Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.

Topic: Why can’t DNA samples and other biological specimens for DNA testing be packaged in plastic?

Stories we covered in the past included the fact that missing persons cases are still out there in great numbers. Some bodies have been found and not identified, others remain missing. Many families continue to live with unanswered questions, and criminals likely to commit repeat crimes are roaming free. Organizations across the country are working diligently to change the startling statistics, as indicated in the first article covered in this issue. 

DNA Labs International is proud to be part of one case involving a missing person. The body has not yet been found, however, DNA technology has aided in the identification of the victim through “reverse paternity” testing: "By use of both parents and of the child as well as eliminating the portion of the child's DNA attributable by David Bush, a full DNA profile was constructed of Lynn Bush [the victim]." For more on this story, please see the article entitled “DNA, persistence built case”. 

Other topics covered over that past two weeks include the increasing number of cases being sent to crime labs for DNA analysis, making it difficult for many labs to lower their backlogs. And, as of Monday of this week, Indiana joins a growing number of states in the collection of DNA for felons. “Until now, only felons in the state who committed the most violent crimes had to provide DNA samples.” 

As always there are a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence. 

How forensic DNA may finally fulfill its promise 

In the decade since forensic science became a television drama staple, DNA profiling has undergone sweeping technical advances, giving it the potential to transform law enforcement. But, contrary to what one may learn from watching prime-time crime, the tool is far from the investigator's trick of choice; in fact, to many police forces in the US, it's an exotic and expensive forensic luxury.

Nowhere has this been felt more acutely than in investigations of the missing and the unidentified dead. The frustrating reality for those involved in actual cases is that, despite the progress in DNA fingerprinting, there exists no functional national system giving investigators universal access to forensic DNA resources—neither the ability to collect DNA from relatives of the missing, nor the facility to access data from investigations that do produce DNA.

One-hundred thousand people are missing in the US on any given day, and there are currently upwards of 40,000 unidentified bodies in coroners' offices around the country--more than half of them homicide victims. Bill Hagmaier, executive director of the International Homicide Investigators Association (IHIA), elucidates the point: "That's at least 20-25,000 murders where justice has never been served, and around 20,000 murderers running free to kill again." Of the 40,000, just 5,700 are registered with the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), an FBI-managed database containing reports of missing persons and related details.

Ideally, an unidentified body in Tallahassee could be matched to a mother's DNA sample given in Seattle—but there's no money to collect the sample. Even if there were, the body lies unidentified because there's no way of linking the data.

As far as the collection is concerned, it's mainly a function of finances: At around $2,000 for a nuclear DNA profile and up to $8,000 for a mitochondrial DNA profile, many police forces and coroners simply cannot afford to make use of forensic DNA in their investigations. Even when they do get DNA data, says Hagmaier, a former profiler with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, there is the added problem of the vast fragmentation of US law enforcement. "There are 17,000 police departments in this country, half of which have fewer than 10 officers," he says. "There are 3,000 coroners and medical examiners, many of whom have no investigative training. Many of these forces and coroners don't even have a computer, never mind a computer capable of using the databases we do have."

Hagmaier and others are working to change all this by addressing each obstacle. Jerry Nance, a senior case manager with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Alexandria, VA, is connecting the dots by exploiting a little-used arm of CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, made famous by CSI and Law & Order. As things currently stand, says Nance, who spent 26 years as a special agent with the Navy's Criminal Investigative Service before joining NCMEC, his job is like "coal mining with kitchen utensils." The result is that parents of missing children are forced to "endure nothing less than a living hell, never knowing what happened to their child."

NCMEC discovered a part of CODIS that has not been dramatized: On one side is a database for samples taken from unidentified remains or from DNA trace evidence of the missing; on the other, a database containing reference samples from the families of the missing.

