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

Topic: A Faster DNA Test 

For events and conferences please go to the end of the newsletter. If there are any events you would like for us to mention, please send me the name and dates with a website link for further details.

In the news, states including South Carolina continue to work toward requiring DNA samples from arrestees. In Illinois convicted sex offenders are required “to provide DNA samples as part of their sex offender registration process”. And in New Mexico, as of January 1st, all suspects arrested for sexual or violent felonies must also provide DNA samples.

In Arizona police are increasingly using D-N-A to identify thousands of nameless bodies.

Following these stories we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence.

State might sample DNA in all arrests

Submitting a saliva sample during an arrest would be as routine as being fingerprinted and taking a mug shot if proposed legislation in the state senate were to become law.

The bill, filed late last year by Senate Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, would allow law enforcement officers throughout the state to take a DNA sample from anyone arrested on any charge — misdemeanor or felony.

If passed, the law would make South Carolina's DNA collection program the most aggressive in the nation, said David Lazer, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and project co-coordinator of DNA and the Criminal Justice System.

Like most states, South Carolina currently requires all convicted felons to provide a DNA sample. Some states, including Virginia, California and Texas, already allow sampling of people arrested before they are convicted but only for certain offenses.

South Carolina's DNA collection law has broadened since the initial bill was passed in 1994.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref01.html

DNA sample required for all sex crimes

[In the state of Illinois] law-enforcement officials hope a new law will help solve cold cases while deterring repeat sex offenders. 
 
The law, which took effect Monday, requires convicted sex offenders to provide DNA samples as part of their sex offender registration process. Officials say people convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses are those most affected by the change. 
 
Although treatment professionals support efforts to find repeat offenders, some say the new law won’t necessarily deter sex offenders. 
 
The law joins others addressing sex offenders in 2007. Other initiatives include revamping the state’s sex-offender registry so that the public can look up offenders by a specific address, a global positioning system for paroled sexual predators, and stricter requirements on where offenders may live in relation to child-care facilities. 
 
Sex offenders now will have to renew their driver’s licenses every year, as opposed to every four years. Another law prohibits custody or visitation by a father who was convicted of a sex crime that resulted in the child’s conception. 
 
In the new DNA law, samples will be kept by the Illinois State Police for analysis and comparison. State law already requires those convicted of sex offenses to provide their address, employer and other information to police. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref02.html 

New Mexico - As of January 1st, all suspects arrested for sexual or violent felonies in the state of New Mexico must provide DNA samples, under a new statute.

The law has been named Katie’s Law after Katie Sepich, a New Mexico State University student who was raped and murdered in 2003. 

Gabriel Avile was charged with Sepich’s murder last December after his DNA was tested while he was in prison for another crime and it matched DNA collected during the Sepich investigation.

At the Metropolitan Detention Center, the process of taking DNA samples involves repeated swabbing of the inside cheek of the felony suspect.

That sample, along with pictures and fingerprints, are then incorporated into a database.  If the DNA doesn’t match any outstanding crime and if the suspect is not convicted, his or her DNA can be taken out of the database. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref04.html 

Technology helping police ID more bodies 

Police are increasingly using D-N-A to identify thousands of nameless bodies in Arizona.

When they do, agencies will sometimes tap into a new database complied by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. 

D-P-S recently began compiling its D-N-A database using samples from relatives of missing people and unidentified bodies. 

D-P-S Superintendent Todd Griffith says his office is trying to help find missing people because they realize it's important for the families. 

So far, Arizona's fledgling database contains 91 D-N-A profiles from relatives of the missing and 83 from unidentified remains. 

And it's already having success. 

It's helped identify a woman last seen in 2002, a man killed in a car accident in 1999 and a person whose skull was found in May. 

As of last year, there were about 35-hundred active missing-persons cases in Arizona and 234 unidentified remains. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref05.html 

New and ongoing stories involving the use of DNA evidence include: 

Massachusetts - In a strange twist to the sensational murder case, inconclusive DNA has been found on the grip of the revolver Neil Entwistle allegedly used to execute his wife and baby daughter. 

