Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.
I would like to start out by saying that if you were a recipient of The DNA Informant in the past, you have not missed any issues. We took a short break in the distribution of the newsletter and will now continue to send it out on a bi-weekly basis.
As always, the amount of stories involving the use of DNA analysis has been overwhelming, and it is great to see the impact it continues to make in the criminal justice system.
Stories covered over the past two weeks include the request to government officials in Texas to establish an innocence commission based on the increasing number of prisoners wrongfully incarcerated.
While in Virginia, lack of funding has stalled a massive forensic project aimed at exonerating wrongfully convicted people of serious crimes.
Another story indicates that in order to overcome the reluctance of rape victims to report the crime, beginning next year law enforcement will be paying for anonymous rape examinations. Evidence can then be preserved in case victims decide to report the crime at a later date.
In addition to these stories you will find brief summaries of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA analysis. Every story is followed by a link to its original source, which you can follow for more details.
In The News
Till proved innocent
As DNA proves more prisoners have been wrongly convicted, Texas needs an innocence commission
It's become a media staple: A man incarcerated for years, wrongfully convicted of murder or rape or kidnapping, is finally free.
Nowhere does this happen more frequently than in Texas, where 33 prisoners have been cleared by such testing since 2000, at least 18 of them in Dallas County.
Nine of those men, along with judges, prosecutors and police officials, joined state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, for discussions in Austin last week to urge Gov. Rick Perry to establish an innocence commission to address the flaws in Texas' criminal justice system that can lead to wrongful convictions.
Source: www.chron.com
DNA Project Hampered by Lack of Funding
A massive forensic project aimed at exonerating wrongfully convicted people of serious crimes has stalled because of a lack of funding.
Virginia Department of Forensic Science director Peter Marone says the department has applied for a $4.5 million federal grant to complete the effort.
The project was the result of an order by then-Governor Mark Warner. In 2005 he called for the examination of all case files kept by former state forensic serologist Mary Jane Burton from 1973 through 1988 after five men were cleared of rape due to biological evidence she kept in their cases. Burton meticulously preserved pieces of clothing smeared with blood, semen or saliva even before DNA testing got underway in the early 1990s.
Source: www.charlottesvillenewsplex.tv
Anonymous Rape Tests to Protect Victims
Victims who are reluctant to report being raped to the police will be able to take an anonymous forensic rape examination and preserve the evidence in case they change their mind later, thanks to a new federal policy. Beginning next year, law enforcement agencies will pay the costs for the "Jane Doe rape kits" or face the loss of federal funding.
Many rape victims are too frightened or too ashamed to report the crime to police. Currently, most jurisdictions refuse to pay for the forensic rape exam unless the victim agrees to file a police report. Therefore many victims fail to undergo the testing that would preserve hair, semen and other DNA evidence.
Source: www.crime.about.com
New and Ongoing Stories Involving the Use of DNA Evidence
Arkansas - Detectives used a partially eaten Snickers found at the Cato Pet Hospital in west Jonesboro to track down the suspect in its January 2007 burglary. Police sent the nougat-filled chocolate bar to the state Crime Laboratory, where medical examiners obtained DNA, Jonesboro detective Jason Simpkins said.
Police arrested Brian Douglas Bass, 39, and charged him with commercial breaking and entering and theft, both felonies. Bass is being held in the Craighead County jail with bail set at $ 50, 000.
Arizona - Arizona authorities identified the serial predator suspect arrested Wednesday after DNA linked him to a series of violent sexual crimes against women, including a pair of unsolved murders.
Trent Christopher Benson, 38, is being held at the Maricopa County Jail. He faces nine criminal charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, two counts or violent sexual assault, three counts of kidnapping and one count of sexual assault, according to a release by the Mesa County Police Department.
Nevada - Police say a missing Nevada woman may have been murdered after they determined DNA from a pair of severed legs matched DNA from her toothbrush.
Weeks after Lindsay Harris, 22, of Henderson went missing May 6, 2005, while traveling to the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas, police found the severed body parts in a grassy location near Springfield, Ill.
It is reported authorities Friday were finally able to match the severed legs to DNA from Harris's toothbrush.
Source: www.upi.com
California - Vallejo police used DNA found on a cigarette at a burglary scene to arrest a man for a fatal hit-and-run accident involving two pedestrians that occurred last month.