The problem is that there's hardly any data in the databases. This is where Bill Hagmaier comes in. Two years ago he convinced the Department of Justice to launch a working group on unidentified remains. Once it was underway, Hagmaier reached out to an old friend, Professor Arthur Eisenberg, whose science was instrumental in making forensic DNA such a promising tool. Eisenberg now heads the System Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas (UNT), a research facility that pioneered the applications of DNA profiling and is now at the forefront of efforts to make them as widely available as possible.

With Eisenberg's help, Hagmaier's group figured out how they might solve the problem. The Center at UNT receives funding from President Bush's DNA Initiative, a billion-dollar program administered by the Department of Justice, aimed at improving the utilization of DNA within the criminal justice system. Now, thanks in part to Hagmaier, the Center has a unique mandate within the DNA Initiative, says Eisenberg: Any police force can submit DNA for profiling, for free. "It doesn't matter how big or how small the agency. They can come to us and we will do the profiling for nothing." With this system in place, Eisenberg gives rural sheriffs the same forensic muscle as the FBI, helping to solve crimes that have gone unpunished or even undetected.

But that's only half the equation: Just as crucially, Eisenberg's was the first non-law enforcement lab enabled to upload new data onto CODIS's unidentified human remains and reference samples databases.

Eisenberg's UNT lab yielded results almost immediately, putting faces and names to a number of remains that had lain unidentified for years. In addition, the Center has also helped in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, identifying unrecognizable remains in Mississippi. And NCMEC has used the system to identify remains that had gone unidentified for decades.

"We started out small, but now we are blossoming," says Eisenberg, who is expanding his lab's capacity, recruiting more analysts, and automating and streamlining the DNA extraction process. The goal, he says, is a "realistically achievable ambition to identify every one of the tens of thousands of unidentified remains we know about. Every one of them. They deserve nothing less."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref01.html

DNA, persistence built case

David Labon Bush, who had bragged about committing the perfect crime, left a trail of evidence that led to his arrest Friday on a charge of first degree murder of his wife Lynn Lynette Bush in December 1990, according to an affidavit filed with Natrona County Circuit Court. 
 
On the other hand, Lynn Bush left no trail at all indicating she disappeared and resurfaced elsewhere since Dec. 9, 1990, when her husband reported her missing, according to the affidavit written by Casper police detective Kathryn Davison and filed by 7th District Attorney Mike Blonigen with the court on July 31. 
 
Her body has not been found. 
 
However, new DNA technology, a nationwide computer search, a review of old evidence, and recent interviews with witnesses built the case for the murder charge, according to the affidavit.

Davison submitted to the Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based DNA Labs International numerous DNA samples: one from David Bush, one from David and Lynn Bush's daughter Misty, samples from Lynn Bush's parents Larry and Gail Knievel, samples from six locations in the 1985 pickup owned by David and Lynn Bush, and one from a vodka bottle found in the Bush residence. 
 
The lab was able to reconstruct Lynn Bush's DNA by a method called "reverse paternity," according to the affidavit. 
 
"By use of both parents and of the child as well as eliminating the portion of the child's DNA attributable by David Bush, a full DNA profile was constructed of Lynn Bush." 
 
The six samples from different locations in the truck were hers, according to the affidavit. "The chance of this same DNA profile randomly occurring are one in 51 quadrillion." 
 
On Sunday, Blonigen said David Bush is at the Natrona County Detention Center and he probably will make his initial appearance in Natrona County Circuit Court today. 
 
Bush's arrest ended more than 15 years of detective work that sometimes went dormant, but never cold, he said. "I would never have called it truly closed." 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref22.html 
 

DNA backlogs, submissions grow

 
The number of criminal cases waiting for DNA tests in Wisconsin more than doubled from 2003 to 2005. 

The Associated Press reviewed Justice Department statistics and found the backlog has jumped from 478 in 2003 to 1 thousand 375 in 2005.  

