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Topic: Determination of Time Since Deposition of Blood Stains One topic that was mentioned several times over the past two weeks was the increase of DNA use by federal authorities in immigration cases. "It removes any doubt," said Aggie R. Hoffman, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer. The use of pre-conviction DNA tests continues to bring up debates. “Civil liberties advocates say the practice makes a mockery of "innocent until proven guilty" and could overwhelm already-backlogged crime labs.” Yet others who may previously have felt the same way are seeing benefits in this practice: “…law enforcement will tell you that lots of times the perpetrator has done this before. If it [pre-conviction DNA] does solve the crime, I'll go along with that." Rape victims are urging the government to fully fund the federal grant programs for forensic DNA testing. “With the help of federal DNA grants, Texas has significantly increased its DNA analysis and has collected over 300,000 offender profiles for the database. The state reports it has made almost 1,000 matches on its DNA database, and aided over 1,200 investigations. Nearly half of all database matches have been to unsolved rapes.” And as always there are a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence. Federal authorities are increasingly using DNA tests to confirm the identities of certain would-be immigrants, according to companies that perform the tests. Testing is done in cases where U.S. citizens or green card holders sponsor people they claim are close relatives to immigrate legally. In some instances, documents such as birth, marriage, school or medical certificates are missing or are not enough to convince authorities that the process is free of fraud. "We've seen quite a dramatic increase," said Jack Anderson, lab director at Andergene Labs in Oceanside. "This is certainly the gateway to keep out those who are not related." Officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department say they don't keep statistics on DNA testing, but insist it's used infrequently. "It's more of a last resort when other documentation is missing," said Martin Handman of Citizenship and Immigration Services in Los Angeles. U.S. citizens can petition for their spouses, parents, children or siblings to immigrate to the U.S., while green-card holders can do so for their spouses and unmarried children. Although the tests are voluntary, petitions may be rejected if applicants refuse to take them. Some immigration attorneys said they advise their clients to cooperate. "It removes any doubt," said Aggie R. Hoffman, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer. Others say the tests, which generally cost $700 to $800, can be prohibitively expensive. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref01.html Hoping to solve and prevent more crimes, the federal government and a growing number of states are casting the DNA net wider by taking genetic samples from people accused but not convicted of breaking the law. Civil liberties advocates say the practice makes a mockery of "innocent until proven guilty" and could overwhelm already-backlogged crime labs. All states take DNA from convicted criminals and enter it into databases for use in solving crimes. But this spring, Kansas and New Mexico passed laws to start testing those only arrested for crimes, joining California, Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas and Virginia. And last year, Congress said it was OK to take DNA from those arrested for federal offenses - felonies and misdemeanors alike - and foreigners who are being detained, whether they have been charged or not. The idea is not new. Britain, with one of the more aggressive DNA database programs, has done it for years. "At first, this bothered me that we were undermining criminals' civil rights - you are innocent until proven guilty," said Tennessee State Sen. Ron Ramsey. But "if you're talking about murder, assault and things of that nature, law enforcement will tell you that lots of times the perpetrator has done this before. If it does solve the crime, I'll go along with that." Ramsey, a Republican, wants to expand testing to those arrested for burglary and serious violent crimes such as murder, rape or kidnapping. The new laws let states take genetic samples upon arrest and often before formal charges are brought. None of the state laws allow testing of people arrested for minor crimes. In California, the law - which passed by voter initiative in 2004 but will not take full effect until 2009 - requires that anyone arrested for investigation of a felony must give a DNA sample. California is phasing the measure in, starting with those accused of murder, voluntary manslaughter or felony sex crimes. The federal legislation passed with little debate as part of a larger criminal justice measure. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref02.html 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 and local governments reduce their backlogs of DNA evidence from unsolved crimes and convicted offender samples. Title II of the bill was named the Debbie Smith Act in honor of her efforts. The President has proposed to fully fund the Debbie Smith Act grants at $155 million for 2007, and the proposal in the House of Representatives matches this amount. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref04.html New and ongoing cases involving DNA evidence include: New York - A judge signed an order Thursday freeing a man who has spent more than two decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted of brutally raping a woman. Judge John Byrne signed the order in Bronx Criminal Court while Alan Newton, 44, stood quietly with his attorney. The nonprofit Innocence Project and prosecutors from the Bronx district attorney's office had asked for Newton's 1985 conviction to be vacated based on recent testing on a rape kit used for the woman. Newton was convicted of raping the 25-year-old woman in an abandoned Bronx building in 1984 and was sentenced to up to 40 years in prison. In 1994 he filed a motion asking that new DNA testing be conducted, but the request was denied because the evidence was unavailable, the Innocence Project and prosecutors wrote in court papers. A similar request was granted four years later, but testing of the victim's clothing "failed to yield the presence of male DNA," the papers said. At the request of the Innocence Project, the Bronx district attorney's office last year asked the New York Police Department's property clerk division to search for the rape kit at an evidence warehouse in Queens. The result "conclusively excludes" Newton as the assailant, according to the papers. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref05.html Wisconsin - A DNA match has turned up a suspect in a $98,000 robbery in Eau Claire. It's been more than a year since Lasker Jewelers was held up. Police were looking for two men, one of whom had cut himself when he smashed a display case. Police say they used DNA from the crime scene and matched it with DNA from a Minnesota man who's in prison for another crime. Desmen Parker has now been charged with armed robbery. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref06.html Washington - Seattle police say they now know who killed a man near Seattle's Kubota Garden almost five years ago with the help of two key clues: a gun that was used in another shooting and a trace of DNA found on a cigar. King County prosecutors charged Conjewel Glover with first-degree murder on Monday in the shooting of Patrick Sanders. Glover is already in prison for shooting a man just three weeks later, though he could be free as soon as October 2007. Sanders, 28, was found dead near the entrance of Kubota Garden on Aug. 4, 2001. He had been shot once in the head from inches away. A narrow cigar, known as a cigarillo or blunt, lay a few feet from his body. The Washington State Patrol Crime Lab found DNA on the cigar, ran the profile through a database of convicted felons and found a match with Glover, according to court documents. Detectives then reviewed surveillance tapes from a Skyway bowling alley, where Sanders was before the shooting, and determined that Glover was also there that night. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref07.html Louisiana - A pre-release DNA test linked a man who had nearly served his time on a firearms charge to a stabbing in 2004. So when Harvey Dewayne Jenkins left the Winn Correctional Center, it was only to be moved to the Ouachita Correctional Center. Bond has been set at $850,000 for Jenkins, 28, of Monroe. He was booked Friday with attempted first-degree murder and armed robbery of a Glenwood Regional Medical Center employee who was stabbed in the chest by a man who took her purse on March 5, 2004, authorities said. Jenkins had been scheduled for release after serving time in Winn Parish on an unrelated charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. When an inmate is released from any jail in Louisiana, a DNA sample is taken and added to the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. When Jenkins' DNA was entered into the system, it turned up a match, so jail officials contacted the West Monroe Police Department. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref08.html Kentucky - Police say DNA evidence was used to link a man to a Lexington murder case that had been cold for nine years. Aarion Lamon Johnson, who is already in state prison, is now charged with murder and abuse of a corpse in the 1997 death of Susanne Soffels. Johnson was linked to Soffels' murder through the Combined DNA Index System, a national database of blood and saliva evidence. Johnson was already serving time at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville for burglary, rape and related crimes after being convicted in December 2000. Lexington police say grant money has helped bring about three murder charges in cases that had previously gone cold. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref09.html South Dakota - Technology gave investigators a new look at old evidence, and a DNA match has a suspected murderer in jail eight years after the crime. Usually this type of DNA comes from a strand of hair. That, and murder victim William O'Hare's car, are what brought police to James Strahl. When investigators found William O'Hare murdered in his home in June 1998, he had been dead for almost three weeks. There was evidence at the scene, but investigators didn't get any breaks in the case until they found O'Hare's car in South Sioux City a week later. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref10.html Pennsylvania - Homewood man, who was exonerated after spending 19 years in prison for a rape conviction, was arrested yesterday and charged with simple assault. Thomas Doswell, 47, who was freed in August after DNA testing cleared him of the 1986 crime, was arraigned yesterday around noon. His bond was set at $3,000. He posted bail sometime after 3 p.m. Mr. Doswell and his attorney could not be reached, and no other information was available last night. