from people arrested for alleged crimes but never charged in a national database” – reason for this being that in the majority of major crimes committed, the perpetrator is a repeat offender.
In a recent article entitled “Open season on DNA may not be far away” by Bob Barr, we see the opposing side. If Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.) have their way, every person in this country who has the misfortune of being arrested for any federal offense, or merely "detained" by the federal government, will be forced to give a DNA sample to the government, to be used for whatever purpose it wants, whenever it wants.

Hard-liners might say "Hey, that's fine; if you've been picked up by the feds, you've surrendered your right to keep your DNA private." It's not quite that simple.

There are more than 4,000 federal offenses on the books, a number that is constantly growing. Those offenses include many misdemeanors, as well as many regulatory dictates that involve no harm to anyone. Also, and most important, don't forget that being arrested — much less merely detained — is not proof that you are guilty of anything.

Congressional proponents of the federal database scheme are unmoved by such "technicalities." For them, if a federal agent picks you up for any reason, even if you're innocent, Uncle Sam has a right to your DNA, by force if necessary.
While some advocates of forced DNA databasing argue it is no more intrusive than taking a fingerprint, DNA is far more than a mere reflection of a physical characteristic. Your DNA not only identifies you physically; it also could tell whoever possesses it a great deal about your biological makeup, health, propensity for certain diseases, aspects of your ancestry and more.

Aside from the obvious argument that if you arrest a person, photograph them and take their fingerprints, you already have information sufficient to identify them and do not really need all the additional information gleaned from a DNA sample, consider the vast universe of persons who would be subject to this intrusive requirement if the Kyl-Green legislation becomes law.

Persons detained at a political gathering — such as occurred last summer at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions — for nothing more than expressing their political views would find their DNA forever enshrined in government files. Similarly, citizens who exercise their Second Amendment rights by purchasing firearms, but make a mistake in filling out one of the required federal forms, would be forced to submit their DNA information to a federal agent.

A landowner who dares exercise dominion over his own property, but runs afoul of the myriad federal wetlands, endangered species or Environmental Protection Agency regulations, would be forced into the DNA Hall of Shame. The hapless air traveler who somehow offends a Transportation Security Administration employee's sense of decorum, and is thereby subject to detention, would be roped into the DNA database.

Misplace or misstate a deduction on your tax return? You go directly to DNA jail. The list is as long as the humongous Code of Federal Regulations, the Internal Revenue Code and the Federal Criminal Code combined.

If we were talking about a database that included DNA information on persons convicted of certain serious offenses, where it is important to retain such information for crime scene identification based on bodily fluids — something the government is already permitted to do — the host of privacy questions would not be at issue. But maintaining a forced DNA database of persons who may never be charged with or convicted of a felony represents an unnecessary and abusive invasion of privacy.

Even the mechanism the federal legislative proposal provides for remedying an improper collection of DNA is inadequate. In typical Big Government fashion, the Kyl-Green proposal makes it easier for the bureaucrats and harder on the individual. The aggrieved person has to "opt out" after his or her case is won or dismissed, rather than requiring the government to track the progress of its own case and affirmatively expunge the information when the person is exonerated or not charged.

This latest bad idea making the rounds in Congress is strikingly similar to another proposal passed last November by California voters. The only difference here is that the California initiative was an open measure on a public ballot.

The current congressional proposal, on the contrary, was slipped quietly into a larger, unrelated piece of legislation that most senators and House members were strongly predisposed to support — reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. At least California was honest and upfront with its proposal.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref01.html

"We know from real life examples that a database of arrestees can prevent many future offenses,'' said Kyl, who sponsored legislation that passed the Senate that would expand the FBI's DNA database by requiring anyone arrested for a serious crime provide the government with a DNA sample.

Kyl's proposal, attached to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, is whipping up intense opposition from civil liberties groups.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which supports reauthorization of federal laws cracking down on violence against women, said it is withdrawing support from the legislation because it feels so strongly against the DNA database provision.

Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union says expanding the DNA database to include all arrestees violates a person's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches. "People will be penalized for either being arrested or detained, even if the detention or arrest is unlawful,'' she said.

For more on this article, please go to the link below.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref02.html

As this controversy continues to unfold, uses of DNA testing go on to take new directions. The National Center for Child Safety and Awareness is offering the DNA LifePrint Child Safety Program. The only program endorsed by John Walsh,
America's #1 Crime Fighter and Child Safety Advocate.

This program is designed to be the ultimate safe guard if your child is ever missing. John Walsh says, "DNA is the fingerprint of the new millennium. Most fingerprints and footprints taken at events by untrained individuals are not useful in an investigation.

DNA is the preferred aid in an investigation by the FBI. It allows law enforcement to track a child from hair, saliva and skin samples. No database is created. The only record of this visit goes home with the parent for safe keeping. If the child is ever missing, the sample would be given to law enforcement." John Walsh's LifePrint America will be offering this program in all-50 states and Canada.

Source: http://www.protectrkids.org/dna_lifeprint.html

And along with these newer developments, DNA evidence continues to play a big part in law enforcement and the courts.