Justice officials say they've been inundated with evidence from district attorneys and police departments looking to bolster their cases. The number of cases sent to the state crime labs in Madison and Milwaukee grew 62 percent over those three years.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref03.html

In Wisconsin, state forensic scientists in Madison have sparkling new digs, but they haven't dented the backlog of cases waiting for DNA testing - at least not statistically.

The state gutted the old crime lab in Madison and reopened it in May 2004 with $12 million in renovations. Marie Varriale, the lab's forensics supervisor, hailed the new facility at the time, saying it would help DNA analysts complete their work faster.

But the number of cases with evidence waiting for DNA testing at the lab grew from 319 at the end of 2004 to 588 at the end of 2005.

Department of Justice spokesman Mike Bauer said the new lab has made a difference, but prosecutors and police are sending more and more evidence in for testing.

But evidence keeps piling up. The lab got 839 cases with evidence samples for DNA testing in 2005, finishing work on 570, according to Justice Department data. It got 834 in 2004, wrapping up 429. In 2003 the lab received 677 cases, finishing 528.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref04.html

Indiana to begin DNA collection for felons

Beginning Monday, thousands of Indiana felons will have to provide DNA samples for a statewide database. 
 
The program, which begins first in Marion County and will spread to the remainder of the state, is part of a 2005 law. 
 
Advocates hope the testing will reduce violent crime, help solve old case and remove repeat offenders from the streets. 
 
“We’re going to get hits, we’re going to get investigative leads, we’re going to get suspects,” said Mark Renner of Strand Analytical Laboratories, which will extract the samples. 
 
Until now, only felons in the state who committed the most violent crimes had to provide DNA samples. 
 
As many as 16,000 new felons are expected to provide their DNA over the next year. The sample is taken with a swap that is rubbed along the inside of the cheek. 
 
Every state maintains a DNA database, although some test only those convicted of murder or other violent offenses. Other states collect samples from juveniles convicted of crimes that would be felonies if committed by an adult. 
 
Renner said two-thirds of people released from prison after serving sentences for felony convictions will reoffended in three years. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref05.html

Cases involving DNA evidence include:

New York - Prosecutors have decided to drop charges against a Wisconsin woman, who spent 10 years in prison after being convicted of the 1991 murders of two elderly sisters, after new DNA evidence tests showed that blood found at the crime scene did not match Beth LaBatte. Earlier, a new trial was ordered for LaBatte after preliminary DNA testing did not match hers. After subsequent testing, prosecutors decided not to proceed with the second trial.

LaBatte, 39, was arrested in 1996 and convicted a year later of two counts of homicide and two counts of armed robbery in connection with the Nov. 16, 1991 beating deaths of Cecilia Cadigan, 85, and her sister Ann Cadigan, 90 at their home in Casco, a town of about 600 residents 20 miles east of Green Bay.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref06.html

Missouri - A man accused of committing a string of rapes 20 years ago near a popular bar and entertainment district was charged with another Monday, bringing the total to 12.

Jackson County prosecutors charged Shy Bland, 50, with aggravated forcible sodomy, attempted forcible rape and aggravated forcible rape in connection with the Jan. 25, 1986, attack.

Authorities charged Bland in July 2005 with 33 counts related to 11 rapes in Kansas City's Westport area, saying old DNA evidence linked him to the crimes. The rapes occurred between April 1985 and August 1986.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref08.html

Louisisana - A 38-year-old Lake Charles man serving a life sentence for a 1997 aggravated rape conviction has been granted a new trial after prosecutors conceded that DNA gathered from the victim did not match the defendant's.

State district court Judge Kent Savoie ordered a new trial for Allen H- Coco. Coco has always denied involvement in the rape, saying he was misidentified.  

Judge Greg Lyons, who found Coco guilty of both aggravated rape and aggravated burglary, sentenced Coco, a prior felon, to life in prison without parole on the rape count and a concurrent 15-year term on the burglary count.

Coco allegedly broke into an apartment in May, 1995, and sexually assaulted a 28-year-old woman.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref09.html

New York - Friday, two New York State forensic pathologists took the stand and testified about DNA and blood samples that were taken from the Porco home. They tested them and found no absolute matches with Christopher Porco.