Evidence lifted from the .22-caliber handgun that Entwistle allegedly stole from his father-in-law to commit the double homicides in his rented Hopkinton home nearly a year ago “is a mixture of DNA from at least two individuals,” including Entwistle, according to a state police crime laboratory report.  

The report - a portion of which was reviewed by the Herald - is dated March 28, the same day Entwistle was indicted for the executions of his wife, Rachel, 27, and infant daughter Lillian Rose. On the days leading up to the murders, Entwistle was allegedly trolling the Internet for extramarital sex.  

Entwistle, 28, has been determined to be the source of one of the DNA samples on the gun, the report notes, but was not conclusively identified as the source of the second DNA sample found.  

But his father-in-law, Joseph Mattarazzo of Carver, who police say unwittingly used the gun for target practice the day after the Jan. 20 slayings, was excluded by a state police DNA analyst.  

Other members of Mattarazzo’s household were ruled out as the potential second source, as were Rachel and Lillian Entwistle.  

Both Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone’s office and Entwistle’s defense attorney, Elliot Weinstein, declined to comment. But a national DNA expert told the Herald prosecutors are now “obligated” to positively identify the unexplained DNA - what he called “a red herring” - or a jury could have doubts it was Entwistle who actually pulled the trigger.  

“You must test this to the full extent or the defense can bring it up as an unanswered question,” said Dr. Michael M. Baden, a former chief medical examiner in New York City.  

In September, prosecutors filed a motion to perform “exhaustive” DNA testing on Entwistle and evidence collected, but Middlesex Superior Court Judge Peter M. Lauriat impounded the voluminous document.  

Entwistle, meanwhile, was returned to the custody of Middlesex Sheriff James DiPaola yesterday after a nearly three-week stint at Bridgewater State Hospital, where he was sent for reportedly writing his parents he had nothing to live for.  

Michael Hartigan, DiPaola’s spokesman, declined to say if Entwistle is under a suicide watch.

His trial has been pushed back to Oct. 1 to give both the prosecution and defense more time to review the complex DNA report.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref06.html

Texas - Detectives in Milam County are hoping a sketch of a young girl, made possible through advances in D.N.A. technology, will give life to a 20-year-old unsolved murder mystery.

In 1986 the decomposed body of a young girl was found face down in a ditch along Highway 77.

D.N.A. testing has become the missing link in murder cases, dismissing charges for someone wrongfully accused, and leading investigators to suspects who would otherwise get away with murder.

On November 4th, 1986, a telephone repairman working in southern Milam County came across the body.

Deputies said it had been there for at least ten days hidden in tall grass and brush.

Sheriff Charlie West, who was a deputy at the time, was second on the scene.

"It was a body of a young female, small in stature; the body had been dumped there," West said.

The victim died of blunt force trauma to the back of the head.

Collecting what evidence they could investigators came to a dead end.

When Milam County Sheriff's Deputies found the body on Highway 77, 20 years ago, D.N.A. testing didn't exist.

It does now and they're hoping it will be a break in the case.

In an effort to close one of two open murder investigations in the county, investigator Greg Kouba got a search warrant to exhume the skeletal remains and collect a D.N.A. sample two months ago.

"You know she's a young girl, she's somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, there's possibly family members that are still out there that have no idea where she's at today," Kouba said.

A forensic artist took measurements from the victim’s eyes, nose and skull and drew a sketch.

"The body was so decomposed I can't say that it even looks like her, but that's the best we can do.”

The drawing and D.N.A. profile will be put it national and international databases that find missing persons.

Sheriff West says the victim is a 12 to 16 year old Hispanic girl and that she had Spina Bifida and most likely walked with a limp.

