Category Archives: Touch DNA

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) – Fox 5 got an exclusive look inside the largest DNA crime lab in North America. It is found New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in the Kips Bay section of Manhattan.
In this dry, sterile facility with purified air pumped in, the scientists handle more than 14,000 cases a year—everything from muggings to murders to mass casualty tragedies.

When Mark Carver’s case went before North Carolina’s appellate courts, legal scholars hoped the judges would rule on the credibility of “touch DNA.” His was the first appellate case involving the technique.
But neither court ruled on that issue.

NEW YORK — One New York judge ruled the DNA evidence was scientifically sound. Another, just miles away, tossed it out as unreliable.
The same scenario is playing out in courthouses around the world amid a debate over whether a type of DNA analysis involving the amplification of tiny amounts of genetic material is reliable enough to convict someone for a crime.
The technique, known as low-copy number or high-sensitivity analysis can be used when investigators use “touch DNA” and are only able to collect a few human cells left behind when someone touches an object such as a gun, the handle of a knife, or even clothing.

CLEVELAND– The video was both chilling, and all too real.
Around Labor Day weekend of 2014, Cleveland authorities released a grainy surveillance video showing the beginning of a rape on Lake Road on the city’s west side.
With three armed attacks over just a few days – two rapes and the robbery of two more women – police were starting to believe that a serial rapist was on the loose.

A potent crime-fighting tool once reserved for the most violent offenses, DNA testing is now helping solve more nonviolent crimes, including thefts, drug offenses and quality-of-life crimes such as vandalism and window-peeping.

Low copy number (LCN) typing is a general technique used for analyzing low-quantity DNA samples. Short tandem repeat (STR) testing on aged and extremely limited samples, such as “touch DNA” samples, has increased over the past decade. Samples with low quantities of template DNA are typically subjected to exaggerated stochastic effects during the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that impact the reproducibility and reliability of DNA typing results.

PALM COAST — A Jacksonville man is accused of organized fraud and grand theft after “touch DNA” linked him to an October 2013 crime, according to a Flagler County sheriff’s spokesman.

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla – New technology is helping police and prosecutors in the Bay area solve burglary cases.

DNA experts Richard and Selma Eikelenboom found and analyzed the genetic evidence that last week freed David Camm, the former Indiana state trooper who was twice convicted of killing his wife and two kids in 2000.

Scientists are DNA testing the forged documents that allowed two convicted murderers to escape from a Florida prison as the two recaptured men are being questioned about possible accomplices.
Laboratory scientists in Pensacola, Fla., are testing the forged documents for DNA today, using a method called Touch DNA, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Miscarriage of justice investigators at the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) hope new forensic techniques will determine who killed the 14-year-old.