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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue. Topic: Nanotechnology meets biology and DNA finds its grooveFor 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. As the US Justice Department moves forward with the expansion of DNA collection, international headlines on this topic are increasing. The database growth is to include “most people arrested or detained by federal authorities”, including a great number of illegal immigrants. Supporters and critics continue their debate over the expansion including issues such as civil rights liberties, the importance of detaining criminals before they commit additional crimes, personal information that is accessible through fingerprinting versus DNA and the effects on the existing backlog. Below is a recent story which covers all of these areas. Following this story we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence. U.S. Set to Begin a Vast Expansion of DNA SamplingThe Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected. The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents. Over the last year, the Justice Department has been conducting an internal review and consulting with other agencies to prepare regulations to carry out the law. The goal, justice officials said, is to make the practice of DNA sampling as routine as fingerprinting for anyone detained by federal agents, including illegal immigrants. Until now, federal authorities have taken DNA samples only from convicted felons. The law has strong support from crime victims’ organizations and some women’s groups, who say it will help law enforcement identify sexual predators and also detect dangerous criminals among illegal immigrants. “Obviously, the bigger the DNA database, the better,” said Lynn Parrish, the spokeswoman for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, based in Washington. “If this had been implemented years ago, it could have prevented many crimes. Rapists are generalists. They don’t just rape, they also murder.” Peter Neufeld, a lawyer who is a co-director of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated dozens of prison inmates using DNA evidence, said the government was overreaching by seeking to apply DNA sampling as universally as fingerprinting. “Whereas fingerprints merely identify the person who left them,” Mr. Neufeld said, “DNA profiles have the potential to reveal our physical diseases and mental disorders. It becomes intrusive when the government begins to mine our most intimate matters.” Immigration lawyers said they did not learn of the measure when it passed last year and were dismayed by its sweeping scope. “This has taken us by storm,” said Deborah Notkin, a lawyer who was president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association last year. “It’s so broad, it’s scary. It is a terrible thing to do because people are sometimes detained erroneously in the immigration system.” Immigration lawyers noted that most immigration violations, including those committed when people enter the country illegally, are civil, not criminal, offenses. They warned that the new law would make it difficult for immigrants to remove their DNA profiles from the federal database, even if they were never found to have committed any serious violation or crime. Under the new law, DNA samples would be taken from any illegal immigrants who are detained and would normally be fingerprinted, justice officials said. Last year federal customs, Border Patrol and immigration agents detained more than 1.2 million immigrants, the majority of them at the border with Mexico. About 238,000 of those immigrants were detained in immigration enforcement investigations. A great majority of all immigration detainees were fingerprinted, immigration officials said. About 102,000 people were arrested on federal charges not related to immigration in 2005. While the proposed rules have not been finished, justice officials said they were certain to bring a huge new workload for the F.B.I. laboratory that logs, analyzes and stores federal DNA samples. Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said they anticipated an increase ranging from 250,000 to as many as 1 million samples a year. The laboratory currently receives about 96,000 samples a year, said Robert Fram, chief of the agency’s Scientific Analysis Section. DNA would not be taken from legal immigrants who are stopped briefly by the authorities, justice officials said, or from legal residents who are detained on noncriminal immigration violations. “What this does is move the DNA collection to the arrest stage,” said Erik Ablin, a Justice Department spokesman. “The general approach,” he said, “is to bring the collection of DNA samples into alignment with current federal fingerprint collection practices.” He said the department was “moving forward aggressively” to issue proposed regulations. The 2006 amendment was sponsored by two border state Republicans, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and Senator John Cornyn of Texas. In an interview, Mr. Kyl said the measure was broadly drawn to encompass illegal immigrants as well as Americans arrested for federal crimes. He said that 13 percent of illegal immigrants detained in Arizona