West said it's important that her information be entered into the Mexican Government's missing persons database because that's most likely where she was from.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref07.html

Utah - Two cold murder cases may have been solved thanks to DNA evidence.

Prosecutors say if it wasn't for this DNA evidence the cases would still be mysteries.

One case is nine years old. It involved the murder of Cathy Cobb, who was found dead in her apartment in January of 1998. An autopsy found Cobb had been strangled.

According to court documents the suspect, Michael Johnson, told a friend that he left Cobb and she was dead. He told the friend, "he thought a Mexican had done it." But DNA evidence from the victim's fingernail clippings matched the DNA profile of Michael Johnson.

Bob Stott, Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office: "Fingernail clippings from the deceased body were analyzed for a DNA profile, and through that DNA profile they have found a match."

Prosecutors say DNA technology back then wasn't sufficient to develop the evidence they had.

DNA evidence also led to a suspect in the 2004 murder of Tara Brennon. The 28-year-old woman was found dead in the back seat of her car. She had multiple stab wounds.

According to charging documents, DNA was found on a cigarette butt in Brennon's car and on the belt ligature found on the victim's neck. The DNA matched the suspect, 40-year-old Michael Jones. Court documents say Jones said he was with Brennon the day her body was found. He told detectives he was selling her drugs and that Brennon was fine when he left.

Brennan was an accomplished violinist who attended Stanford University. She was attending law school in San Francisco and was home on a break when she died. Police have not arrested the suspect in her case and there's a warrant for his arrest.

As for Michael Johnson, he is in the Salt Lake County Jail on one million dollars bail.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref08.html 

Iowa - A cotton swab led investigators to a suspect 11 years after a 13-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped in downtown Des Moines and raped behind a suburban convenience store. 
 
Jody Nolan McCullah, 38, of Prairie City supplied a DNA sample when he was released from prison last summer on an assault conviction. 
 
The sample, from McCullah's saliva, was stored in a database at the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation crime lab. 
 
A match was made when West Des Moines police reopened the 11-year-old case, Lt. Jeff Miller said Monday. 
 
Such matches are rare, Miller said, "but I think as the database grows, we will see more hits coming from DNA samples." 
 
Investigators will again interview the alleged victim, who now is about 24 years old, and the friends who were with her the night she was kidnapped. 
 
"In the meantime, we do have the alleged offender in custody," Miller said. 
 
McCullah is charged with first-degree kidnapping and sexual assault. The kidnapping charge carries a life prison term. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref09.html 

Arkansas - Defense lawyers for a man accused of the 2005 slaying of an Arkansas Tech student have filed D-N-A evidence they say rules out their client as the assailant. 
 
Kevin Jones of Dover is to go on trial January 16th on a first-degree murder charge in the December 15th, 2005, bludgeoning death of Nona Dirksmeyer. The 19-year-old Dirksmeyer was found dead in her Russellville apartment. Jones was her boyfriend.  
 
Defense documents filed with the court say that Florida-based D-N-A Labs International found that D-N-A found on a condom wrapper "ruled Kevin Jones out" as the source.  
 
Russellville police alleged in a probable cause statement for Jones' arrest that Jones put the condom wrapper on a counter in the apartment to make it look like rape was the motive for the attack. Police also said that the medical examiner found no evidence of sexual assault.  
 
In addition, the court filings show that Jones may testify and that his lawyers may call as witnesses Jones' mother, Janice, and the victim's stepfather and mother, Duane and Carole Dipert.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref10.html 

New York - There is no statute of limitations for murder. 
 
That's what a Virginia man learned, sentenced Friday to 22 years to life in state prison following his conviction for a 1993 murder. 
 
Troy Cartwright, 42, currently incarcerated at the Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Va., was convicted of stabbing Deborah Cobb, an acquaintance, in her Yonkers apartment over 30 times, as well as cutting her throat. 
 
Although the crime occurred almost 14 years ago, the cold case was solved through DNA analysis by the Westchester County Forensics Lab of evidence left at the scene and continued police work by detectives of the Yonkers Police Department that linked Cartwright to the murder scene.  
 
