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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue. In July, the House of Representatives voted to reauthorize the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, which would extend the funding to 2014. Two amendments to the bill, one requiring states to collect DNA samples from all convicted felons and the other providing financial incentives to states that collect samples from arrested individuals, have sparked controversy.
Another recent article discusses the fact that Alabama, among other states, currently does not have a law that requires it to preserve DNA evidence. “Although the state Supreme Court and law enforcement agencies have policies in place to protect evidence, there is no statutory oversight.”
In Florida, the FDLE is taking a number of steps, including the involvement of law enforcement to prescreen evidence, to further reduce its DNA backlog.
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
Reauthorization of DNA Backlog Grant Program Could Expand Forensic DNA CollectionOn July 14 the House of Representatives voted to reauthorize the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program (HR 5057). The original Debbie Smith Act of 2004, introduced by Rep. Maloney (D-NY), allocated funds to process backlogged DNA evidence, primarily from rape kits, allowing for the potential resolution of cases in which no suspect has been identified. The reauthorization bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Smith (R-TX), would extend the funding to 2014.
For more details, please go to:
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com
Keeping evidence safeDNA evidence could play a part in determining whether a man sitting on death row lives or dies by lethal injection.
Across the nation, 25 states and Washington, D.C., have laws requiring local court clerks to preserve evidence presented at trial. Alabama is not among them.
Although the state Supreme Court and law enforcement agencies have policies in place to protect evidence, there is no statutory oversight.
Although Alabama has no criminal statute that specifically addresses the issue, Rules of Appellate Procedure authorized by the state Supreme Court require circuit clerks to keep all evidence used during a trial and an index in the court file indicating where the evidence is stored.
The appellate rules, however, do not necessarily require all evidence collected in a case to be preserved, only that offered at trial.
The advent of DNA testing also has led law enforcement agencies and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences to create policies that ensure evidence is stored indefinitely as a tool to help solve crimes, although, again, no state law requires it.
Source: www.tuscaloosanews.com Reducing the DNA backlog Florida involves local law enforcement to prescreen evidence
Using its existing screening program for crime laboratories, the NFSTC worked with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the Marion County Sheriff's Office to create a model, or pilot, program in which local agencies screen items for biological evidentiary value before sending them to one of FDLE's six regional biology laboratories that perform DNA analysis.
Screening or prescreening potential evidence before the items are sent to the crime laboratory is one of 10 FDLE initiatives intended to eliminate or lessen its DNA backlog, which hit a high of 4,815 pending cases in November 2006.
For more information please go to: Source: www.officer.com
New and Ongoing Stories Involving the Use of DNA EvidenceFlorida - A man who was recently released from prison is back behind bars, charged with burglary after DNA reportedly linked him to a string of June break-ins.
Detectives said they matched a few droplets of blood to Thomas E. Bennett, 41, a transient who was released from the Florida State Prison on June 1.
Source: www.heraldtribune.com
Georgia - The GBI got a huge break in solving a 20-year-old rape case. In their 1,000th DNA match -- they said they've "solved" the crime.
Eugene Ferguson has been in prison for 16-years now -- convicted of raping two elderly women in midtown in 1991.
Source: www.myfoxatlanta.com
New Jersey - A DNA match in a year-old break-in of a Glen Ridge carriage house has led authorities to a would-be burglar, police said yesterday.
The critical clue came from an unfamiliar T-shirt found at the June 2007 crime scene. The T-shirt was found inside the homeowner's backpack, which was left on the driveway with a garbage bag full of copper pots and pans from the house. "The DNA hit comes off the T-shirt."
That "hit" prompted detectives to seek a court order to obtain a saliva sample from Lawrence A. Cousins, The order was granted, leading to last week's arrest of Cousins at the Essex County Jail, where he was being held on an unrelated charge, police said.
Source: www.nj.com
Ohio - A convicted rapist admitted to a 1998 murder and was sentenced to a long prison term Monday as another man once blamed for the crime called him a coward who ruined lives.
Earl Mann, 35, avoided a trial and a possible death sentence in an agreement with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to the aggravated murder and rape of Judith Johnson and the attempted murder and two counts of rape of Johnson's granddaughter, then 6 years old.
The crucial DNA evidence against Mann was obtained when the wrongly convicted man, Johnson's son-in-law, snatched a cigarette butt from Mann when both were inmates at Mansfield Correctional Institution.
Source: ap.google.com
South Carolina - A Virginia man has been connected to a second 2007 burglary on Hilton Head Island by a DNA database, according to a Beaufort County sheriff's report.
Trevor B. Meccariello, 18, is serving time in a Virginia prison for burglary, breaking into a police cruiser and other charges, according to the Chesterfield Police Department.
Blood left at both crime scenes matched Meccariello's sample, the report stated.
Source: www.islandpacket.com
Indiana - An Indiana State Police forensic DNA analyst testified Thursday morning there was a mixture of DNA evidence on a sample of underwear submitted for lab tests from the older of two girls who have accused a Greene County man of molesting them.
The sample of a cutting of the underwear of the then 16-year-old victim showed there was a high statistical probability that the "sub" profile was from the defendant George A. Foote, Jr., 37, of rural Bloomfield.
Source: www.gcdailyworld.com
Virginia - A forensics expert testified Wednesday that DNA consistent with Dickie Lee Pulliam’s was found under his late stepfather’s fingernails.
Pulliam, 60, is charged in the shooting death of his stepfather, Willard Swanson “Blackie” Brown, who was found dead inside his Axton home on Aug. 19, 2007.
Source: www.martinsvillebulletin.com
Georgia - A 42-year-old man has been charged with the 1999 rape of a Gwinnett County teenager after his DNA was linked to the crime while he was imprisoned for burglary.
