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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue. With the increasing interest and pursuit of careers in Forensics, more and more schools are offering degrees in the field. In addition they are providing new and innovative ways for students to learn. At Point Park University in Pennsylvania teachers are using a 3-foot replica of a crime scene home as a tool to teach students about “fingerprints, shoe prints, blood spatter, DNA evidence and where you would look for evidence at a crime scene”.
As these students graduate, a very different set of challenges awaits in the field. In Arizona for example, lower than expected city revenue streams, will make it difficult to fill vacated positions in forensic labs, deepening backlogs and potentially delaying court cases.
In addition to these stories you will find brief summaries of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA analysis. Every story is followed by a link to its original source, which you can follow for more details.
In The NewsDoll house helps criminal justice students learn You probably wouldn't want to have a tea party in the doll house unveiled yesterday at Point Park University. But the 3-foot replica of the house where Lizzie Borden is said to have axed her father and stepmother in 1892 is perfect for Point Park criminal justice students.
"It's a great tool to teach forensic students about fingerprints, shoe prints, blood spatter, DNA evidence and where you would look for evidence at a crime scene," said Steven Koehler, an associate professor in the criminal justice department. "What kind of evidence would (the perpetrator) deposit? If you hit someone with an ax 40 times, where would the blood spatter be on the walls and on the ceiling?"
Source: www.pittsburghlive.com
Cities balking at new DPS crime lab fees
City officials across Arizona say they won't pay the state for DNA testing and other crime-lab services because they are strapped for cash and believe the imposed fee is unconstitutional.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety was counting on collecting $2.5 million during this fiscal year from cities, towns and counties to provide them with forensic-evidence testing, which until now had been done for free.
Without that revenue stream, state officials say any vacated positions in the lab could go unfilled, deepening a case backlog and potentially delaying court cases. Until recently, the only other state charging for lab work had a backlog up to a year. Now, only 4 percent of cases submitted to the crime lab in Arizona are more than 30 days old.
Source: www.tucsoncitizen.com
New and Ongoing Stories Involving the Use of DNA EvidenceMassachusetts - A trash collector was convicted on Thursday in the 2002 rape and murder of Christa Worthington, a fashion writer who was stabbed to death and was found in her bungalow on Cape Cod with her 2-year-old daughter clutching her body. The trash collector, Christopher McCowen, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder with extreme atrocity, aggravated rape and aggravated armed burglary. Mr. McCowen, who picked up the garbage at Ms. Worthington's house each week and who had spent time in prison in Florida from 1993 to 1998 for auto theft and burglary, was an early suspect. He agreed to submit a DNA sample, but did not do so for two years. A year later, the crime lab analyzed the sample and linked it to DNA found on Ms. Worthington's body. Mr. McCowen was arrested in April 2005 at a rooming house in Hyannis. Source: www.capecodtoday.com
Nebraska – [A number of factors] contributed to the dropping of an investigation of the right suspect 23 years ago and wrongfully convicting six innocent people in a 1985 homicide, officials with the Nebraska Attorney General's Office said Thursday. The case was turned upside down with the help of new DNA tests on old evidence. Source: www.omaha.com
New York - A DNA match from a glove left behind by a burglar at a Freeport home has resulted in an arrest, Nassau police said on Thursday. He left behind the stolen purse and wallet -- and he left behind the glove, which contained traces of his DNA, police said. Police said after the genetic material from the glove was matched to Byer, he was arrested yesterday on a charge of burglary. Based on DNA taken from a previous arrest, the county's crime lab matched cellular evidence left on the glove's wrist-area, said Dr. Pasquale Buffolino, director of the county's Department of Forensic Genetics. Source: www.newsday.com
Connecticut - DNA evidence extracted from cigarette butts found at the scene of a 2005 home burglary on Johnson Road helped lead to the arrest Tuesday of a former New Haven woman in connection with the long cold case. The arrest came after DNA evidence taken from saliva found on a cigarette butt matched the DNA of Cintron, whose unique DNA sequence is stored on a police database, authorities said. Source: www.nhregister.com
Maryland - A serial rapist who prosecutors believe began attacking women three decades ago in and around Baltimore County was sentenced yesterday to 60 years in prison. Since Hill's plea, two additional assaults, which took place in January and February 1984, were linked to him through DNA matches. Source: www.baltimoresun.com