Cartwright was arrested in Virginia shortly after the Yonkers murder on unrelated charges and has been in state prison there ever since. 
 
He was extradited to Westchester for his trial and has remained here until sentencing on two counts of murder in the second degree. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref11.html

California - Peter Rose, a former Lodi resident whose rape conviction was overturned in 2005 after DNA evidence failed to link him to the crime, has settled his false-imprisonment lawsuit against state and local agencies for $1 million.

Rose, 38, spent 10 years in state prisons after his 1995 conviction for raping a 13-year-old girl in a Lodi alley. But students at a San Francisco law school convinced a county judge to order Rose freed from Ione’s Mule Creek State Prison in February 2005 after he was cleared through new DNA tests.

The settlement still needs the blessing of U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. If approved, it would end the federal lawsuit Rose and his children filed in November 2005 against Lodi, two former Lodi police officers, San Joaquin County, a county prosecutor, the state Department of Justice and a state crime lab technician.

Lodi would pay $625,000, the state $275,000 and the county $100,000 under the settlement, Lodi Deputy City Attorney Janice Magdich said. Lodi will pay $500,000 from city funds with insurance covering the remaining $125,000. The city also will pay roughly $75,000 for its attorneys’ fees, she said.

Magdich said a third of the $1 million will go to Rose’s attorneys, with $444,444 going to Rose and the other $222,222 divided among his three children.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref12.html 
 

Kentucky – A man who served seven years in prison for a rape he didn't commit has settled part of a lawsuit for $700,000.

William Thomas Gregory, 58, was convicted of rape and two counts of attempted rape in 1993 and sentenced to 70 years in prison, based in part on a hair comparison that linked him to hair found in a stocking worn by the attacker.

Gregory was freed in 2000 after a DNA test proved the hair was not his. He has accused Kentucky State Police forensic examiner Dawn Ross Katz of falsifying the results of the hair comparison, which she has denied in court filings.

The settlement, approved by a judge last week, covers only Katz's conduct; Gregory still has a lawsuit pending against the city of Louisville and various police officers. Settlement talks are set for the end of January, with a trial scheduled for July.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref13.html

Washington - South Hill rapist Kevin Coe has maintained for a quarter century that he was wrongfully convicted of one rape, and wrongfully accused of dozens more.

He often blamed then-Spokane County Prosecutor Don Brockett for destroying a rape kit that Coe said would have exonerated him.

But state documents show that Spokane Police had evidence all along that positively matched Coe, through DNA profiling, as the attacker in the single rape case for which he was convicted and spent the last 25 years in prison. Assistant Attorney General Todd Bowers confirmed that the rape kits had been destroyed. But one sample remains that was taken from the victim on Oct. 23, 1980 at Deaconess Medical Center.

"Hospital staff … took their own sample in addition to the police." Brockett, reached at home Friday, said he was unaware of the other sample that was not destroyed along with the rape kit. The rape kits taken by Spokane Police were inadvertently destroyed decades ago. "I thought … that evidence was destroyed," Brockett said.

Bowers said the slide was discovered in police evidence when the state began it’s effort to determine whether it had enough evidence civilly commit Coe as a sexually violent predator.

Bowers and Assistant State Attorney General Malcolm Ross are expected to file a motion Monday asking Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor to approve a battery of psychological and personality tests in their effort to civilly commit Coe as a sexually violent predator – a move that could keep him locked up for the rest of his life.

That motion will also ask O’Connor to order Coe to submit to an interview with a psychologist. They also want her to order a lie detector test about his past sexual history, Bowers said. If a jury isn’t convinced Coe is a sexually violent predator, he will immediately be released. Coe’s attorney, Tim Trageser, could not immediately be reached today for comment and Coe has refused recent attempts for interviews.