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref11.html Minnesota - An investigation into a Minneapolis murder is being complicated by the fact that the suspect has matching DNA with another man – his identical twin. Minneapolis police thought they could prove Michael Jefferson shot Gerald Penman on July 14th, 2002 as the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said his DNA matched DNA collected at the scene from hair, blood and skin residue. However, investigators soon learned of Michael’s twin brother, Anthony Raymond Jefferson. "We would not be able to distinguish between the two brothers using the DNA testing that we use,” says Kris Deters, a forensic scientist at the BCA. Deters says that while fraternal twins come from two different fertilized eggs, identical twins come from the same egg, with essentially the same DNA. Investigators may then have to use tools other than DNA. "There may be other things such as alibis that investigatively are able to determine a difference between two identical siblings," says Deters. Other criminal cases against an identical twin have been delayed due to the complication. Grand Rapids, MI police do not know which of the Cooper brothers raped a woman in 1999. Additionally, local, state and private tests have found no differences after checking 100,000 DNA characteristics. Police obtained a search warrant last week and took a DNA sample from Anthony Jefferson. If the testing does not work, police may be able to use fingerprints, which are different among identical twins. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref12.html Connecticut - A suspect in a jewelry heist from five years ago has been arrested, tracked down through a water bottle found in a car used in the crime, police said. Fabian Roa, 28, was charged Monday with first-degree robbery and first-degree larceny and was arraigned in Rockville Superior Court. The charges relate to the March 2001 armed robbery of two jewelry salesmen from New York who were robbed as they sat in their car outside a Route 30 restaurant. As part of an investigation into the robbery, Detective Steve Sartor swabbed the cap and rim of a Dasani water bottle he found in the center armrest of the Nissan Altima used in the robbery that took place in the parking lot of a restaurant on Hartford Turnpike. Technicians at the state police forensic lab recovered a DNA profile and entered it into a national database. That database matched the DNA from the car to a DNA sample taken from Roa. A follow-up DNA analysis confirmed that Roa's DNA was on the water bottle in the car, which was left on Vernwood Drive, according to the arrest warrant. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref13.html North Carolina - Jurors in the Jim Cockman murder trial got a science lesson Wednesday as state testimony involved primarily DNA evidence that prosecutors say links the defendants to the crime. Testimony on Wednesday included that of Holloway’s father, Otis Holloway, who lived with the couple in September, 2004, and several Federal Bureau of Investigation employees who testified that DNA evidence revealed that fingerprints, duct tape and DNA evidence found in the Suburban and at the storage unit were that of Edens and Holloway. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref14.html North Carolina - An arrest has been made in connection with a rape that occurred 16 years ago in Raleigh. The Raleigh Police Department has charged 45-year-old Thomas Junior Johnson with one count of first-degree forcible rape and one count of first-degree kidnapping in connection with crimes committed on Oct. 7, 1989. Investigators said Johnson's arrest was made possible by evidence collected at the time of the crime and a recent DNA analysis conducted by the state Bureau of Investigation. Johnson is currently serving a sentence at the Scotland Correctional Institute for an unrelated conviction. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref15.html Florida - Police working three murders believed to have been committed by a serial killer are refocusing their investigation after DNA tests cleared two suspects. Material collected from crime scenes also did not match any DNA samples in the FBI's national database, investigators said. "We're starting all over again," said Capt. Brian Skipper, who oversees Daytona Beach's Criminal Investigations Division. "We're following up on new leads and we're going back and talking to people we talked to in the beginning to see if there was something we overlooked." Police announced months ago they were following an alleged serial killer after three women who reportedly lived "high-risk lifestyles" turned up dead in December, January and February. The first killing was discovered the day after Christmas when Laquetta Gunther, 45, was found in a gap between an auto parts store and a utility building. Julie Green, 34, was found dead Jan. 14 on a dirt road at a construction site. The body of 35-year-old Iwana Patton was found Feb. 24 on a dirt road. Gunther's friend expressed frustration at the lack of a suspect. "The police can't give up on trying to find the person who did this," said Stacey Dittmer, who lives only blocks from where the mother of five was found. "These three girls were people. We have to find the killer and 'Quetta's friends and family are not going to let up on the police until the killer is found." Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref16.html Colorado - One of the country's foremost forensic investigators on Sunday expressed pessimism about the fate of the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation in the wake of her mother's death. "If she had a secret, then that secret is going to be gone forever, and it's going to be extremely difficult," said Dr. Henry Lee, chief emeritus of the Connecticut State Police forensic laboratory. He has consulted on the Ramsey case and countless other high-profile crimes. "But on the other hand, if she did share a secret with anybody else, it may be easier now for that person to talk." Patsy Ramsey, 49, succumbed to ovarian cancer early Saturday at her father's home in Roswell, Ga. The Ramseys eventually submitted to three separate sets of interrogations with law enforcement personnel, and in 2000 they hired respected California-based polygrapher Edward Gelb. He said the results of their tests showed they did not kill their daughter and did not know who did. Wood maintained that, in recent years, "Things really did turn (in the Ramseys' favor), in view of the evidence in the case." He cited specifically an unidentified male DNA sample recovered from JonBenet's panties that is now entered in the FBI's Combined DNA Index System national database. That sample matches no member of the family, and so far has also not been linked to any known offender in the system. But Lee is among the investigators who have reviewed evidence in the case and who downplay the DNA's significance. "My personal opinion is that the DNA evidence in this case does not really shed any light," said Lee. He cited the small size of the samples as a problem, and he contended that it is not definitively known that the DNA - which does not come from semen - is even that of the killer. "We don't know how it got there, if it's from somebody's handling, or a secondary transfer - there's lots of possibilities," said Lee. But the presence of the DNA and the failure to establish its origin, Lee said, is characteristic of the case that has frustrated innumerable investigators and specialists since JonBenet's beaten and strangled body was found in the basement of her family's home the afternoon of Dec. 26, 1996. "Everything in this case is just so difficult, to have so many competing hypotheses," Lee said. "Every hypothesis that shows a negative also shows some positive." Lee acknowledged that the Ramsey probe was plagued by mishandling of evidence at the crime scene - John Ramsey, for example, was allowed to find and recover his daughter's body, and carry it upstairs to his home's first level. Detective Linda Arndt moved the body a second time. There is nothing even the best sleuths can do to reverse such realities, said Lee. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_22_jul_06/vol22_ref17.html Did You Know? Topic: Determination of Time since Deposition of Blood Stains By Clifton P. Bishop, April 2006 DNA analysis has revolutionized the field of Forensic Science by allowing for unambiguous identification of the person from whom a biological sample has been obtained. DNA provides a spatial link between a suspect and a crime scene or other location relative to a crime investigation. In many instances, this information is sufficient for conviction of the perpetrator of a crime. The limitation of traditional DNA, however, is that it provides no information on when the biological material was deposited. It only indicates that, some time in the past, the person visited the scene, it could have been months or years before the material was collected. Temporal linkage between the biological material and the commission of a crime is especially important in situations involving victims and suspects with close personal ties. In these instances, finding biological material from the suspect in the home or other pertinent location associated with the victim is not unexpected. The reverse can also be true, for instance finding the blood of the victim in the vehicle of the suspect. In the absence of knowledge about time of deposition, it is impossible to link the evidence to the crime. A temporal linkage could also be valuable for determining the location of suspects being tracked. For example, identification of a biological specimen could possibly link Osama Bin Laden to a specific cave during a specific time range. This could help to establish an approximate distance in which the suspect could have traveled in the given time based on the deposition of the biological sample. Several approaches have been used in an attempt to determine the age of a bloodstain or other biological material. The majority of methods rely on the transformation of hemoglobin into its derivatives, and the changes in color and solubility which accompany them. Fiori (1962) summarized a method that correlated the age of the bloodstain with the progressive diffusion of C1-around the stain, which can be fixed as AgCl. Upon reduction, a black border will form around stains which are more than two months old. The size of the border will increase in increments up to nine months, indicating an approximate age of sample. Enzyme assays have also been used with limited success. In general, they allow for a statement that the sample is either less than or more than a certain age. Schwarz (1936) examined "peroxidase" in bloodstains as a method of determining age. The peroxidase was shown to be a direct indication of the amount of hemoglobin remaining in the stain. Guaiacum was used as a substrate for peroxidase, which produced a blue color in the presence of hemoglobin. These studies suggested that