The DNA Informant
Volume 5, November 1, 2005

With only four previous issues of The DNA Informant published, we are proud to say that the readership and interest have been much greater than we anticipated. Although our audience was initially very focused, we have received feedback from individuals with varying backgrounds and professions, including education.

Forensics and Crime Scene Investigations, including the application of DNA Analysis are now becoming available to students even at the High School level, indicating still greater possibilities for the future.

As mentioned in the introduction of our first newsletter, it is my intention to keep you up-to-date on the latest events involving DNA testing and its most recent applications in court cases and testimonies, as reported in the news.

The number of court cases involving DNA evidence that I have included so far are approximately 60, which is only an overview of what is happening in the field and does not cover International cases – that is an average of ‘at least’ one a day for the past two months – and the number of cases flowing into the crime labs continues to grow tremendously.

In addition there are new developments seemingly every week, including a new DNA technology developed in Australia Scientists in Australia say they've made a major breakthrough and have now been able to read DNA that's 160 years old.

Griffith University 's Professor Ian Findlay is now hoping to unlock some of the greatest murder mysteries of all time –including the identity of Jack the Ripper.

IAN FINDLAY : Previously what would happen is you'd use a DNA extraction technique, and then you take the DNA sample and amplify the DNA many millions, billions of times to look for very specific markers which identify and give you the DNA fingerprint. The process that we do is very, very similar but what we've done is we've adapted the techniques so we have a much, much better extraction protocol which keeps the DNA intact.

If the DNA's intact it means it's going to give you much more information and that allows us to give that information from 160 years ago.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref01.html

In the US , Arizona is the first of only four states in the country to begin advanced mitochondrial DNA testing that could help police solve some of their most difficult cases and even put names to unidentified remains.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited from the mother and can be an important tool in solving crimes or exonerating suspects, especially in cases with scant physical evidence. The testing is more specialized than the traditional analysis of nuclear DNA, the unique genetic fingerprint carried in each person's cells. Some samples, such as hair shafts, only contain mtDNA. In bones and teeth, mtDNA often can be extracted after the nuclear DNA has degraded.

"There are certain kinds of samples where traditional DNA does not work," said Todd Griffith.

With mtDNA, Griffith said, "if you have a hair that's been shed that's associated with a sexual assault, and that's all you've got, that could be a very powerful piece of information."

The analysis isn't a unique identification like nuclear DNA, but it can identify an ancestral line since a mother, her siblings, her children and her daughter's children will have identical mtDNA.

The testing has been done in the FBI's lab in Quantico , Va. , since 1996 but has not been available in state crime laboratories because it is expensive and time-consuming. It takes six to eight weeks to complete an analysis of mtDNA, compared with about two to three weeks for nuclear DNA, Griffith said.

Other mtDNA labs are located in Connecticut , Minnesota and New Jersey .

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref02.html

With all these developments in the field, there are still issues like the one involving Debbie Smith in Montgomery Alabama, an outspoken rape survivor and advocate for the use of forensic DNA in investigations, [who] met [last week] with a group of public officials and criminal justice advocates regarding recent efforts in the US Senate to reduce the amount of funding available for forensic DNA testing. 

The federal funds have been used in Alabama and other states to address the backlog of cases and offender profiles awaiting DNA analysis, but Senator Shelby, who provides Senate leadership on this matter, has recommended a significant reduction in these funds.

Debbie Smith lobbied Congress to enact H.R. 5107, the Justice For All Act of 2004, authorizing over $155 million each year through 2009 to help states reduce DNA backlogs. Title II of the bill was named the Debbie Smith Act in honor of her efforts. While both the President and the House of Representatives have proposed to fully fund the Debbie Smith Act grants at $155 million for 2006, Senator Shelby, who chairs the Justice Department Appropriations Subcommittee, has recommended funding the grants at only $89.5 million.

With the help of federal DNA grants, Alabama has significantly reduced its DNA backlog and has reported almost 800 matches on its DNA database, and aiding over 1,000 individual investigations.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref03.html

New and ongoing cases involving DNA evidence include the following:
Baltimore, MD - A Baltimore circuit judge has ordered a new trial for a man who has spent two decades in prison for murder after new DNA testing determined genetic evidence found at the scene was not his. This is the first Baltimore murder conviction to be turned around by new DNA testing, authorities said.

Robert C. Griffin, 71, was found guilty in 1986 of stabbing and strangling 20-year-old Annie Cruse and leaving her body in Druid Hill Park . Circuit Judge Gale E. Raisin said in a hearing that the result from a recent DNA test is "so compelling" that Griffin deserves a new trial. "I have no question but that the newly discovered DNA evidence is material to the case," she said. "This court is compelled to grant a new trial."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref04.html

California - William Tyquiengco may have been one of the last people to see Monterey travel agent Starr Mooren alive, but he didn't kill her, according to Deputy Public Defender Juliet Peck.