Joseph Padua, 43, of Vallejo, was identified as the suspect in the hit-and-run death of 24-year-old Dante Marchiel Russ of Vallejo and the injury of 21-year-old Ashley Lewis.
Source: www.mercurynews.com
Minnesota - A DNA match resulted in the arrest this week of a Brooklyn Park man suspected of kidnapping and rape, months after the alleged rape of a woman who later was dumped near Interstate 94 in Minneapolis.
Duncan Nyanaro Osoro, 24, is charged with kidnapping and first-degree criminal sexual conduct, both felonies, in the incident, in which a woman reported being raped after a night out at a Minneapolis nightclub.
Source: www.startribune.com
Oregon - A body that washed onto a Lincoln City Beach last month has been positively identified as Ross Barfuss, the Aloha teen originally from Pendleton who drowned while trying to rescue an 11-year-old boy at Gleneden Beach on March 8.
The Oregon State Medical Examiner's office made the identification with the aid of DNA samples taken from relatives of the missing 16-year-old.
Source: www.kndo.com
California - A Sacramento man was convicted Wednesday of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two women more than eight years after the crimes occurred, thanks to the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office DNA cold hit program.
Anton A. Johnson kidnapped and sexually assaulted two different women in March 1999 and April 2000. Johnson was a stranger to each victim, who each immediately reported the crimes to law enforcement and underwent exams for DNA evidence collection.
Connecticut - DNA has led police to a convicted sex offender after he tried to rape an elderly woman in her own bed.
Joseph Von Britton, 49, of Northford, was arrested Wednesday after police say he broke into a woman's home in Northford in the middle of the night.
Investigators used evidence at the house to retrieve DNA on the suspect. A positive match was made to Von Britton, a convicted sex offender who is listed on the CT Sex Offender Web site.
Arkansas - After more than three years, police in Malvern finally know who broke into a home there.
Harvey Craig O'Neal Jr., 42, of Malvern pleaded guilty to a single count of breaking and entering Tuesday in circuit court over the 2005 incident. Police say DNA collected at the crime scene from blood left on a door handle matched a sample of O'Neal's DNA officers already had collected in another case.
New York - Dennis P. Donohue’s DNA was found underneath the right and left fingernails of the South Buffalo housewife he is accused of strangling 15 years ago, a local forensic scientist told a jury Tuesday.
Tests at the Erie County Central Police Services laboratory showed only an astronomically small chance that anyone other than Donohue could have been the source of the genetic material found under Joan Giambra’s fingernails, according to Amanda Finbar, an analyst.
New York - A Manhattan man has been sentenced to a maximum term of up to 18 years in prison for sexual offenses committed against a 12-year-old boy in Van Cortlandt Park in 1998.
Emmanuel Taveras, 28, pled guilty last month to one count of Sodomy in the first degree, admitting that he accosted his 12-year-old victim on April 23, 1998 as the child was going to school.
Taveras was the first defendant in Bronx County to be charged in a ‘John Doe’ indictment based on a DNA profile. Taveras was not arrested until November 2006 although the grand jury had indicted him as a ‘John Doe’ a year and a half earlier, in June, 2005.
Texas - Dallas police are revealing more details about how they solved a cold murder case. The determination of a friend of the victim helped police finally discover and charge the suspected murderer.
Donald Bess, 59, is currently serving a life sentence in the Texas Department of Corrections for three sexual assault offenses. He now also stands accused of capital murder. DNA testing from the Samota crime scene matched Bess.
DNA technology and the national database weren't available when Samota was murdered in 1984.
Massachusetts - DNA from a discarded mask and bloody clothing were used as evidence to convict two men for the kidnapping and torture of a Lawrence family on New Year's Eve in 2003.
Jose Acevedo and Angel Ramos Merced were sentenced to state prison last week for their parts in the crime, which involved tying up two adults and burning them with an iron.
Did You Know?
DNA Sequencing in a Snap
An innovative approach could target hard-to-sequence areas.
A novel sequencing technology being developed by a Massachusetts startup allows scientists to take photographs of the sequence of a DNA molecule. William Glover, president of ZS Genetics, based in North Reading, MA, says that his approach will allow scientists to read long stretches of DNA, enabling the sequencing of hard-to-read areas, such as highly repetitive regions in plants and some parts of the human genome. Longer sequences also allow scientists to distinguish between maternal and paternal chromosomes, which might have important diagnostic applications.
For the full article, please go to:
Source: www.technologyreview.com
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.
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Editor: Karen Daurie
Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com