last year had criminal records. “Some of these are very bad people,” Mr. Kyl said. “The number of sexual assaults committed by illegal immigrants is astonishing. Right now there is a fingerprint system in use, but it is not as thorough as it could be.” Ms. Parrish, of the rape victims’ organization, pointed to the case of Angel Resendiz, a Mexican immigrant who was known as the Railroad Killer. Starting in 1997, Mr. Resendiz committed at least 15 murders and numerous rapes in the United States. Over the years of his rampage, Mr. Resendiz was deported 17 times. He was executed in Texas in June. “That was 17 missed opportunities to collect his DNA,” Ms. Parrish said. “If he had been identified as the perpetrator of the first rapes, it would have prevented later ones.” Immigration lawyers said the DNA sampling could tar illegal immigrants with a criminal stigma, even though most of them have never committed any criminal offense. “To equate somebody with a possible immigration violation in the same category as a suspected sex offender is an outrage,” said David Leopold, an immigration lawyer who practices in Cleveland. Forensic DNA is culled either from a tiny blood sample taken from a fingertip (the F.B.I.’s preferred method) or from a swab of the inside of the mouth. Federal samples are logged into the F.B.I.’s laboratory, analyzed and transformed into profiles that can be read by computer. The profiles are loaded into a database called the National DNA Index System. The F.B.I. also loads DNA profiles from local and state police into the federal database and runs searches. Only seven states now collect DNA from suspects when they are arrested; of those, only two states are authorized by their laws to send those samples to the federal database. Mr. Neufeld, of the Innocence Project, said his group supported broad DNA collection from convicted criminals. But, he said, “There is no demonstrable nexus between being detained for an immigration matter and the likelihood you are going to commit some serious violent crime.” The DNA amendment has divided women’s groups that are usually unified supporters of the Violence Against Women Act, which was adopted in 1994. “We were stunned by the extraordinary, broad sweep of this amendment,” said Lisalyn Jacobs, vice president for government relations at Legal Momentum, a law group founded by the National Organization for Women. Ms. Jacobs recalled that the amendment had been adopted by a voice vote with little debate. She said many lawmakers eager to renew the act, which enjoys solid bipartisan support, appeared unaware of the scope of the DNA amendment. “The pervasive problems of profiling in the United States will only be exacerbated by such a system,” Ms. Jacobs said, because Latino and other immigrants will be greatly over-represented in the database. She noted that the law required a court order to remove a profile from the system. Many groups warned that the measure would compound already severe backlogs in the F.B.I.’s DNA processing. Mr. Fram of the F.B.I. said there had been an enormous increase in the samples coming to the databank since it started to operate in 1998, but no new resources for the bureau’s laboratory. Currently about 150,000 DNA samples from convicted criminals are waiting to be processed and loaded into the national database, Mr. Fram said. He said the laboratory had added robot technology to speed the processing. But in the “worst case scenario,” where the laboratory receives one million new samples a year, Mr. Fram said, “there is going to be a bottleneck.” Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref01.html New and ongoing stories involving the use of DNA evidence include: Kentucky - Metro Louisville government has agreed to pay $3.9 million to William Gregory, who was freed by DNA evidence after serving seven years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. Bill Patteson, a spokesman for the county attorney's office, confirmed that a settlement in that amount was struck yesterday morning. He was convicted in 1993 of raping one woman and attempting to rape another, then freed in 2000 after DNA tests showed that seven hairs found in a stocking mask used by the rapist couldn't have been his. He was the first Kentuckian exonerated through DNA. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref02.html Minnesota - Ramsey County prosecutors relied on new DNA testing of blood from an old crime scene to charge an Ohio prison inmate today for a 1989 St. Paul slaying. Larry Wayne Brigman, 57, faces a second-degree murder charge for the stabbing death of Dale Luverne Heinold. Brigman now is doing time in an Ohio prison for a separate slaying. "This is a dramatic example of the power of DNA evidence to solve crimes and bring suspects to justice, no matter how much time has passed," said Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner. The victim's sister discovered Heinold, 54, dead in his apartment on May 20, 1989. Investigators describe a gruesome crime scene with the victim strewn across his bed covered in blood. Heinold's car and some items in his apartment were missing. Witnesses said they last saw Heinold alive in the elevator with another man. The pair was carrying a 12-pack of beer and a pizza. The case went cold, but police reopened the investigation in June 2006 when they took blood evidence to the state crime lab for testing. Scientists ran the unknown killer's DNA through the national forensic DNA database and matched it to Brigman. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref03.html Texas - Police have arrested a 19-year-old Baytown man who they believe may be involved in five cases of rape and burglary directed towards men. Residents in Bay town were relieved when police notified the community they nabbed the suspect. Area residents were fearful for their own safety and that of their children especially their sons. The suspect Keith Chester Hill, has been charged with one incident, but investigators say he could be involved in as many as five. The arrest came when Hill was placed in five different lineups and according to the Harris County Sheriffs' Department a victim identified him The victim in question was a man subject to a brutal home invasion and rape. Based on DNA Hill gave detectives voluntarily, police were able to match his DNA to DNA taken from the victim. That’s when detectives arrested and charged Hill with aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping in the rape of a young teen back in May of 2006. Clifford continues, "We did not actually make him a suspect until recently, but he has certainly been a person of interest that we were looking forward to finding more out about him. When we were able to get a sample of DNA evidence, we were able to link him to the case in that way." Police believe Hill could be responsible for several other attacks on young men dating back to April 2006. Police have not publicly identified the victims, but did say all were white young men, short in stature but athletic. Investigators also revealed the men all looked similar and could have been brothers based on their resemblance. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref04.html Delaware - A 34-year-old Dover man was arrested Tuesday in the kidnapping and rape of a Smyrna woman who was abducted after leaving a Dover restaurant a year ago. The suspect, identified as Fredrick Kaymore, of the 300 block of W. Division St., was linked to the crime by DNA, police said in court records. Dover police charged Kaymore with two counts of first-degree rape and one count each of second-degree rape, first-degree robbery, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree carjacking and possession of a deadly weapon during a felony. He was committed to Delaware Correctional Center after failing to post $150,000 bail. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref05.html New York - A Long Island man has pleaded guilty to the 1997 home invasion rape of a 34-year-old Queens Village woman. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the defendant's arrest and prosecution are the result of a DNA cold hit, where the DNA crime scene evidence matched the defendant's DNA profile. Brown said that after nearly eight years of avoiding arrest in the case, the defendant, Gregory Stovall of Medford, ultimately was done in by his own DNA and will now serve a lengthy prison term. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref06.html California - Based on DNA matches, Long Beach police have arrested two suspects in separate sexual assault cases. Detectives tracked down the suspects - one in Compton, the other in Chicago - through "hits" in a nationwide DNA database. The older of the two cases involved an attack on Dec. 29, 1997, at 2:30 a.m., near the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Cherry Avenue, said LBPD spokeswoman Nancy Pratt. A 33-year-old mother was at home asleep when the suspect entered the home through an unlocked or broken window. The suspect sexually assaulted the woman while her children were in another room in the home, Pratt said. The suspect then escaped. Police collected DNA evidence in the crime and turned it over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department crime lab, Pratt said. The Sheriff's lab entered the data into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, a national database of DNA from local, state and federal agencies. Recently, the Illinois State Police Division of Forensic Services matched the DNA of the suspect in the 1997 case to a name. The Chicago Police Department arrested Sherode Goodlow, 37, on Jan. 17, Pratt said. In the second case, an 18-year-old woman met a man she did not know near Atlantic Avenue and Artesia Boulevard on the afternoon of March 10, 2006, at 3:20 p.m. "She met him while walking home," Pratt said. "She stopped and they talked a little bit. It was friendly conversation and they parted ways." A few moments later, the suspect caught up to the woman, grabbed her, dragged her between two houses and sexually assaulted her. "She's finally able to get away and she runs home to call police," Pratt said. DNA evidence was again put into the CODIS system. On Jan. 16, authorities got a hit in the CODIS system and discovered the suspect was on parole. John C. Williams Jr., 25, of Compton, was arrested on Jan. 18 at his parole officer's office in Compton, Pratt said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref07.html Wisconsin - Sheboygan police have cracked two 2004 burglary cases