In addition to the DNA evidence, Bowers and Ross want to use police reports from at least 23 sexual attacks in which they claim victims had at some point positively identified Coe as their attacker.

Asked if prosecutors have any other rape kits from those uncharged assaults that would link Coe’s DNA to crimes, Bowers said: "No comment." The state already had Coe’s DNA profile as part of a Washington State Patrol data bank, according to court records. But the court records don’t say when the Deaconess sample was discovered, and Bowers wouldn’t comment.

Bowers would not elaborate but confirmed that he is seeking a second mouth swab from Coe so that state investigators can double check the DNA testing.

Judge O’Connor has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 12 to allow attorneys for both sides to argue for their motions, which will shape the evidence presented in the civil commitment trial scheduled for July 16.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref14.html

Illinois - Pekin police used DNA evidence to arrest a man for burglary more than five months after he allegedly committed the crime. 
 
“This is the first time we've ever had a match like this,” public information officer Dustin Salmon said of the techniques used to find the suspect. 
 
Late on the night of July 20, someone threw a brick through the front window of Rick's TV, 306 Court St. 
 
Crime scene investigators concluded that the suspect entered the store through the broken window. When the suspect entered, he cut himself on the jagged glass, leaving behind tell-tale blood. An unknown amount of money was stolen from the retailer's cash box. 
 
Pekin investigators sent the blood sample to the Illinois State Crime Lab for analysis. Crime lab specialists pulled from the blood a DNA sample which they entered into the state's combined DNA index system. 
 
Salmon said that after 5 months of waiting, local investigators learned the DNA sample from the crime scene matched with Timothy J. Hartley, 28, of 403 Pecan in Pekin. 
 
Past record

According to Tazewell County court records, Hartley pleaded guilty to burglary in 2003. 
 
Records state that a woman reported her purse missing from her car, along with her debit card. Photos later obtained from CEFCU show Hartley using the card, records state. 
 
Hartley was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for that crime, but was released on probation. 
 
Salmon said police arrested Hartley during a probation appointment. Police obtained a new sample of DNA from Hartley and used it to double check that it matched the DNA found the night Rick's TV was burglarized. 
 
Salmon said the match was again identical and police arrested Hartley Wednesday for business burglary. 
 
Salmon said that normally, when DNA is sent to the Illinois State Crime Lab in Morton, investigators already have a suspect in mind. A suspect's DNA is sent along with the DNA recovered at the crime scene. Salmon said that this case is rare because Pekin police did not have a suspect in mind. “There was nothing to compare (the crime scene DNA) to,” Salmon said. 
 
Salmon said the DNA found on the glass outside of Rick's TV went to the crime lab alone. When a match came back in December, police had a suspect. 
 
Hartley was charged with burglary, a Class 2 felony, in Tazewell County felony court Tuesday afternoon.

Source:http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref15.html 

Texas - In February of 2000, Andrew Gossett was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to 50 years in prison. DNA cleared him of the crime. Gossett, 39, was released this morning. 
 
Gossett’s family spent a lot of money and energy to have him freed. Gossett’s father said it was very frustrating because they were not believed or seemingly helped.  
 
His family says they paid $1500 for DNA testing back in 2002, but it took 5 more years, and more testing, before he was released today. 
 
Dallas County’s new District Attorney Craig Watkins says his conviction was not good justice. 
 
“Being smart on crime is utilizing these technologies that we have to find people guilty or find them innocent. And when we do that, we restore credibility. At this point I believe that credibility is damaged,” Watkins said.  
 
Watkins says he'll work to have the governor issue a pardon and try to get the $25,000 a year payment Gossett is eligible for to him as quickly as possible. 
 
That’s $175,000 for the 7 years he was in jail. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref16.html

Illinois - The rape of a North Side woman on Thanksgiving has been solved by the arrest of a Country Club Hills parolee linked to the crime by DNA, police alleged Friday. 
 
