DNA Testing Scores Exoneration

In forensic science, evidence does not grow silent with time. Advances in DNA analysis continue to solve cases once thought unsolvable and, in some instances, overturn wrongful convictions. Other breakthroughs can come not from better technology, but from better questions. 

One such case began in 1997. During a robbery-homicide, a victim was shot while struggling with a suspect who fled the scene. Investigators searching the area recovered a bloody hockey jersey discarded along the suspect’s flight path, matching witness reports of what the suspect was wearing. In 1998, a local government lab determined that the stains on the jersey came from the victim, supporting eyewitness accounts. However, no testing was done at the time to identify the jersey's wearer. 

Investigators pursued the evidence available to them, and a defendant was ultimately convicted. Yet the jersey preserved for years in evidence storage would later become the key to freeing an innocent man.

A Game Changing Approach

In 2009, postconviction relief testing was granted to assess the convicted defendant’s continued claim of innocence. DNA testing was conducted on the collar of the jersey to identify the wearer. However, no DNA profile was developed from the sample.

As forensic technology advanced, investigators revisited the evidence in 2014. This time, analysts focused on the sleeve cuffs of the jersey, areas more likely to retain touch DNA from the individual wearing the garment. Testing revealed a DNA mixture from multiple contributors, but the results were inconclusive. 

For many cases, inconclusive findings might become the end of the road. But for Forensic Analytical Crime Lab, the investigation just began.

In 2021, forensic experts at FACL were asked to approach the evidence with a fresh perspective and critical, outside-the-box thinking. Rather than relying solely on the previously tested areas, the analyst carefully evaluated how the jersey may have been worn, but also what mannerisms (e.g. wiping nose and mouth) may have led the wearer to deposit their own DNA on their garment.  This strategic reassessment led to the identification of additional areas on the sleeves that had not previously been targeted for testing.

Using newer, more sensitive DNA methodologies, FACL conducted another examination focused on these newly selected areas of the jersey. The results proved pivotal: analysts identified among the DNA mixtures from both sleeves unique DNA profiles for an unknown male and an unknown female. 

That breakthrough changed everything. 

A CODIS Breakaway 

The DNA profiles developed during the renewed examination were forwarded to a CODIS laboratory, where both the unknown male and unknown female profiles were uploaded into the national DNA database system. 

The female profile generated a hit to an individual in CODIS, providing investigators with an important new lead. 

The investigation expanded from there. Surreptitious reference samples were later collected from a person strongly believed to be the unknown male. Through subsequent forensic testing and comparisons and through the collaborative efforts of law enforcement, the District Attorney’s office, the Postconviction Relief Attorneys for the convicted defendant, and FACL, the unknown male contributor connected to the jersey was ultimately identified. 

Justice In Overtime 

In March 2023, the convicted defendant was formally exonerated. 

This case is a reminder that a breakthrough does not always require a new instrument. Sometimes it takes the willingness to revisit closed evidence and to think carefully about how that evidence came to exist—how a garment was worn, handled, and discarded by a real person under real conditions. A jersey abandoned in 1997 held the answer for more than two decades. It surrendered that answer only when someone asked the right question and aimed it at the right few square inches of fabric. At FACL, every piece of evidence is approached with that same conviction: the truth is often still there, waiting in the one place no one else thought to look.