"There's absolutely no forensic evidence between Christopher and the commission of the crime, and I think that's the biggest thing that happened today," Defense Attorney Terence Kindlon said.

The scientists found blood in Chris Porco's jeep and on one of his t-shirts. But, DNA testing proved the blood was his own.

"Out of the bloodbath you would have expected blood would get into his jeep, and it would be filled with evidence. It would be filled with DNA, blood…and it was clean as a whistle," Kindlon said.

"There's no unaccounted for DNA. There's no mystery DNA. You know Christopher Porco was very careful in what he did and covering his tracks," Chief Assistant District Attorney Michael McDermott said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref10.html

More:

New York - A DNA expert testified Tuesday that there is a 99.6 percent chance that Christopher Porco's DNA was on a Thruway ticket that prosecutors contend he handed in at an Albany toll booth on the night his parents were attacked. 

But under cross-examination from Porco's attorney, Terence L. Kindlon, the DNA researcher admitted that her findings are not bulletproof.  

"We cannot say for sure that DNA on that ticket is Mr. Porco's," said Terry Melton, a mitochondrial DNA specialist and president of Mitotyping Industries in State College, Pa.  

A test for nuclear DNA, which a person inherits from both parents, was performed on the toll ticket at a State Police laboratory in Albany in the months following the attacks but did not yield a positive hit, authorities said.  

Then, earlier this year, Albany County prosecutors asked that the toll ticket be sent to Melton's laboratory, which is privately run, to see whether she could extract mitochondrial DNA.

In court Tuesday, Melton said her technicians were able to extract enough mitochondrial DNA, which a person inherits only from the mother, to determine that it had the same rare characteristics as Porco's mitochondrial DNA.  

"At most, 0.39 percent of North Americans might have this type," Melton said, later adding: "We're saying that 99.61 percent of North Americans would not be expected to have this profile."  

Prosecutors said they hoped Melton's research might bolster earlier testimony from two tollbooth collectors who said they saw a yellow Jeep -- similar to Porco's and being driven by a white male in his 20s -- come through their booths on the night of the murder.  

"As we said all along, DNA is just part of the puzzle," Chief Assistant District Attorney Michael P. McDermott said outside court.  

Still, McDermott admitted that Kindlon had raised questions about the reliability of the mitochondrial DNA during his cross-examination. At one point, Melton conceded that the DNA taken from three of eight people who handled the ticket, including at least two State Police officials, could not be excluded as the source of the DNA.  

Melton said that was only because their test results were "inconclusive," and that they did not diminish her findings that there is a 99.6 percent chance that Porco's DNA was on that ticket.  

"All right, yes, we're not able to exclude them," Melton said, as Kindlon pressed her on the issue.  

Outside court, Kindlon said he intends to call as a witness later this week a DNA expert from Syracuse University, William J. Shields, who will challenge Melton's findings.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref12.html

California - Disparate pictures of defendant Scott Dyleski emerged as his trial on charges of murdering a prominent defense attorney's wife began.

Prosecutor Harold Jewett described the 17-year-old Dyleski as a loner who wore black and dabbled in macabre art often signed with a particular symbol, one that bore some resemblance to a mark carved in the dead woman's back.

But defense attorney Ellen Leonida described Dyleski as conscientious and caring beneath a facade of teenage angst.

In his opening statement Thursday, Jewett said DNA links Dyleski to the killing, but the case is about more than that, including other evidence and testimony.

"It's not any one piece of evidence. It's everything," Jewett said. "You take everything and you add it up."

Leonida, who spoke only briefly Thursday, told jurors that Dyleski was home when Vitale was killed and also said there is conflicting DNA evidence.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref13.html

Florida - It happened in the middle of the day - a 27-year-old woman dragged into the woods and raped - but it went unsolved for more than a decade.

