DNA evidence

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Court Filing Reveals DNA Evidence Against Kohberger

DNA on knife sheath a 'statistical match' to suspect

(Newser) - DNA on a knife sheath found at the home where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death last fall is a "statistical match" to that collected from suspect Bryan Kohberger, prosecutors disclosed in a court filing. In the June 16 filing, prosecutors said the STR profile, a...

Killer Receives Life Sentence in 1999 Deaths of Teenage Girls

DNA testing tied Coley McCraney to the slayings

(Newser) - An Alabama judge sentenced a man to life imprisonment without possibility of parole on Thursday, bringing a close to the case of the slayings of two teenage girls in 1999. Coley McCraney was convicted of capital murder in April by a jury that decided the sentence, which the judge was...

Sweet Potato Leads to Arrest in Massachusetts Cold Case

Officials were able to match DNA from the root vegetable left at the scene with suspect

(Newser) - After Todd Lampley was shot in the bedroom of a Massachusetts home on February 27, 2011, police recovered evidence outside the bedroom window: shell casings, a cellphone, and a sweet potato. Twelve years later, there's finally an arrest in the case, and authorities say DNA left on that sweet...

A 52-Year-Old Piece of Evidence Leads to Killer

Vermont police say Rita Curran was killed by her upstairs neighbor

(Newser) - A cigarette butt was found next to 24-year-old Rita Curran's body in 1971. Some 52 years later, it would unmask her killer. The Washington Post reports that officials in Burlington, Vermont, on Tuesday said genetic genealogy has identified the late William DeRoos as the killer. He and his then-wife...

'Nightmare' Fire Destroys 30 Years of NYPD Evidence

Forensic evidence in unsolved crimes lost in Tuesday's blaze at Erie Basin Auto Pound

(Newser) - A New York Police Department warehouse burned Tuesday morning and along with it "the possibility of justice in untold cases," the New York Times reports, as "troves of evidence gathered over decades" were damaged or destroyed. The Erie Basin Auto Pound in Brooklyn held impounded vehicles, forensic...

Woman Sues After Cops Use Rape Kit DNA to Arrest Her

She reported sexual assault in 2016, was arrested in theft case in 2021

(Newser) - A woman whose own rape kit was used against her by police now wants some payback. The woman identified only as Jane Doe has sued the city of San Francisco for unspecified damages over the case that made national headlines, reports BuzzFeed . After the woman reported a sexual assault to...

Cold Case Arrest Made Thanks to DNA, and a Twist

Investigator pored over old immigration ties to Italy to zero in on suspect

(Newser) - That DNA evidence appears to have cracked a cold case isn't too unusual. But this one required some unique additional sleuthing, reports Lancaster Online . The case in question is the brutal 1975 murder of 19-year-old Lindy Sue Biechler, a married woman who was stabbed inside her apartment in Pennsylvania'...

Quest to Free Inmate With DNA Test Made Things Worse

New evidence implicates him in another murder he'd been acquitted of 25 years ago

(Newser) - DNA evidence has increasingly been used to help free persons wrongly convicted of crimes they didn't commit. In a three-decade-old case out of Florida, however, authorities say it did just the opposite and proved that a man acquitted of murder was actually the killer all along. Per the New ...

Police: DNA Match Solves Murder After 34 Years

But it won't be possible to prosecute the suspect

(Newser) - Almost exactly 34 years ago—May 23, 1988—two of Lucille Hultgren's many friends stopped by her house to check on her after she didn’t show up for church, only to find her body. The 79-year-old was a recent widow and mother of two adult sons. The coroner...

30 Years Later, Female Found in Ditch Has a Name

Margaret Ann Sniegowski Jr., 17, IDed thanks to DNA evidence; now it's a homicide investigation

(Newser) - For three decades, the identity of a body found along an Indiana highway remained unknown, a cold case that stumped Boone County officials. Now, a name to that body, thanks to a curious sister and advances in genetic genealogy. FOX59 details the case of 17-year-old Ohioan Margaret Ann Sniegowski Jr....