About 4:45 a.m. Nov. 23, the woman was assaulted while walking alone in the 3100 block of North Seminary Avenue. Two other women were attacked in the following days by a man who fit the same description, Chicago police spokesman Patrick Camden said.

Police immediately circulated a composite sketch of the man but had to wait a month for DNA tests to be completed. 
 
Evidence recovered from the rape victim and hair torn out by one of the later victims matched Courtney Austin, 26, of Country Club Hills, police said. He had been released on parole in June for a drug conviction, according to state corrections records. His DNA was on file with authorities because of his previous incarceration. 
 
Austin is charged with aggravated kidnapping and criminal sexual assault in the Thanksgiving attack, Camden said. The investigation is ongoing in the other cases.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref17.html

Missouri - Springfield police said Friday that they have found a suspect in a cold case involving a double sexual assault from 1995 after a man charged with a similar crime in Illinois matched an old DNA profile.

Melvin Green, 32, was charged earlier this week with the sexual assault of two female roommates in Springfield three days before Christmas in 1995, police said in a written statement. Green is charged with eight counts, including forcible sodomy, attempted forcible rape and robbery.

The two women reported that an assailant entered in the early morning hours and told them he had a gun. He attacked them and left after stealing money and jewelry.

Investigators at the time collected DNA evidence. Two months ago, they were told a suspect jailed in Joliet, Ill., matched the stored DNA profile.

A new DNA sample from Green also matched the crime scene evidence, authorities said. Springfield police interviewed Green and said he admitted to sexually assaulting the two women in 1995 and taking the cash and jewelry.

Green is currently jailed in Joliet, where he also faces sexual assault charges, police said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref18.html

California - Using DNA evidence from a case that went unsolved for nearly 30 years, police have finally arrested a suspect in the rape and murder of a Santa Clara teenager.

Mary Ann Quigley, 17, was raped and murdered in the former War Memorial Park in Santa Clara on Sept. 10, 1977, after she walked home alone from a party. The Santa Clara High School student's naked body was found hanging from a fence, with a piece of her own clothing tied around her neck, said Santa Clara police Lt. Michael Sellers.

Technicians at the Santa Clara County Crime Laboratory were able to make a "cold hit" identifying Richard Armand Archibeque, 47, as a suspect when his DNA sample matched evidence from the old homicide investigation, Sellers said.

Archibeque, who was only recently required to submit a sample to the known offender database due to an unrelated criminal conviction, was arrested Wednesday. Police said the two knew each other because they attended the same school.

Archibeque was booked into the Santa Clara County Jail on Wednesday and was scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

Sellers said the high-profile case was the oldest to be solved in Santa Clara thanks to cold-case DNA technology.

"His name was never looked at being a suspect in this particular case," said Sellers. "And it was a pretty well-known case."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref19.html

California - Contra Costa County sheriff's investigators arrested a man in Brentwood Thursday they say is responsible for the abduction and rape of an underage girl over a year ago.

Detectives linked Daniel Alfredo Flores, 29, to the crime using DNA evidence and the state's databank, according to the sheriff's office. They say he is responsible for a sexual assault in Bay Point in October 2005.

Flores was arrested in Brentwood, where he resided, and booked early this morning in Contra Costa County jail on charges of forcible rape, forcible sodomy, digital penetration, false imprisonment and kidnapping for the purpose of committing a felony sexual offense.

The sheriff's office is working with other law enforcement agencies around the state to determine whether Flores can be connected with any other attacks.

According to Capt. Daniel Terry with the sheriff's investigation division, DNA evidence has become one of the most helpful tools in crime fighting.

Flores is expected to be arraigned early next week. He is being held on $1,100,000 bail.

 Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref20.html

Wisconsin - The state will pay more than 78-thousand dollars to a man who spent four years in prison for a rape DNA tests prove he didn't commit.

Anthony Hicks was convicted in 1991 after the victim identified him as her assailant.