Until now.

DNA evidence left by the rapist was entered into a state database in 1995. There the evidence stayed, unidentified until April of this year, when a match was made.

Clearwater police arrested Lenzy Dixon, 42, on March 29. As a felon, he was not permitted to own a gun, but police learned he had pawned a .357 revolver and arrested him on charges of felonious possession of a firearm. Upon his arrest, he provided a DNA sample that was forwarded to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The match was found in April, police said, but investigators had to track down the woman to see if she was still interested in prosecuting the case. She was.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref14.html 

Ohio - Investigators said DNA matched a man to a crime and now that man is headed to prison.  

A woman reported being raped and robbed at a Lee’s Famous Recipe in Harrison Township in 1998.  

The case went cold until DNA linked Hayward Danley to the case in February. Danley was already in prison at the time and just days short of being released.

He will now be locked up for even longer. He has been sentenced to 15 years for aggravated robbery, rape and kidnapping.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref15.html 

Ohio - A DNA sample taken from a crime scene in Indiana is having a local ripple effect to police in Oxford.

The Miami Valley Crime Lab in Dayton has acknowledged that a DNA sample which came from a crime scene in Fayette County, Indiana matches the DNA taken from the scene in which someone raped a Miami University student in January of this year.

The rape in Indiana took place on March 6th and police officials from Oxford contacted the Fayette County police who steered them to the Indiana State Police Lab where the samples were entered into a national database called CODIS where the samples were eventually matched up.

Police in Indiana and Oxford continue to investigate their respective cases. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref16.html

California - Travis Hayes and his lawyers were elated when they learned that Louisiana prosecutors had dismissed all charges against his friend Ryan Matthews, who had spent more than five years on death row for the 1997 murder of a grocery store owner. 
 
Hayes had a special interest in the dismissal: He was serving a life sentence as Matthews' getaway driver.

It was almost two years ago that Jefferson Parish Dist. Atty. Paul D. Connick announced that he was dropping charges against Matthews after five DNA tests "failed to establish any link" between Matthews and clothing — including a ski mask — thrown from a car fleeing the crime scene. 
 
Connick said tests confirmed that there was DNA on the ski mask from Rondell Love, who was serving a 20-year sentence for slashing the throat of a woman who lived near the market, six months after the grocer was killed. 
 
Love, according to court records, had bragged to other inmates that he had killed Tommy Vanhoose, the owner of Comeaux's Grocery in Bridge City, which lies across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. Vanhoose was shot four times with a .38-caliber revolver during an attempted robbery and bled to death. 
 
Lawyer Emily Maw of the New Orleans Innocence Project said she and Hayes expected that he too would soon be released. There was no DNA evidence implicating him, and none of the witnesses could put Hayes at the crime scene or in a car fleeing from it. 
 
But Hayes is still serving a life sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, and Love has not been charged.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref17.html

California - An Anaheim man linked through DNA to the 1998 rape and bludgeoning murder of a woman in her market, where she sometimes slept behind the counter when the store was closed, was indicted today by a grand jury.

Louis Acosta, 35, is scheduled to be arraigned Friday on a charge of murder and the special circumstance allegation of murder during commission of a rape, said Susan Schroeder of the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

Acosta is accused of entering the D&D Market in Anaheim on June 4, 1998, and raping and killing owner-operator Dung Duong, 42, who was found lying on a makeshift bed in a pool of blood, Schroeder said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref18.html

New Hampshire - Investigators yesterday exhumed the body of a 13-year-old Franklin girl who was slain 35 years ago, in the hopes that new DNA evidence will identify her killer.

Kathy Lynn Gloddy, a pretty tomboy known for her compassion and skills at sandlot baseball, was raped, beaten, run over with a motor vehicle and left on a dirt road in West Franklin in November 1971. No one has ever been arrested for her death.