40 Years After Couple's Murder, Their Baby Is Still Missing

Female named Hollie Marie by her parents would be closing in on 42 now

(Newser) - Harold Dean Clouse gathered up his wife, Tina Gail Linn, and new baby, Hollie Marie, and moved from Florida to Texas, with a promise of a well-paying job as a carpenter. "I can take better care of Tina and the baby," Clouse's mother recalls him saying. Instead,...

DNA Solves Case of Waitress Killed in Restaurant Bathroom

Danny Lamont Hamilton allegedly drowned Priscilla Lewis in 1996

(Newser) - A DNA match has helped cold case investigators solve the killing of a San Francisco Bay Area waitress whose body was found in a restaurant's basement bathroom 25 years ago, authorities said Thursday. A murder charge was filed by prosecutors against prison inmate Danny Lamont Hamilton, alleging he drowned...

DNA Suggests Her 2001 Killer Was Also a Pallbearer

Investigators say David Reed beat his half sister to death with a conch shell

(Newser) - After Rose Marie Moniz was found dead in a pool of blood in her New Bedford, Mass., home in March 2001, investigators determined the 41-year-old had been beaten to death with a fireplace poker, a cast-iron kettle, and a conch shell. Investigators say DNA evidence from the last item has...

For the First Time, Tree DNA Leads to a Conviction

Timber poacher Justin Wilke gets 20 months

(Newser) - DNA evidence is now solving crimes against trees as well as crimes against people. Justin Andrew Wilke, ringleader of a group of timber poachers that operated in Washington state's Olympic National Forest, was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison earlier this week after the first federal trial to...

DNA on Beer Cans Helps Solve 25-Year-Old Murder

Kenneth Stough Jr. is accused of killing a convenience store manager in Orlando in 1996

(Newser) - A discarded Budweiser beer can has led authorities to a man accused of stabbing a convenience store manager 73 times in 1996. Terrence Paquette, 31, was preparing to open the Lil' Champ Food Store in Orlando, Fla., before 6am on Feb. 3, 1996, when he was gruesomely attacked, per KIRO...

The Paintings Remain Missing, but Authorities Say There's DNA

Nils M has been charged in the Netherlands

(Newser) - His resume fits: a Dutch man identified as Nils M spent five years behind bars in connection with the 2012 theft of a 17th-century church vessel from a museum whose doors he blasted open. Prosecutors allege he struck again following his release. The 59-year-old was arrested in April and stands...

Detectives Charged With Perjury In Wrongful Conviction Case

Three homicide detectives are accused of coercing a confession and lying about it in court

(Newser) - A man who spent 25 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder was set free after his second trial in 2016 cleared him. Now, a grand jury has indicted the three Philadelphia police officers who put him away in the first place and tried to keep him in...

DNA Evidence Solves Crime, This Time With a Twist
DNA Evidence Solves Crime,
This Time With a Twist
in case you missed it
Jul 17, 2021 8:31 AM CDT

DNA Evidence Solves Crime, This Time With a Twist

For the first time, tree DNA was used in a federal criminal trial

(Newser) - That prosecutors used DNA evidence to convict a criminal isn't too surprising. But in this case—a first—the DNA came from a tree, reports the Seattle Times . A jury in Tacoma, Wash., convicted 39-year-old Justin Wilke last week of illegal tree harvesting in Olympic National Forest, per the...

Mom Arrested in Newborn's Death, 14 Years Later

Another cold case helped along by DNA evidence in 2007 homicide in Pennsylvania

(Newser) - "Baby Mary Anne" would have been 14 this year, had she not been killed as a newborn and dumped in a trash bin at a Pennsylvania YMCA. Now, justice may be around the corner, thanks to DNA evidence that has helped along yet another cold case. PennLive.com reports...

DNA Cracks 65-Year-Old 'Lovers' Lane' Double Murder

The presumed killer, Montana native Kenneth Gould, is dead

(Newser) - The children of a Montana native who died almost a decade and a half ago have learned the man with no known criminal history was in fact a double murderer. It wasn't a skeleton in the closet, but rather genetic genealogy that supplied the shock. Since 1956, detectives have...

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