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

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, in sharing some of the numbers of DNA matches in property crimes in recent years, continues to support the success rate in solving high volume crimes with the help of DNA evidence.

More recently, the Austin Police Department also joined this group of agencies in cracking down on burglaries, auto thefts and larcenies. “Detectives say that in several of the rare instances when they collected DNA evidence at property crime scenes, it led to arrests or more clues in cases that probably would have remained unsolved.”

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 News

Burglar beware

The DNA you leave at a crime could put you behind bars

In the past, DNA was mostly used to solve violent crimes, such as homicides and sexual assaults. But as DNA testing has advanced, it's being used more often to solve property crimes, such as burglaries, auto thefts and larcenies.

"Probably the reason it wasn't is the early types of DNA testing you needed a lot more sample," said David Coffman, chief of forensic services at the FDLE's Tallahassee Regional Operations Center. "A lot of burglary cases were not suitable for DNA testing because there literally wasn't enough sample to test."

In 2007, the FDLE's Pensacola crime lab identified suspects in 70 burglaries using the state's DNA database.

Source: www.pnj.com

 

Austin police using DNA to solve thefts

More than a decade after DNA testing became one of law enforcement's best methods for solving violent crimes, Austin police have joined a small group of police departments that use it to crack routine property crimes.

DNA evidence such as saliva or drops of blood have helped Austin police crack otherwise hard-to-solve cases.

"When we first started hearing about DNA, I didn't expect it would be used on crimes like this," said Detective Michael Sanford "But we are always looking for as much evidence as we can get."

Police say they have submitted DNA evidence from about 50 property crime scenes in the city this year — a tiny percentage of the roughly 38,000 property crimes reported — and identified 10 suspects by comparing it with DNA profiles in a national database of criminals.

Source: www.chron.com

 

New and Ongoing Stories Involving the Use of DNA Evidence

Arkansas - Police say DNA taken from a man charged in the slaying of a Little Rock television anchorwoman matches DNA tested in a separate rape case.

Marianna police Detective Carl McCree said Friday that DNA taken from Curtis Lavelle Vance during the investigation into the killing of anchorwoman Anne Pressly matched DNA gathered during an investigation into the April sexual assault of a schoolteacher in Marianna, 90 miles east of Little Rock.

Pressly died of her injuries, and Vance is charged with capital murder.

Source: www.star-telegram.com

 

Nevada - Early in their investigation into the kidnapping and slaying of a young college woman, Reno police were convinced the suspect they described as a serial rapist was a chameleon who blended in with a community grieving the loss of Brianna Denison.

 

On Wednesday, the profundity of Johns' words emerged when police announced the arrest of a 27-year-old Sparks construction worker.

 

James Michael Biela, a father and former Marine who trained in martial arts at an academy frequented by law enforcement, was arrested Tuesday afternoon while picking his 4-year-old son up from preschool.

Detectives said Biela, when contacted Nov. 7, "respectfully declined" to provide a voluntary DNA sample.

But Harmon [Biela’s girlfriend], investigators said, later allowed police to take a DNA sample from the couple's son. From that, forensic experts determined the child's biological father could not be ruled out as the source of DNA evidence gathered from the crime scenes.

 

Source: www.lasvegassun.com

 

Colorado - Thanks to a DNA match found on a national database, Loveland police have arrested a 40-year-old Loveland man on suspicion of an August break-in and sexual assault.

 

John. R. Lucero, 40, of Loveland, was arrested Wednesday after police matched his DNA profile to DNA evidence left at the scene of a sexual assault reported to police Aug. 23.

 

Source: www.reporterherald.com

 

Pennsylvania - During a news conference yesterday, Fayette County District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon said Sarah Sue Hawk, 25, of Uniontown, admitted to killing her newborn baby girl more than eight years ago.

 

Trooper James Pierce, who was assigned the cold case in January 2007, said he noticed no follow-up interviews with Ms. Hawk. A sister of Ms. Hawk voluntarily provided him a DNA sample, which the New Jersey State Police Mitochondrial DNA Laboratory found to match the newborn's remains.

 

The Marshall University Forensic Science Center did further maternal analysis that identified Ms. Hawk as the mother.

Ms. Hawk was 16 when the baby was born.

 

Source: www.post-gazette.com

 

New York - Innocence Project client Steven Barnes was released from prison Tuesday morning, nearly two decades after he was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder in Oneida County.

 

New DNA test results support Barnes’ longstanding claim of innocence in the 1985 rape and murder of a high school student for which he was convicted in 1989.

 

The Innocence Project began representing Barnes in 1993 and the Oneida County District Attorney agreed to conduct DNA tests on evidence from the crime scene. Those tests were inconclusive because the DNA technology at the time could not yield a profile.