Utah - Attorneys for Glenn Howard Griffin on Wednesday wrapped up their case with a final attack on the evidence that allegedly links the 51-year-old man to a 1984 Brigham City slaying. Source: www.sltrib.com
New Jersey - Although they lacked eyewitness accounts, scientific investigation techniques allowed Newark police to identify and charge a Newark teenager in the hit-and-run death of an elderly man, authorities said. Naji Nicholson, 18, pleaded not guilty to the accusations in Superior Court in Newark today and was held on $50,000 bail. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of all charges. [Police] got a break in September when a biological specimen was found on the Charger's air bag by the forensic scientists. Detectives first linked Nicholson to the accident through CODIS and a second time after a tissue swab was taken from him at a juvenile residential facility where he was being held on an unrelated drug charge. Source: www.nj.com Tennessee - A judge has granted a motion to test DNA evidence in the 1996 kidnapping, rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. William Glenn Rogers was sentenced to death in January 2000 for the murder of Jackie Beard, who was abducted while picking blackberries near her house in Montgomery County. Rogers said in a motion the tests will exonerate him. Source: www.whnt.com
Washington - Red hair found by police in the Spokane apartment where 4-year-old Summer Phelps died was mostly pulled from her head and matched her DNA, a forensic expert testified today in her father’s trial. Jonathan Lytle is accused of homicide by abuse in the death of his daughter, who was beaten, bitten and shocked with a dog bark collar. She drowned in the family bathtub on March 10, 2007 after being forced to wash urine-soaked clothes for hours. William Schneck, a forensic scientist with the Washington State Patrol lab in Cheney, told the Spokane County Superior Court jury that the hair ends that would have been closest to Summer’s scalp “exhibited pulled roots.” “Pulled hair will have the elongated structures on the scalp end. Naturally shed hair will have a ball on the end with no attached tissue,” Schneck said. Source: www.spokesmanreview.com
Missouri - Derrick L. Luster interrupted selection of a jury for his murder trial Monday to admit killing a shopper on the parking lot of West County Center eight years ago. The investigation went cold for more than six years, until the methodical testing of prison inmates' DNA linked Luster to evidence from the scene. Source: www.stltoday.com
InternationalCanada - The Crown wrapped up its case against murder suspect Bill Clarke on Thursday in Supreme Court with testimony from an RCMP DNA expert. Nicole McCullough testified that DNA from a swab taken from Mr. Clarke’s hand matched that of shooting victim Paul Coleman. She said a drop of blood found on the floor in the room next to the one in which Mr. Coleman was found also matched his DNA, as did material from the trigger guard of the sawed-off shotgun found in the home where the shooting occurred. And hairs found in the breach of the weapon also matched Mr. Coleman’s DNA. Source: thechronicleherald.ca
UK - Every unsolved murder from 1985 to 1999 is to be re-examined in Britain's biggest cold case review. Up to 700 killings will be checked to see whether old forensic samples can be tested with new DNA technology. Source: www.mirror.co.uk
Did You Know?
A Discussion of Automation for the Forensic DNA Laboratory
Although laboratory automation holds the promise of increasing sample throughput, in practice this does not alleviate the burden on laboratory staff. Rather it shifts the focus of the analyst’s efforts from sample preparation to sample analysis.
Automation is commonly viewed by the forensics community as a way of increasing the efficiency and throughput of DNA extraction as well as other processes in laboratory workflow (such as qPCR setup, Normalization, STR setup, etc.). Initially considered as a way of decreasing the backlogs of database samples that plagued many labs, automation is now being adopted as a way of keeping pace with the increasing number of casework samples submitted to laboratories for analysis.
There are several important questions to ask when making a decision to purchase an automated system for the laboratory.
For more on this discussion, please go to:
Source: www.forensicmag.com
Did You Know?Why hair bleach is a murderer's best friend
Budding crime-scene investigators take note: a common household bleach can render the forensic techniques for detecting blood useless. There are two types of bleach found in household cleaning products. Chlorine-based bleaches are known to make bloodstains invisible, but applying chemicals such as luminol or phenolphthalein will still reveal the presence of haemoglobin - crucial for identifying blood - even after up to 10 washes. In contrast, oxygen bleach, which contains an oxidising agent such as hydrogen peroxide, erases all trace of haemoglobin. Its effect seems to have been untested until now. For more information 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 |