after evidence submitted to the backlogged state crime lab was finally returned early this year, according to a press release issued late Thursday. A cigarette butt and blood evidence collected after separate burglaries in the 1300 block of Lenz Court in October 2004 have been matched to two men already in prison, Detective Matt Walsh said in the release. A 44-year-old inmate at the Redgranite Correctional Institution matched DNA on the cigarette, and a 27-year-old Green Bay Correctional Institution inmate's DNA matched the blood, Walsh said. Both men have been referred to the Sheboygan County District Attorney's office for charges. Police now say the Redgranite inmate burglarized the north-side home alone once and with the Green Bay inmate the next day. At the time, the men were housed in a transitional living facility under the supervision of the state Department of Corrections, Walsh said. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who took office last month, has said the crime lab he inherited from former AG Peg Lautenschlager has 1,700 cases pending, which would take more than 20 months to clear even if no new cases were submitted. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref08.html California - A 42-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 160 years to life in prison after DNA samples linked him to the kidnapping and rape of two women in January 2002, prosecutors said. Superior Court Judge Michael Garcia sentenced Alonzo Elmer Jackson under the state's "three strikes law" because he had a prior conviction for kidnapping and assault with the intent to commit rape in Los Angeles County in 1989, according to the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office. The Sacramento rapes went unsolved for two years until attention shifted to Jackson. DNA samples he provided matched those from the 2002 crimes, prosecutors said. In June 2004, Sacramento County sheriff's officials quietly walked Jackson off his sales job at a Good Guys electronics store and arrested him on suspicion of committing the two kidnappings and sexual assaults. One of the victims was abducted a short distance from his south Sacramento workplace, authorities said at the time. Jackson was convicted Aug. 8. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref09.html Missouri - Gregory Bowman, freed from the St. Clair County Jail a week ago after two Georgia - Troup County authorities cracked a 13-year-old rape case after a DNA match linked a LaGrange man to the alleged assault, Lt. Rick Massie of the Troup County Sheriff's Office said. Willie Charles Glaze, 36, was recently charged in connection with a rape that occurred in April 1994. Glaze served time in a Georgia Department of Corrections facility in Macon for armed robbery and had just been released when he was scooped up by the criminal investigations division of the Troup County Sheriff's Office, Massie said. Troup County deputies received a call from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations Crime Lab Jan. 23 in regard to a possible DNA match with a rape case the sheriff's office had been working on since 1994. Massie said all inmates going into or coming out of the jail and prison system in Georgia must have a DNA swab. When Glaze was released from the institution in Macon, the GBI found a link between Glaze's DNA and that which the Troup County Sheriff's Office logged into CODIS sometime after the 1994 rape and robbery of a LaGrange woman. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref11.html Kansas - Police said Thursday that a kidnapping/rape case from eight years ago had been solved after a DNA sample matched a man serving time in a Missouri prison. The case involves a Harmon High School freshman who was kidnapped in February 1999 from a Kansas City, Kan., neighborhood. The girl was walking toward her bus stop near Baltimore Street and Miami Avenue when she was accosted Feb. 23. The man abducted her at gunpoint, took her to another location, raped her and then dropped her off at school. Her violin and books were left in the snow near the bus stop. Last August, a Kansas Bureau of Investigation lab matched a DNA sample from the case to the inmate. The match was made possible through a system that takes the DNA of people convicted of violent crimes and attempts to match it to evidence from unsolved crimes. The Police Department obtained additional information and DNA samples from the suspect, police said. Further tests confirmed the DNA link. The suspect, who is serving a 30-year sentence in Jefferson City for kidnapping, rape and armed criminal action, was charged last month in Wyandotte County District Court, according to police. His name and the charges he faces will not be made public until he is returned to Wyandotte County. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref12.html Indiana - The jury faced with deciding the fate of 28-year-old Casey Young, a New Albany man accused of stabbing to death his grandmother and her long-time companion, heard testimony from a forensic expert Tuesday that both victims’ DNA were found on the shoes Young was wearing when arrested. If convicted on both counts, Casey Young faces a maximum of 130 years in prison. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref13.html Colorado - Police investigating the shooting death of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams have been scrambling to get evidence from possible suspects in the case. That evidence includes DNA. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref14.html Illinois - The mystery surrounding a 25-year-old murder case ended Thursday, prosecutors said, as they charged an already-imprisoned man with the crime. Clarence Trotter, serving a life sentence in Stateville Correctional Center for another killing, was charged Thursday with the 1981 murder of Marilyn Dods, a 21-year-old Lincoln Park woman whose slaying shocked the city and devastated her family. "I had pretty much given up hope that anything was going to happen," said Chris Dods, the victim's brother. "I just figured it was another one for the bad guys." According to prosecutors, advances in DNA technology enabled them to link Trotter to the crime. Investigators first discovered a match in October 2005. Further testing and an investigation proved Trotter was Dods' assailant, they said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref15.html Illinois - A DuPage County crime-laboratory analysis determined that DNA taken from the left breast of a 16-year old Aurora girl is a one in 140 trillion match for Laurence Lovejoy, the victim's stepfather on trial for her 2004 rape and murder. Lovejoy was suspected in the rape and questioned by police, but was released pending the results of the DNA tests. Justice was killed March 27, 2004 in an Aurora townhouse. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref16.html California - Officers issued an arrest warrant for a man who they said helped rob a Tiffany & Co. store at South Coast Plaza about a year ago, police said. DNA from the crime scene was used to track Paul Emerson, 20, who is in Los Angeles County Jail on unrelated charges, Costa Mesa police reported. Emerson will have to answer for robbery accusations after the Los Angeles case is resolved, police said. Emerson and another suspect are accused of entering the high-end jewelry store on Feb. 8 before one of them used pepper spray on a security guard. The other then smashed open a display case and removed a valuable sapphire and diamond necklace, along with matching earrings. In October, detectives were notified that Emerson's DNA matched evidence collected at the crime scene. The second suspect has not been arrested and the stolen jewelry has not been recovered. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref17.html Minnesota - Two different rapists brutally attacked women in St. Paul's Payne-Phalen area this month, not one as police previously thought. But the news Tuesday did little to allay fears in the neighborhood. DNA collected after a 13-year-old girl was raped on the way to her school bus stop doesn't match DNA from the rape of a 57-year-old woman on New Year's Day, St. Paul police learned Tuesday. From the beginning, police lacked evidence that the same man committed both rapes, but a number of similarities led them to say they were 90 percent certain. Whether the attacks were the work of a serial rapist or separate attackers matters little to most residents, said Leslie McMurray, Payne Phalen District 5 Planning Council executive director. "I don't think there's comfort in anything until the people are caught," she said, adding that more than 150 people attended a community meeting last week and neighbors have been organizing foot patrols. "I think the concern is the crime stops in the neighborhood." Police also received information Tuesday that the DNA from the rape of the 13-year-old, which occurred Jan. 8, didn't match the DNA of any sex offender registered in a state database. Investigators are awaiting results from a national search. The DNA from the rape of the 57-year-old didn't match sex offenders registered in the state or national database. There were benefits to coordinating the investigations of both cases and the work doesn't change much now, said Sgt. Paul Schnell, the cases' lead investigator. "Our only objective from an investigative standpoint continues to be to identify, arrest and seek prosecution," he said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref18.html Texas - Michael Blair, a previously convicted sex offender, sits on death row for the murder of Ashley Estell in 1993. Mr. Blair, a former soccer referee, and his attorneys agreed to a DNA test, the results of which, released on Monday, do not match the tissue found under Ashley Estell's fingernails. Blair's defense team is using these results to attempt to win him a new trial to remove him from death row. Prosecutors, including District Attorney John Roach, still believe Blair is guilty. They claim that the tissue sample found under Ashley's nails could have come from any source, and may not belong to her killer. Mr. Blair, even if proven innocent of Ashley's murder, would spend life in prison for three previous sex crimes involving children. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref19.html Atlanta - State lawyers have agreed to allow DNA testing of dog hair that was used to convict Wayne Williams, who has been blamed for the murders of two dozen children and young men in the late 1970s and early '80s. Williams was convicted in 1982 of murdering Nathaniel Cater, 27, and Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Afterward, officials declared Williams responsible for 22 other deaths and those cases were closed. The decision Monday to allow DNA testing came in a response to a filing as part of Williams' efforts to appeal his conviction and life sentence. But while saying they had no objections to the testing, state lawyers also said it "would not change the results of this trial. Defendant cannot show that DNA tests, no matter what the results, would create a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been different at the time of trial." Williams' lawyer, Jack Martin, asked a Fulton County Superior Court judge to allow DNA tests on dog and human hair and blood that might help win Williams a new trial. During his original trial, dog hairs found on most victims were consistent with hairs removed from the Williams' family dog. During the trial, witnesses testified they saw Williams with the victims even though most of the case against him was based on analysis of fiber and hair evidence found in Williams' car and his parents' home, where he lived. "The good news is they've agreed to DNA testing," Martin said. "We just want to see what the testing shows and we'll argue about what it means later. It's odd that they should claim the dog hair evidence doesn't make any difference when they made such a big deal about it at trial." Williams, who is black, has contended he was framed. He has maintained that officials covered up evidence of Ku Klux Klan involvement in the killings to avoid a racial conflict in the city, which investigators have denied. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref20.html Texas - Thanks to advances in DNA identification techniques, police have arrested a Mesquite man in the sexual assault of a 72-year-old Rosebud woman, 13 years after the crime was committed. Delvin Huckaby, 44, remained in the Falls County Jail late Monday in lieu of $250,000 bond after he was arrested by a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force in Dallas earlier this month. Huckaby is charged with aggravated sexual assault stemming from a 1994 case in Rosebud, said Sgt. Matt Cawthon of the Texas Rangers. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref21.html Montana - Only one in 52.9 trillion Caucasians could have left the DNA found on a T-shirt found at the feet of Amy Rolfe the day she died, a forensic DNA analyst said in state District Court Monday. Giddings’ lawyers questioned the accuracy of the testing and Gresko’s projections. Colorado - Advances in DNA testing led to the arrest of a Longmont man in a 20-year-old murder case Jan. 29, according to information from the Boulder County Sheriff's office. New Mexico - Crucial DNA evidence does link Ernest Gallegos to the murder of James Hogan, according to DNA experts who testified in district court today. This afternoon defense attorneys in Gallegos’ murder trial questioned how the experts made those DNA matches. Gallegos allegedly broke in Hogan's Tanoan home and killed him in August 2004. Hogan's wife was there but could not identify Gallegos because the killer was wearing a mask. This morning, DNA expert Donna Manogue showed the court through DNA profiling that Gallegos left a trail of his DNA behind on the victim's fingernail, the palm of a glove and a tank top with blood spots on it. Hair found in a mask left behind near the Hogan's home also matched Gallegos, but the defense questioned how the DNA was matched. Gallegos' attorney said more DNA cells should have been found on the mask, not just one strand of hair. The attorney also argued DNA taken from Hogan's fingernail had to be sampled several times before making a match, but the DNA expert stands by her results. “The tests had been previously validated, and the results I obtained were verified and were second verified by another qualified DNA examiner,” Manogue said. Late this afternoon and Albuquerque Police Department homicide detective took the stand to detail how the crime scene was protected right after the murder. He also said a confidential informant led them to Mexico where Gallegos had been hiding out for nine months. Closing arguments by defense and prosecution attorneys are set to begin Tuesday. After that, the jury will begin its deliberations on Gallegos guilt or innocence. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_37_feb_07/vol37_ref24.html Did You Know? Topic: Nanotechnology meets biology and DNA finds its groove MADISON - The object of fascination for most is the DNA molecule. But in solution, DNA, the genetic material that hold the detailed instructions for virtually all life, is a twisted knot, looking more like a battered ball of yarn than the famous double helix. Events and conferences for 2007 that may of interest to you include: 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. 18th International Symposium on Human Identification - October 1-4, 2007 Renaissance Hollywood Hotel - Hollywood, California Web site: http://www.promega.com/applications/hmnid/ 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 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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