In 2007, the Innocence Project reopened the case, and Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara agreed to conduct more advanced DNA testing (not available in the 1990s). New DNA test results on material collected from the victim’s body and clothing do not match Barnes, leading to Tuesday’s joint motion to throw out his conviction and release him from custody.

 

Source: www.northcountrygazette.org

 

California - Authorities positively identified a body found in a motor home's freezer as the missing 22-year-old daughter of the RV's owner, who was charged with murder.

DNA confirmed that the badly decomposed body found on Oct. 28 is that of Rebekah Butterfield of Temecula, who was reported missing to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department in June.

 

Her father, 55-year-old Clarence Butterfield, is awaiting extradition from Nevada and will not be returned back to Orange County for several weeks, he said.

 

Sheriff's homicide detectives went all the way to North Carolina to get a DNA sample from the young woman's mother to positively identify her.

Source: cbs2.com

 

Maine - Superior Court Justice William Anderson on Friday determined Ashton Moores was guilty of raping and murdering Christina Simonin.

 

Videotapes showing a figure pushing a wheelbarrow carrying something that appears to be wrapped in a blue tarp to the area where Simonin's body was found in early March 2007 and evidence tying that wheelbarrow to Moores are what convinced him Moores was guilty, Anderson said.

 

Blood found on a baseboard and under ripped-up carpet in Moores' apartment at 83 First St. and inside the wheelbarrow he borrowed from his landlord match the dead woman's, two forensic scientists from the Maine State Police crime laboratory testified on Thursday. They also said DNA from semen found on the victim's underwear matched Moores' DNA.

 

Source: morningsentinel.mainetoday.com

 

Connecticut - A Connecticut prison inmate is being charged with a 2002 rape in Hartford after being identified through DNA testing.
Twenty-nine-year-old Angel Martinez is charged with first-degree kidnapping with a firearm and two counts of first-degree sexual assault.
According to court documents, the rape occurred Aug. 20, 2002. The victim told police she was walking to work when a man approached her from behind, put her in the choke-hold and threatened to harm her unless she did as she was told.
The victim was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center where a rape kit was done.

 

In April, DNA samples taken from the kit matched Angel Martinez, who is at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers for a conspiracy conviction.

 

Source: www.courant.com

 

International

UK - Traces of DNA found on the body of a 15-year-old schoolgirl belong to the man accused of her murder, a court has been told.

 

Jurors at the High Court in Dundee also learnt that the chance that DNA found on a knife in the former home of Peter Tobin, 62, came from someone other than Vicky Hamilton, of Redding, Falkirk, was more than a billion to one. The evidence also suggested that Vicky could have been sexually violated, as partial profiles of Mr Tobin’s DNA were found on swabs taken from her body during a postmortem examination.

 

Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

 

Netherlands - Stores and gas stations in the Dutch city of Rotterdam will soon be outfitted with a system that can spray criminals with a DNA substance, police say.

 

Rotterdam police have outlined a plan to install devices in area businesses that can be used to coat escaping robbers with a substance featuring synthetic DNA in order to aid police in identifying suspects, Radio Netherlands said Wednesday.

The spray, which is dispensed after a shopkeeper pushes a button, will remain on a robbery suspect's skin for at least seven days. The synthetic substance could potentially survive longer on an individual's clothes.

 

Source: www.upi.com

 

Canada - North Bay Police Service has solved a handful of thefts dating back to 2000 with blood samples that finally received a hit on the national DNA databank.

 

I've been solving more property crimes with DNA," said civilian forensic identification officer Ivan Ryman.

DNA samples collected at the scenes were sent to the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto for analysis in hopes of creating a DNA profile.

 

The centre at the time predominantly dealt with violent crimes and sex offences, and the evidence was stored in a secure location. The centre has since committed manpower to deal with property crimes, Ryman said.

Source: www.nugget.ca

 

Did You Know?

 

Forensics’ next tool: Hair-collecting caterpillars

Clothes moths will eat more than our wardrobe. Given a chance, they'll eat us too.

Casemaking clothes moth caterpillars can digest human hair and will feed on corpses. But it's not all bad news, scientists say.

Hair bits nipped off of corpses by caterpillars of the casemaking clothes moth, Tinea pellionella, can yield enough DNA to identify the deceased, according to entomologist Sibyl Bucheli of Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

Particularly helpful is the caterpillars’ habit of retreating to nearby, out-of-the-way corners when it’s time to stop feeding and metamorphose into small tan moths, Bucheli reported November 16 in Reno, Nev., at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America. The human body they’ve been feeding on may get moved away, but left-behind caterpillar cases containing human hair can still tie the body to the location, she said.

For more information please go to:

Source: www.sciencenews.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.

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Editor: Karen Daurie
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