Costs of DNA tests passed on to Oregon taxpayers

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MILWAUKIE, Ore. - Finding the man who raped a young girl and got her pregnant has come down to analyzing DNA evidence from her baby, but it is the kind of DNA testing that Oregon's crime lab does not do.

The young girl, who was 12 years old when the attack happened, hid her pregnancy from her parents for seven months. Police are now looking for her attacker, who is described as an Hispanic man in his 30s.

Police searching for rapist

The key evidence to catch the man may cost taxpayers thousands of dollars more than it has to because Oregon's crime lab is not equipped to do the type of DNA testing needed - what is called a 'reverse paternity test.'

"This child (the one the young girl gave birth to) is a great source of evidence to hopefully be able to catch this man," said Detective Wendi Babst, spokeswoman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.

Detectives have collected DNA from the infant and a reverse paternity test could help determine at least a basic DNA profile of the child's father.

However, the Oregon State Police crime lab does not have the resources to do this kind of testing, so police agencies and prosecutors must send the work to private labs at an additional expense.

"If someone from the crime lab does it, there is no additional expense to us and if someone from a private firm does it, it can be literally thousands of dollars of additional expense that we have to factor in," said Chief Deputy District Attorney Greg Horner.

Horner says the extra expense is not just in the testing.

"If the case ends up being prosecuted, there are witness fees that we would have to pay to bring people down to testify as to the results of the test," he said.

Those fees can run up to $300 per hour.

The Oregon State Police Crime Lab gets about a call a month from a detective or prosecutor wanting this type of DNA testing. A decision on whether to have the crime lab start doing reverse paternity tests is expected to be made by January of 2006.