DNA evidence shows only that he had sex with Mooren, Peck says, and there is no evidence to support the theory that he stabbed her to death.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref05.html

Anchorage, Alaska - When DNA evidence links a suspect to a crime, it’s usually a cut-and-dry case. But now, the state crime lab says it's seen a case of duplicate DNA profiles, from two different people. That's usually not possible, except when you're dealing with identical twins.

But late last year, after a sexual assault, DNA found at a crime scene was linked to a man who was already in jail. The lab discovered that the man already in jail had gotten a bone marrow transplant from his brother. The brother was later arrested for the crime.

“You had one person having two genetic profiles. One was identity by inheritance and the other one was identity by transplant,” said Dr. Abirami Chidambaram, state crime lab.

A cheek swab cleared the man already in prison from the crime.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref06.html

Wisconsin - Steven Avery, the man freed last year after spending 18 years in prison for a sex assault he didn't commit, will be charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach, investigators announced Friday.

DNA evidence, which freed Steven Avery after he spent 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, will now be used to charge him with a crime that could return him to prison for the rest of his life.

Friday's announcement that Avery will be charged with killing Teresa Halbach also means Avery will likely become the first person in the nation charged with a homicide after being exonerated by DNA. Source:

http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref07.html

New York - An expert in criminal DNA analysis testified that the odds were one in a trillion or longer that Fletcher A. Worrell, a defendant in a Manhattan rape trial, was not the man whose DNA was recovered from underwear the victim wore on the day of the June 1973 assault.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref08.html

An Oklahoma City crime scene investigator testified Wednesday that Edward Busby Jr.'s DNA was found on two cigarette butts in the trunk of a car belonging to a retired Texas Christian University professor killed in 2004.

Busby, 33, and Kathleen Latimer, 41, are accused in the death of Laura Lee Crane, whose body was discovered wrapped in a white sheet in February 2004 and left just off Interstate 35 near Davis , Okla.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref09.html

New York  - A New York jury convicted a man of a rape committed 32 years ago based on DNA evidence hidden away in a case file and later linked to at least 11 other sexual assaults.

Clarence Williams, 58, escaped conviction at a 1974 trial because the victim, Kathleen Ham, never saw his face and said she could not identify him. Now he faces up to 50 years in prison for rape and robbery.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref10.html

North Carolina - Investigators say DNA helped crack a 1994 sexual assault case. Wake County deputies charged Alfred Lee Cooper with second-degree rape and first-degree burglary. He already is behind bars on similar charges.

Authorities say Cooper is responsible for a June 1994 crime at a woman's home in northern Wake County . The victim says she met her attacker in the hallway of her home after her barking dogs woke her up.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref11.html

Sarasota - Jurors studiously watched the unfocused images of a man grabbing Carlie Brucia in a parking lot on the first day of the trial of a suspect accused of raping and strangling the 11-year-old girl.

But prosecutors said Monday that they had more physical evidence than the dramatic images showing a man taking Carlie's arm and walking her out of view of the camera posted outside a Sarasota car wash.

Defendant Joseph Smith's DNA was found on Carlie's shirt, and fiber from her clothes was found in a car he used, prosecutors said.

But the defense contended the evidence is inconclusive and other suspects weren't properly checked out following the slaying, which attracted wide attention after the images were shown around the world.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref12.html

The questions Joseph P. Smith's defense attorneys aimed at witnesses often were complimentary, prompting evidence technicians to say how thoroughly they searched for evidence of who sexually assaulted and killed Carlie Brucia.

Then came the turnaround: Why didn't two evidence technicians find the semen stain on the 11-year-old's red shirt, a key piece of evidence, before it went to the FBI crime lab?

On the fourth day of the capital murder trial, defense attorneys intensified their attacks on physical evidence, foreshadowing arguments that the FBI has a "terrible" reputation when it comes to analyzing forensic evidence.

Assistant Public Defender Adam Tebrugge has made clear he will spend a great deal of time attacking the FBI crime lab and the DNA evidence discovered in that lab.

Legal experts say they are not surprised Smith's defense attorney is challenging a key piece of evidence. He has to, especially because DNA is held in such high regard by a public obsessed with shows such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."

"Because it's scientific and because DNA is accepted by the public, it takes on much broader weight than it should," said Jenny Greenberg, executive director of Florida Innocence Initiative Inc., a Tallahassee group that finds and frees through DNA testing prisoners who were wrongfully incarcerated.

"It's his job to investigate that thoroughly," Greenberg said. "DNA is a wonderful, wonderful tool, but it's extremely dangerous when not used appropriately."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref13.html

New York -- A Bronx man was sentenced to 20 years to life in state prison for a burglary of a Queens woman's apartment last year. Stanley Jenkins was linked to the crime through DNA left on a paper towel at the scene.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref14.html

New York - New York City police have arrested two men who allegedly conducted a series of terrifying home invasion robberies. Efrem Russell, 43, was charged with first-degree robbery and burglary. Ernest Colon, 44, was charged with first-degree attempted robbery and burglary, reported the New York Daily News Sunday.