But a 1996 DNA analysis of the hairs found on the scene showed Hicks could not have been the one who committed the crime. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered a new trial, but prosecutors dismissed the case in April 1997. 

The state Claims Board awarded 25-thousand dollars to Hicks, the most it can pay a wrongly convicted person under state law. It also gave him more than 53-thousand dollars in attorney fees, half of the amount Hicks says he paid his appellate attorney to prove his innocence. 

Hicks says he hopes this is the end of it because it's been a long journey. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref21.html 

North Carolina - An arrest was made this week in a 1991 rape case after authorities matched DNA from the crime scene with a convicted felon in the state's database, police said. 

Ronald Delaine Williams, 43, of Winston-Salem, was arrested Wednesday in connection with an attack on a 23-year-old woman June 19, 1991. Williams is accused of dragging the woman, raping her and stealing her rings, a bracelet and money, police said. 

The case was one of 73 unsolved sexual assaults that Winston-Salem police sent to the State Bureau of Investigation's lab to test evidence from crime scenes against the state's DNA database of convicted felons. 

The case was the first of the 73 cases in Winston-Salem to lead to an arrest, said David Clayton, captain of the police department's Criminal Investigations Division. 

Williams was convicted in 1996 of second-degree rape stemming from a 1994 incident, according to court records. He served a 3 1/2-year prison term and got out on parole in 1999, according to N.C. Department of Correction records. 

Williams returned to prison in 2004 for eight months after failing to register as a sex offender, records show. 

As of Thursday night, Williams was being held in the Forsyth County jail with bond set at $50,000. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref22.html

Did You Know?

Topic: A Faster DNA Test

Science: A Faster DNA Test

Newsweek

Jan. 15, 2007 issue - A tiny silicon device half the size of a fingernail is on the verge of changing the world of DNA testing. Thermal Gradient, a small biotech company in upstate New York, has developed a mechanism that reduces DNA amplification—the third most time-consuming stage of testing—from several hours to four minutes. While traditional machines need to cycle through extreme hot and cold temperatures to amplify a sample of DNA, the new device operates much more quickly by using microscopic preheated and cooled layers of silicon. "It's like we're breaking the sound barrier," says Bob Juncosa, Thermal Gradient's chief technical officer.

The technology has the potential to revolutionize the highly regulated medical-diagnostics industry by giving doctors the ability to perform "instant" DNA tests, but its inventors don't see it being used that way for at least three to five years. For now, its trial run will come in the realm of biodefense. The Department of Homeland Security has awarded the company an initial $500,000 contract to develop an instant biological airborne-detection system. It will monitor the air in places like airports and government buildings, quickly identifying the DNA signature of deadly pathogens and alerting first responders to a possible terrorist attack. "We need-ed something that was fast and accurate," says former Homeland Security employee Mike McLoughlin, who was part of a team that picked Thermal Gradient's device over a host of other submissions.

Thermal Gradient is also looking into ways to design a deployable unit for the U.S. Army that would enable soldiers to identify dangerous chemical agents on the battlefield. And companies in England have expressed interest in using the device to equip police stations with DNA-testing kits.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_35_jan_07/vol34_ref23.html

Events and conferences for 2007 that may of interest to you include: 

18th International Symposium on Human Identification - October 1-4, 2007

Renaissance Hollywood Hotel - Hollywood, California

Web site: http://www.promega.com/applications/hmnid/ 

AAFS – American Academy of Forensic Sciences – 59th Annual Meeting - February 19 through 24, 2007 in San Antonio, Texas

http://www.aafs.org/default.asp?section_id=meetings&page_id=aafs_annual_meeting. 

AFDAA - The Association of Forensic DNA Analysts and Administrators - January 25 and 26, 2007 in Austin, Texas. The AFDAA is currently looking for speakers. If you are interested in giving a presentation, please contact Joe Warren at jwarren@hsc.unt.edu. For more information on the AFDAA please go to www.AFDAA.org. 
 

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

Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com  

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