the intensity of the blue color varied with age. Another more recent approach (Rajamannarr, 1977) looked at the serum protein profile by immunoelectrophoresis in stains as a function of their age from 15 days to one year. A characteristic pattern of disappearance of various proteins at test points along the time line was constructed. All of the proteins were undetectable at 365 days. In contradiction, Sensabaugh, 1971, found albumin to be detectable by its immunological reaction in a dried blood sample eight years old. This contradiction has been explained by a change in electrophoretic mobility of albumin in aging bloodstains. The above approaches are incapable of discriminating blood samples from different species, provide too narrow or unreliable a window of time to be of much use, are limited to bloodstains and could have misleading results due to sample size. Our Approach to Estimating Time of Deposition One approach to determining the age of a biological sample is that of Carbon-14 (C14) dating. C14 is the radioactive form of Carbon and decays into Nitrogen14 (N14) at a constant rate. C14 is constantly being regenerated in the upper layers of the atmosphere by cosmic rays striking N14. Plants take up and incorporate both C14 and C12 into their cells. Animals that consume the plants likewise incorporate both types of Carbon into their cells. Once death occurs, however, no more C 14 gets taken into the body and the C 14 clock begins to tick. The ratio of radioactive C 14 to non- radioactive C12 will change in a predictable fashion over time. Unfortunately, the half-life of C14 (5,730 years) is such that it is of little use to the forensic scientists. The concept of monitoring the changing ratio of two chemicals or compounds over time, however, has merit. We have chosen to examine RNA stability as our method to determine the age of a biological sample. RNA has been proposed as a means to identify tissue type and one study looked at RNA levels relative to time of death but in general, the focus in the forensic science community has been on DNA. There are several reasons why we chose RNA over DNA. RNA is more abundant than DNA, existing in several 1000s of copies per cell as opposed to two copies for most DNA sequences. RNA is also relatively labile and is more susceptible than DNA to degradation due to factors such as high pH, RNases, certain chemicals, and possibly UV light. Most RNA species have a characterized in vivo half-life and a tightly regulated mechanism of decay. In contrast, as long as a cell is alive, its DNA remains intact. Many internal sequences and secondary structures regulate in vivo RNA decay. For example, c-myc contains a CRD (coding region instability determinant) that interacts with a 68-kDa CRD-BP (coding region instability determinant binding protein) which contains two RNA recognition motifs. When the CRD-BP is bound to c-myc mRNA, the CRD of the mRNA is shielded from endonucleolytic attack and the mRNA can only be degraded by standard degradation procedures. If the CRD-BP dissociates from the mRNA, the CRD becomes exposed to the endonuclease. The mRNA is then rapidly degraded by endonucleolytic cleavage within the CRD. This is just one example of the highly regulated in vivo decay of RNA. The ex vivo mechanism of RNA decay, however, has not been thoroughly investigated but our results indicate it is also a predictable process. Many studies have indicated that DNA associated with nucleosomes (assemblages of histone proteins on which DNA is wound) is less susceptible to degradation by either endogenous or exogenous nucleases than is linker DNA located between the nucleosomes. This tight association with histone proteins provides protection to the DNA. We speculated that ribosomal RNA (rRNA, an integral component of ribosomes), due to tight association with ribosomal proteins, would also be relatively sheltered from degradation. In contrast, messenger RNA (mRNA) is not as tightly associated with proteins and may be more susceptible to degradation. To estimate the relative amount of the two target RNAs recovered in a sample, we have utilized an approach called Real-time Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (Real-time RT-PCR). This approach first converts total RNA into complementary or copy DNA (cDNA) using the enzyme reverse transcriptase. The double stranded cDNA can then be amplified using appropriate primers in a traditional PCR reaction. Unlike traditional PCR, however, inclusion of a labeled probe complementary to the target RNA and internal to the primers allows the investigator to monitor the rate of PCR amplification of the targeted cDNAs. The rate of amplification is directly proportional to the amount of starting RNA. By labeling two different target RNA sequences with probes that emit light in different portions of the light spectra, you can monitor the relative rate of amplification of two different target RNAs. This approach is perfectly internally controlled for experimental error such as pippetting errors or differences in the amount or efficiency of the enzyme(s) used in the assay. For results and further information on this study, please go to: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/213892.pdf 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 and prosecute 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 If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please click on http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/remove_newsletter.html
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