California - Vallejo police arrested a man in the Sacramento area in connection with a murder that occurred in 1983. Police said the California Department of Justice crime lab advised them that a DNA analysis has implicated 38-year-old Tommy Davis in the murder of 24-year-old Tonette Hendricks.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref04.html

Texas - Darnell Hartsfield was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for lying to a grand jury investigating the 1983 Kentucky Fried Chicken murders in Kilgore.
Lorna Beasley, a forensic scientist who works at the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab in Garland, testified that a DNA analysis of blood spatter on a white box found at the KFC the day after the kidnappings was a match to Hartsfield.
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref05.html

New York - A convicted Manhattan rapist has been sentenced to another 20 years behind bars, after DNA linked Ernest Jones to the 2003 roof-top rape of a 9-year-old girl in Harlem.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref06.html

Florida - A jury today will hear closing arguments and then begin considering the fate of a man on trial on charges that he raped a 60-year-old woman two years ago.

Though a lab analyst testified that a DNA test connected Darrell L. Shafer to the victim, his attorney told a jury on Wednesday that the evidence may not be enough to convict him.

FDLE analyst Diane Hanson testified that DNA evidence collected from the victim as part of a rape kit linked Shafer to the rape.
Shafer's attorney emphasized the DNA results since detectives in the case could not find the defendant's fingerprints in the victim's home.

During his cross-examination, Maynard drilled Hanson on her credentials, testing methods and FDLE procedures in DNA testing. The attorney asked Hanson why the agency did not gather other DNA evidence from pillowcases, bedsheets and clothing from the victim's home.

If a DNA test done on the rape kit reveals a positive match to a suspect's, the agency does not test other evidence, Hanson said. The test was also not repeated.

"Normally, we would examine the (rape) kits first," Hanson said. "It's not a hard-and-fast rule. If there are no other circumstances, we generally stop there."

Shafer was charged with three other rapes between 2002 and 2003, including the rape of a pregnant woman who knew him, court records show.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref07.html

Alaska - DNA has linked a Palmer man to a series of rapes in downtown Anchorage.
 
Colby James Griffeth, 52, was arrested at the Valley moving company where he works. He is accused of three rapes and one attempted rape, all involving different women and spanning four years.

Anchorage Police Detective Ken McCoy credited DNA technology, the state DNA database and the national CODIS system for tying the three cases together and ultimately identifying Griffeth as the man who left bits of himself at three of the crimes.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref08.html

California - A Mule Creek Prison inmate in Ione has been linked to the 1989 killing of a San Jose woman through the state’s DNA database.

Luis Perez, 40, was convicted earlier of an unrelated sexual assault case in San Francisco. Perez lived in the Bay area between 1983 and 1999.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref09.html

California - William Buckley Gomes was in prison for two Chico burglaries when a DNA sample positively linked him to a break-in and rape a year earlier.

On Monday, he drew the maximum sentence of 16 years in prison for the sexual assault.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref10.html

California - Prosecutors say DNA evidence links Mario F. Garcia, 53 in custody on weapons charges to the disappearance of 27-year-old Christie Wilson.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref11.html

New York - A Brentwood man is in custody after DNA evidence linked him to a sexual assault from August.

Suffolk police say they collected the DNA of Shane Williams, 21, of Brentwood from the scene of the sexual assault that occurred on Aug. 27. Shortly after the results came back from the crime lab, Williams was arrested for an unrelated robbery on Oct. 20.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref12.html

Ohio - Truck driver was charged yesterday with the slaying of a woman whose body was found this year in a vacant lot in North Toledo.
Dellmus Colvin, 46, was charged with the murder of Melissa Weber, 37, after police linked him to the crime through a DNA analysis. The charge was filed in Toledo Municipal Court.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref13.html

Texas - A 23-year-old Texas prison inmate was charged in the August 2003 aggravated sexual assault of a woman in a Galleria-area parking garage, police said.

Police said DNA evidence linked Juan Reyes Solis, already in prison for two unrelated burglaries and criminal mischief, to the assault.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref14.html

North Carolina - A new round of interviews with neighbors, coupled with forensic evidence, helped Raleigh police end a three-year manhunt and charge a 35-year-old man with the murder of Stephanie Bennett.

Police arrested Drew Edward Planten of Raleigh, just hours after investigators matched his DNA with a sample of DNA left at the 2002 homicide scene.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref15.html

Amanda Fox was not directly involved in the Stephanie Bennett murder case, but as a forensic biologist within the State Bureau of Investigation's Crime Laboratory, she knows what it takes to solve difficult cold cases involving DNA evidence.

Here's how it works: DNA is extracted from a sample and then amplified to make the sample larger before a genetic profile is generated, Fox said. DNA is so unique that only identical twins have the same makeup, she said. In the Bennett murder case, police said there was a solid match with DNA found in Bennett's apartment on the night she was killed three years ago to Drew Planten, who was charged Wednesday in her death.

