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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue. In Florida, a statewide task force has recommended taking DNA swabs of any foster child taken in to state custody, due to a number of children that go missing from the foster care system. In the national news, a pentagon report says that “the military could save troop lives and taxpayer money by improving how it gathers and analyzes DNA samples and fingerprints from captured weapons, equipment and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Following these stories you will find new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence.
When state protective-services workers make the decision to remove children from abusive or neglectful homes, they expect the transition to be traumatic. Even when children are living in horrific conditions -- even when the foster home is warm and nurturing -- it's a shock, one that can resonate for the rest of those children's lives. But state officials also know that children go missing from the foster system. Statewide, around 470 children are currently missing from the foster-care system, including 12 from Volusia and Flagler counties. Looking for ways to track missing children, a statewide task force has recommended taking DNA swabs of any child taken into state custody. The DNA collection could replace the current practice of fingerprinting children, and would be used in conjunction with photographs. How would DNA samples be obtained, processed and banked? Compared to fingerprints, DNA samples are expensive and require a high level of scientific training to analyze. And what happens to the DNA samples once a child leaves the foster-care system? Are they destroyed -- or is that child forever linked to their genetic code in government-operated databases? State officials deserve credit for seeking out ways to track missing children. However, the DNA proposal is one that deserves a great deal more scrutiny before it becomes law. Source: The News-Journal Overhaul of military labs urged The military could save troop lives and taxpayer money by improving how it gathers and analyzes DNA samples and fingerprints from captured weapons, equipment and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Pentagon report says. The Defense Department needs to spend $195 million over the next two years to overhaul and centralize its CSI-style forensic science program, the report recommended. Iris scans and DNA samples from detainees and fingerprints from captured cellphones and improvised explosive devices are "among the most valuable data" the military has for "tracking and targeting" the enemy, says John Young, the Pentagon's research and engineering director, in the September report. The programs, which began in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004, are "exorbitantly expensive" and "duplicative," the report says. Source: USA Today New and Ongoing Stories Involving the Use of DNA Evidence The 48-year-old was found stabbed to death in her Land O' Lakes apartment on September 27th, 2006. More than a year after DNA samples were taken from the crime scene, police linked Hodgkins, an ex-con, to Lodge's death. Source: Fox 13 Tampa Ohio -- Sexual predator Lee Taylor picked his prey, a neighbor, because she had made him angry. Before dawn one spring day in 1999, he cut the phone lines to her house, broke inside, sneaked into her bedroom, pinned her down and raped her. Then he beat her, cut her with her own steak knife and tortured her for hours. He got away with the crime for years until, while in prison in 2005 for another abduction case, he was required to give a DNA sample. It matched evidence from the London case. Source: The Columbus Dispatch North Dakota - Two trials and fourteen months later Family and Friends of Mindy Morgenstern get the verdict they've been waiting for... Moe Gibbs is guilty of Murder. A DNA expert that told jurors Gibbs DNA under Mindy's nails was from vigorous contact. Source: KXMC CBS 13 Florida - When Willie J. Pouncy jumped out of the vehicle he wrecked while being chased by police, he left some DNA on the deployed air bag. As a formerly convicted felon, Pouncy had been obliged to provide a DNA sample when he was sent to prison. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was able to compare the two samples. Source: Northwest Florida Daily News Florida - A fingerprint and DNA on two wads of chewing gum helped capture a man suspected of murdering two gay men shot dead in 1998. Guillermo Valencia, 32, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Source: The Miami Herald Minnesota - Minneapolis police thought they had solved a 2002 murder that happened in north Minneapolis when they learned of a DNA "hit" which matched a man in prison for a rape which occurred three years later. The murder evidence was obtained from a DNA sample produced from blood, hair and skin the killer left behind on a cracked windshield of a car. The victim, Gerald Penman, was shot by the passenger while Penman was driving. The car crashed, the passenger struck the windshield and ran from the scene. When police interviewed Michael Jefferson in prison, he denied he was the killer and threw them a curve: He informed them he has an identical twin. Source: WCCO CBS 4 Utah - Gerald Hicker was charged this week in the fatal shooting of Barbara Jean Rocky, 33 years ago. Rocky and Hicker were Brigham Young University students and acquaintances in 1974 when she was shot with her own gun in Utah's Big Cottonwood Canyon, authorities said. Salt Lake County authorities said Hicker's DNA was recently confirmed in soil taken from under the victim's body. They have not disclosed how they obtained the DNA sample. Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Pennsylvania - Bobby Joe Buskirk, 27 was arrested Tuesday and charged with breaking into the home of a then-82-year-old woman and raping her Nov. 2, 2002. Authorities took a sample of the rapist's DNA from the victim after the attack but no one in the FBI's CODIS -- Combined DNA Index System -- was a match at that time. On Oct. 2, a Pennsylvania State Police forensic scientist contacted Bethlehem police to say a DNA sample recently entered into the system matched the sample taken from the 2002 rape victim. Source: The Express-Times Michigan - DNA on a baseball cap and a work glove found at two crime scenes matched that of serial killing suspect Matthew Macon, a forensic scientist testified Monday. With that evidence, a judge ruled that the 28-year-old Lansing man will stand trial for murdering Sandra Eichorn, 64, and Karen Delgado-Yates, 41. Source: The Detroit Free Press Did you know? Researchers have made an important leap in designing DNA-based circuits, reports this week's Science. They've created the first system that allows amplification of desired DNA sequences without using enzymes -- a step towards creating artificial biochemical circuits inside cells. "They've begun to develop a programming language, a software, for DNA," said Andrew Ellington of the University of Texas at Austin. The work is "a significant advance over previous [attempts]," he added. Scientists have previously used DNA to build synthetic biochemical circuits. But these networks have generally only been designed to perform one task. "These were machines that carried out a particular function or solved a particular problem," Ellington told The Scientist. For more, please go to: 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 |