One thief left behind something carrying his DNA, and the police DNA database matched it with one of the alleged thieves arrested, a police source told the News.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref15.html

California - The fate of a convicted rapist accused of stabbing a girl to death nearly four decades ago is now in the hands of a San Francisco jury.

Closing arguments concluded Thursday in the case against William Speer, 63, who police said is linked by DNA evidence to the 1968 rape and murder of Linda Harmon, a 14-year-old girl who was baby-sitting for neighbors at the time of her death.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref16.html

Texas -- Nearly 15 years after 85-year-old Thelma Lackey's son found her raped and killed in the kitchen of her Georgetown home, law enforcement officials have identified a suspect.

Vincent Gordon, 31, is being held at the Williamson County Jail in connection with Lackey's death after investigators matched his DNA to biological evidence found at the scene of the crime, District Attorney John Bradley said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref17.html

New York - Theresa Fusco's killer used a piece of cloth to strangle her -- not the rope John Kogut refers to in a confession police say he gave them -- a defense expert testified yesterday in Kogut's murder trial.

Dr. Linda Norton, a former medical examiner and now a forensic pathologist in private practice in

Dallas , testified that "a nylon cord or rope was not the instrument used to strangle her."

The testimony of Norton -- the first witness for the defense case in Nassau County Court -- was contrary to the written and videotaped statement that police say Kogut gave to them. In that, he said one of two co-defendants threw him a rope that he wrapped twice around Fusco's neck.

As she testified, the county's chief medical examiner, Dr. Tamara Bloom, a prosecution witness, sat next to prosecutor Robert Biancavilla.

Bloom had testified the ligature mark was consistent with a double-wrapped rope and she is expected to be recalled to rebut Norton's testimony.

Kogut is being retried for the rape and murder of Fusco after serving 17 years in prison because of newly discovered DNA evidence that failed to link him and his codefendants to the crime.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref18.html

In September 2002, an unknown man tried to break into the same Moorhead residence twice in four days.

But that second time, he made the mistake of leaving some of himself behind – blood that now has identified Rodney Lee Paul and sent him to a Minnesota prison.

Earlier this year, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension lab in Bemidji , which covers much of the northern part of the state, did a routine check by running the DNA from the Moorhead burglaries against its database of known offenders.

The database matched the Moorhead samples with Paul, who was in the Grand Forks County Jail on a probation violation, Krone said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref19.html

Connecticut - The man accused of trying to kidnap a Saratoga Springs High School senior as she walked through a parking lot to her car is awaiting trial in his Connecticut hometown for a alleged rape/kidnapping in 1993 and a separate alleged attempted sexual assault on one of his co-workers in 2004.

John F. Regan, 48, of Waterbury , Conn. , was free on $350,000 bail before his arrest Monday night.

After his arrest in the 2004 case, police working on a hunch collected a DNA sample and compared it with one from the 1993 case. They matched.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref20.html

Los Angeles - A former pizza deliveryman accused of being one of the city's most prolific serial killers was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on charges of murdering 10 women, two of whom were pregnant.Superior Court Judge William R. Pounders ruled during a preliminary hearing that there was sufficient cause to believe Chester D. Turner committed the slayings that occurred from 1987 to 1998. Turner's DNA was matched to sperm cell evidence from the bodies of all the victims, said Carl Matthies of the police department's scientific investigations division.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref21.html

Missouri - DNA evidence led to an arrest in an unsolved rape case, police said Tuesday. Prosecutors charged Damon D. Marley, 27, with 16 felonies, including rape, sodomy, child molestation and sexual abuse.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref22.html



Washington, D.C. - With just two weeks before John Spirko is set to be executed, the statements of a key witness pointing to another man as the murderer of Betty Jane Mottinger were corroborated by a polygraph examination pursued by The Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

No physical evidence connected Spirko to the crime scene. Following the FBI's recent refusal to conduct forensic testing, Spirko's lawyers continue to demand that the authorities conduct DNA testing on the drop cloth, or provide access to the cloth for DNA testing that could definitively corroborate Willier's story and exonerate Spirko. "It is unconscionable that this execution could go forward without using modern DNA technology in an effort to answer these critical questions," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions. "Governor Taft must have all the facts, but remarkably critical evidence remains untested."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref23.html

North Carolina - DNA evidence from a routine house break-in in August eventually led Winston-Salem police to the man they have charged in connection with a string of sexual assaults earlier this year.

The arrest Friday night of Gilberto Cruz Hernandez, 24, came after police received a phone call at 4 p.m. from the state's crime lab in Raleigh . Investigators learned of a DNA match from the break-in to evidence taken from the scenes of sexual assaults in February.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_5_nov_05/vol5_ref24.html

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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