Police say they arrested Raymond Davila Contreras, whose DNA was entered into a state databank after he was sent to prison for a 2006 burglary in Forest Park.
Source: www.live5news.com
Illinois - DNA led Oak Lawn police to charge a Chicago man this week with stealing 36 catalytic converters worth about $1,000 each from new cars at a Hyundai dealership last year. Adrian Shackelford, 26, was charged with felony theft and is being held on $50,000 bail.
Authorities say a work glove Shackelford left at the scene linked him to the crime and that he confessed after he was taken into custody Sunday. He has been arrested 13 times since 2000, so his DNA was on file.
Source: www.southtownstar.com
North Carolina - A man living in Etowah has been linked by DNA to the murder of his pregnant wife in Raleigh.
Jason Young has now been linked to the murder of his wife, Michelle, after blood spatter that was found on a bedroom wall near the body of the 29-year-old victim matched his DNA.
Source: www.blueridgenow.com
Hawaii - More than a decade after Taryn Christian was convicted of fatally stabbing another man during a confrontation in Kihei, the prosecution says new DNA evidence confirms he was the killer.
The DNA testing was sought by Christian as part of an appeal to federal court of his murder conviction, seeking to support his claim that another man was responsible for the stabbing.
Instead, reports by two experts who tested evidence in the case found Christian's DNA was present.
Source: www.mauinews.com
California - More than six years after they arrested the wrong man for beating and raping a 94-year-old woman, Palo Alto police believe they have arrested the right one.
Roberto Cruz Recendes, 40, was arraigned Friday afternoon in a Palo Alto courthouse. He did not enter a plea and was held on a $1 million bail.
A DNA match between Recendes and evidence found after the rape led to the arrest and charges.
Source: www.mercurynews.com
Minnesota - In Luverne, Minn, the 2001 killing of 20-year-old state park worker Carrie Nelson wasn't just a homicide. It was the homicide -- the first in Rock County in at least 30 years. For seven years, townspeople say, they waited for justice -- for Nelson, her family and the community.
It came early Friday when a jury convicted Randy L. Swaney of killing Nelson while robbing the safe of the office where she worked at Blue Mounds State Park. Officials say the case was finally solved thanks to forensic science and the stubborn refusal of local and state investigators to give up until they traced DNA from a broken wristwatch at the murder scene to Swaney, who had since been imprisoned in South Dakota for car theft and burglary.
Source: www.startribune.com
California - A Santa Ana man has been convicted of murder after investigators found his DNA on a soda can left at the crime scene.
Carlos Martinez could face the death penalty for stabbing an elderly couple in their home in 2004.
Prosecutors say he entered the home pretending to be a prospective home buyer. He then killed 83-year-old Nicholas Casas and 73-year-old Emilia Casas with steak knives and drank a can of Pepsi that he left in the kitchen.
Source: www.sfgate.com
Florida - Take modern technology and plenty of determined police work and you have the ingredients for an arrest in the notorious September 2006 kidnap/molestation/murder of Coralrose Fullwood, 6, of North Port in Sarasota County.
Thanks to a statewide program that samples DNA from convicted felons, evidence from Coralrose’s body led authorities to a suspect who had lived within two miles of her home.
The DNA from Patrick D. Murphy, 27, was taken following his conviction for robbery in Punta Gorda some nine months after the killing.
Source: www.naplesnews.com
Virginia - A serology case file review by the Virginia Department of Forensic Science led Virginia State Police investigators to arrest a convicted sex offender Monday for the rape and murder of an 88-year-old Emporia woman.
At about noon, state police arrested Thomas Pope Jr., 53, of Emporia, on charges of rape and first-degree murder. He is being held without bond at the Southside Regional Jail.
In 2005, former Gov. Mark Warner ordered a review of all of the Department of Forensic Science serology case files worked between 1973 and 1988. The purpose of the review was to locate files that contained evidence and, in cases where the listed suspect was convicted, to have DNA testing conducted on that evidence.
Analysis of the DNA evidence preserved in this particular case file has been attributed to Pope. The investigation remains ongoing.
Source: www.staffordcountysun.com
Alaska - It took nine years of sleuthing and advanced DNA science and cutting-edge forensic techniques, but a mummified hand and arm found in an Alaska glacier have been identified. The remains belong to Francis Joseph Van Zandt, a 36-year-old merchant mariner from Roanoke, Va., who was on a plane rumored to contain lots of gold when it smashed into the side of a mountain in 1948. Thirty people died in the crash of Northwest Airlines Flight 4422. "This is the oldest identification of fingerprints by post-mortem remains," said latent-fingerprint expert Mike Grimm Sr., during a teleconference Friday, where the two pilots who found the remains, genetic scientists, genealogists and others talked about the discovery. Source: www.seattletimes.nwsource.com
InternationalSouth Africa - A tooth found at the crime scene of the FNB megabucks robbery in central Joburg two years ago was at the centre of argument in the Johannesburg high court yesterday.
Captain Shamil Govan, a DNA forensic expert in Pretoria, told court that the DNA analysis conducted on the tooth matched the blood samples drawn from one of the accused, Daniel Mathaba.
He ruled out any possibility that the tooth could have been contaminated before the tests were performed.
“Contamination on the tooth is impossible,” Govan said.
“A tooth has a tough enamel protecting it and the DNA is deep inside.”
Source: www.sowetan.co.za
Did You Know?Matsushita develops DNA variation identifier Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Wednesday it and a Japanese university professor had jointly developed a technology for electrically identifying sequence variations in DNA, which it said should help provide patients with individualized, economical and accurate treatments and drugs.
The technology, the first of its kind in the world, identifies single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), known as sequence variations in DNA, by measuring electrical current without attaching DNA to electrodes, Matsushita said. For more please go to: Source: www.yomiuri.co.jp
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 |