A break in the case came in March, when a Florida sex offender named Edward Dukette walked into his local jail and said he was with Gloddy when she died, according to a police report. Dukette, 63, formerly of Franklin, was one of several original suspects in 1971, according to court papers.

The police uncovered a number of promising leads after Dukette came forward, Delker said. Two state police detectives are on the case, he said, along with Franklin police Lt. Stephanie Clough.

The forensic pathologist who conducted an autopsy on Gloddy in 1971 noted semen was present in her body, but he did not collect a sample of it at the time, according to court documents.

In seeking court permission to exhume Gloddy's body, an investigator wrote that a medical examiner told him that "additional DNA from the perpetrator may be recovered from Kathy Gloddy's body, even after 35 years."

But one expert said that, while the body may contain useful evidence, it's unlikely that traces of the killer's DNA can be found now.

"Chances are slim" that the semen will help investigators now, according to Max Houck, a former FBI forensic anthropologist who has written textbooks on the science.

"It may be there, but it's probably going to be degraded to a point where it wouldn't be useful for DNA analysis," Houck said.

Some of the rapist's mitochondrial DNA could have survived for three decades, Houck said. That form of DNA lasts longest, but it provides less information, narrowing the suspect pool only to the rapist's maternal line.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref19.html

Pennsylvania - Montgomery County Judge William T. Nicholas dismissed Jacuqin Jaron Byrd’s request that murder-related charges be dismissed against him, according to an order filed in county court Tuesday.

The judge, after hearing testimony from detectives last week, determined there is sufficient evidence to hold Byrd for trial on charges of first- and third-degree murder, theft, tampering with evidence, possession of an instrument of crime and lying to authorities in connection with the Jan. 26 death of Sarah Boone. The judge set Byrd’s trial date for Nov. 27. 
 
In March, District Judge Kathleen Valentine of Ardmore ruled prosecutors did provide sufficient evidence to support the charges during Byrd’s preliminary hearing; however, defense lawyer William McElroy argued the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing was not sufficient to charge Byrd and he asked a county judge to consider the matter. 
 
County detectives testified to Nicholas that forensic tests conducted on scissors and a hammer found at the murder scene showed a mixture of DNA from Boone and Byrd. 
 
First Assistant District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, referring to the mathematical odds gleaned from the DNA tests, told Nicholas, "That means there is a one in 62 million chance it’s someone else other than Byrd." 
 
Blood on the scissors and hammer matched Boone’s DNA while "touch" DNA obtained from those two items matched Byrd’s, the prosecutor said. Byrd’s DNA involved skin cells found on the handles of the scissors and hammer, according to the prosecutor. 
 
McElroy argued that prosecutors used "some phantom source" of DNA to link Byrd to the crime and that the evidence is insufficient. 
 
Byrd, 27, of the Olney section of Philadelphia, faces a life prison sentence if convicted of first-degree murder. A third-degree murder conviction carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref20.html

California - Derek Leevard Buncom made his initial appearance in a Lompoc court Friday to face 11 charges related to two sexual assaults that occurred in 1999.

Buncom, 44, was arrested recently after his DNA was found to be a match for DNA evidence taken from the crime scenes, according to Lompoc police.

Authorities in Alaska took a DNA sample from Buncom while he was incarcerated there for a burglary conviction. The match was made through the FBI's National DNA Index System.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_24_aug_06/vol24_ref21.html

Did You Know?

Topic: Why can’t DNA samples and other biological specimens for DNA testing be packaged in plastic? 

Biological specimens inherently harbor bacteria. Bacteria grow in warm and moist environments. Packaging biological specimens in plastic would encourage bacterial growth by allowing the specimen to stay warm and moist, a greenhouse effect. Packaging in paper (or cardboard) will allow the specimen to breathe and will take away the one thing that bacteria need most, moisture. Packaging in paper and keeping the specimen cold (or frozen) is the most suitable way to attenuate bacterial growth. 

Source: www.geneticsandhealth.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. 

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.   
 

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