In this case and others, Fox said a DNA match means there is no chance police can arrest the wrong suspect. "The statistical values we generate are a billion to million, a million to trillion, thousand to trillion. Those types of numbers," Fox said. "So it's more likely to be that person than the world's population. Therefore, we feel pretty confident when we get a match."

According to investigators, Planten did not voluntarily submit a DNA sample. Police were able to get one of their own, though they would not say how. "Occasionally, we'll get samples from cigarette butts, glasses that someone has drank from," Fox said. "We can get soda cans or anything that has come in contact with the body."
And though the technology to match DNA samples has been available for only about a decade, it has already helped solve hundreds of cold cases.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref16.html

Arizona - Peoria police have made an arrest in a cold case they've been working on for 10 years. Police say Billy Bowles raped a woman back in 1995.

A forensic exam conducted on the woman netted a DNA sample, but at the time there were no suspect matches in the Arizona Department of Public Safety's CODIS.

The big break came two years ago when Bowles was arrested on an unrelated charge. It was then that he was required to give a DNA sample. Last April, the DNA database matched him to the 1995 rape case.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref17.html

California - A man already imprisoned for sexual assault and attempted murder of a 14-year-old has been arrested and charged with two unsolved murders from the 1980s after a San Jose police detective began reviewing cold cases and using new forensic technology to examine crime scene evidence.

Luis Perez, 40, was arrested and charged with the 1989 strangulation murder and sexual assault of Nestora McCune, 61, of San Jose, and the 1984 killing of Frances Ruth Berrospe, 50, of Sunnyvale.

Investigators were able to use forensic technology that had been developed since the murders to link Perez, whose DNA information had been entered into a statewide database, to the crimes.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref18.html

Pennsylvania - Howe trial testimony focuses on DNA - James O’Brien’s semen was found in Shauna Howe’s mouth and on her gymnast costume, an FBI examiner said Saturday.

There is a one in a quadrillion or 1,000,000,000,000,000 chance that the DNA found on the leotard and in Shauna’s mouth is not James O’Brien’s, Jennifer Luttman said.

James O’Brien, 33, along with his older brother Timothy O’Brien, 39, is on trial for Shauna’s 1992 kidnap, rape and murder.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref19.html

Florida - DNA evidence collected by Ormond Beach police investigators has linked a Deltona man to the rape of a 47-year-old woman in March, police said. Shelby Lee Fleming, 47, was charged with sexual battery.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref20.html

Kentucky - When hikers found the remains of a man in Madison County in 1993, police had little clue as to who he was or how he got there.

The mystery is partially solved. The so-called "Madison Man" now has a name, but police are trying to determine if he was murdered.
The remains have been identified as those of 36-year-old Douglas Prouty (PROW'-tee) of Madison, Wisconsin. State police say D-N-A from one of Prouty's siblings provided the match.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_4_nov_05/vol4_ref21.html

Ask the Informant
Question 1
With regard to Hematrace (the mobile monoclonal Antibody test for the presence of hemoglobin), our validations and readings show that only human blood and ferret blood will give a positive presumptive test for blood, along with a positive Hematrace test.  IS this what you have found?  Also, it seems like you should be able to say that a positive presumptive and a positive Hematrace confirm the presence of human or ferret blood, correct???

Answer 1
Validations studies have shown that they react not only with Human blood but primates and with blood from some members of the Mustelidae family. For the few of you that do not watch Jeopardy, the Mustelidae family refers to animals like Ferrets (positive reaction), Skunks (positive reaction), Weasels (negative reaction), and Marten (negative reaction).

Luckily for us there are no known cases of ferrets breaking into people’s cars and homes!
Because tests like Hematrace are not 100% human specific, most labs refer to them as presumptive tests for the presence of blood.

Question 2
Can you get DNA from a mosquito?

Answer 2
Yes, it has been shown that human DNA profiles can be obtained from the bloodstain that is left after you kill the mosquito.

Question 3
We have a lot of drive by shootings- can you get DNA from the empty cartridge cases that are ejected from the weapon even though it has experienced high temperatures during firing?

Answer 3
Yes, but qualified. By just handling objects you can leave your DNA from skin cells. If the individual(s) handles the bullets a lot prior to loading them into the weapon it is possible.

Also, if you know it is only one weapon you will have a higher success rate if you take a cotton swab that has water on it and swab all cartridges as one. This is case scenario driven. Since there will not be a lot of DNA present, the more cartridge swab on a single swab will concentrate the DNA.

Question 4
Are you aware of a good source of information that covers the ongoing developments in the area of DNA Analysis?

Answer 4
Yes, an excellent source is John Butler’s 2nd Edition of Forensic DNA Typing. “The book is divided into three major sections, Biology, Technology, and Genetics.” Attached is a link to a review of the book by R. E. Gaensslen, Ph.D.

Book Review: http://www.cstl.nist.gov/div831/strbase/FDT2e/JFS2005_FDT2e_review.pdf

We would like to thank those of you who submitted questions to our expert in “Ask the Informant”.
Again, please send us your questions or concerns and our expert will provide honest and candid feedback, expert@dnalabsinternational.com. 

Editor: Karen Daurie
Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com

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