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In The News

2019-11-10 | Responsible genetic genealogy
“Absent best practices...confidence in forensic DNA analysis could be undermined.”

2019-11-08 | Your DNA Profile is Private? A Florida Judge Just Said Otherwise
Privacy experts say a warrant granted in Florida could set a precedent, opening up all consumer DNA sites to law enforcement agencies across the country.

2019-11-07 | Exploring the degrees of distortion in simulated human bite marks
The properties of the skin and the posture of the body during photographic recording are factors that cause distortion in the bitemark injury. This study aimed to explore the degree of distortion between a‘touch mark’(method 1) and a‘bite mark’(method 2)on the left upper arm at three different positions (arm relaxed; arm flexed in two different positions). A pair of dental casts withbiting edges coated in ink was used to create a mark in 30 subjects (6?,24?)aged20–50 years old.

2019-11-07 | Evaluation of the Performance and Hematocrit Independence of theHemaPEN as a Volumetric Dried Blood Spot Collection Device
Dried blood spots (DBS) are often used as a lessinvasive alternative to venous blood sampling. Despite its numerousadvantages, the use of conventional DBS suffers from the hematocrit(hct) effect when analyzing a subpunch. This effect could be avoidedby using hct-independent sampling devices, of which the hemaPENis a recent example.

2019-11-06 | Laboratory contamination over time during low?biomass sample analysis
Bacteria are not only ubiquitous on earth but can also be incredibly diverse within clean laboratories and reagents. The presence of both living and dead bacteria in laboratory environments and reagents is especially problematic when examining samples with low endogenous content (e.g., skin swabs, tissue biopsies, ice, water, degraded forensic samples or ancient material), where contaminants can outnumber endogenous microorganisms within samples. The contribution of contaminants within high? throughput studies remains poorly understood because of the relatively low number of contaminant surveys. Here, we examined 144 negative control samples (extraction blank and no?template amplification controls) collected in both typical molecular laboratories and an ultraclean ancient DNA laboratory over 5 years to characterize long?term contaminant diversity.

2019-11-05 | Contamination of Homes with Methamphetamine: IsWipe Sampling Adequate to Determine Risk?
Contamination of domestic dwellings from methamphetamine cooking or smoking is an increasing public health problem in many countries. To evaluate the extent of contamination,sampling generally focusses on the collection of surface wipe samples from walls and other surfaces of a potentially contaminated home. Here, we report the contamination levels of many household materials and items sampled from a home that was suspected to be the premises used to cook methamphetamine, it was then sold, lived in for several years by the new owners and then left unattended for several more years. Although the time since the cooking had taken place was significant (over five years), the levels of contamination were extremely high in both household items that were part of the house when cooking was taking place (blinds, carpets, walls, etc.) and also in articles brought to the house post-cooking (rugs, toys, beds, etc.)

2019-10-18 | Did Tennessee execute the wrong man for a horrific 1980s murder? Alcoholic who confessed but then recanted before his 2006 death may have been INNOCENT as cops suspect an ex-pastor arrested last year
A new suspect in the the brutal murder of a young female marine more than 30 years ago has been identified by authorities after another man was already executed for the slaying. Sedley Alley was put to death by the state of Tennessee 15 years ago for the 1985 murder of Suzanne Marie Collins, a 19-year-old Marine who left her barracks for a jog and never returned.

2019-10-17 | The physics of blood spatter
Joe Bryan, once a popular and respected high-school principal in a small Texas town, has been in prison for over 30?years. He is serving a 99-year sentence for the shooting and murder of his wife in 1985. The evidence incriminating him involved spots of the victim’s blood found on a hand-held torch. A witness, who was rated as expert in the forensic technique of blood pattern analysis (BPA), interpreted these spots as placing Bryan near his wife when she was shot – a testimony that was at the forefront of Bryan’s conviction. It overrode countervailing evidence that he was in fact at a conference 120?miles away – an alibi that made it nearly impossible for him to have shot his wife, as he would have had to leave the event, travel home, commit murder and return to the conference within a specific time frame. Bryan maintains his innocence to this day.

2019-10-13 | Justice delayed: Info requests reveal DPS crime lab backlog exceeds 2,500 cases
The Texas Department of Public Safety recognizes that its crime lab system across the state has been unable to meet the demands of the criminal justice community. DPS Director Steven C. McCraw said as much in a Sept. 26 letter to state Rep. Terry Canales, of Edinburg. Canales chairs the House of Representatives Transportation Committee, which helps decide how DPS is funded. McCraw was responding to a letter Canales penned that was prompted by a story in The Monitor, which highlighted the chronic backlog of DNA testing at the Weslaco crime lab. That backlog has resulted in serious criminal cases dragging on for years as well as speedy trial violations. “Defendants are frequently and unnecessarily spending years in jail waiting for forensic evidence to be processed so that they can have their day in court,” Canales wrote. “This gross reality threatens the very essence of our legal system and the fabric of our democracy, and it devalues the credibility of the state’s governing bodies and law enforcement agency.”

2019-10-01 | The Messy Consequences of the Golden State Killer Case
The immediate cause of the fracture was a series of decisions by GEDmatch, the genealogy site best known for helping ID the suspected Golden State Killer. GEDmatch does not offer DNA tests itself, but it allows anyone to upload results from companies such as 23andMe or Ancestry or, as it turns out, forensic labs. At one point, the site secretly allowed police to upload DNA from the scene of a violent assault—following a personal appeal from the detective to one of GEDmatch’s co-founders.