June of 2020?

I'm honestly surprised it got processed that quick

Alabama was one of the labs involved in testing the Rapid-DNA system, in this ScienceDirectarticle.

I'd bet a whole quarter they kept the system and are using it for faster results than conventional testing.

Meh. I made a B+E arrest off of DNA from a blood smear 5 years ago.
Dumbass was already in CODIS

The DNA collection company 23 and Me- IS OWNED BY THE WIFE OF ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF GOOGLE!
Be afraid...be very afraid,

BTW - heard Google just bought Fitbit. - Welcome to mandatory Fitbit usage so the can track you for ...'insurance purposes'...

Fuck thieves.

After seeing California do catch and release on everything under the sun.

I am FINE with scorched earth for the scum.

I was on a jury for a burglary turned assault that had DNA evidence.

The guy left his Big Gulp on the window ledge where he broke in. DNA was collected from the straw.

In that case, the home owner was home and confronted the perp. The perp struck the occupant with an unloaded BB pistol and ran out the front door.

Perp was a repeat offender and the minimum sentence we could give him was 25-years.

Finding blood makes it so easy. Collect it,  send it off, hopefully get a match several months later.

Problem is, at least here, they want a new sample from the suspect to confirm the results.  If the suspect leaves town, not much we can do with it. I've got a couple really old burglary cases with a DNA match I can't do anything with until the suspect comes back to the area.

Not sure how this is news, happens all the time.

They've helped with several. Or been used as a resource somehow.  I know one personally.

A friend of mine's son's girlfriend hid a pregnancy and dumped the baby.  DNA from the baby was run against one of those databases, and one of the baby's great grandparents or a great aunt or something had used the service.  From them, they worked down the family tree until they identified the parents.  The teen mom is now in prison.

DNA gets cheaper and faster every year.  Its use just for things like murder are long gone.  It's routine for more and more crimes.  Hell, I heard of it being used to ID a dog that pooped on a neighbor's lawn.

Asking that of the tin foil types on here?

Send off DNA evidence all the time if it's available on Burglary and other felony cases.  It gets processed when Forensic Sciences can get to it.  Sometimes that takes quite a while due to backlog.  This is nothing new.

We do DNA collection on burglaries where there is blood.  The status of the person involved has nothing to do with it. Just whether there is blood on scene and if we can collect a clean sample.

But, the last one we got a positive hit on, the victim was a member of the Bohemian Club and hangs out with the Bushes.

Suspect is a member of a criminal burglary crew and had been arrested for prior felonies.  7 month return on DNA results is faster than CA, however.

I like catching burglars.  I fucking hate them.  I will do my best to ensure their arrest and conviction.  They really do damage to victim's sense of security and peace of mind.

I'm just the help, bro.  Victim was a cool guy, former Marine officer.  He found the blood before the officers arrived and pointed it out to them.

In Los Angeles the is routine, especially if it was a really good sample like blood. Fingerprints are becoming a thing of the past.

I thought Alabama closed its crime labs....all the DNA matched and there weren’t enough teeth to compare dental records.

Lots of replies, but I'll just cherry pick this one -

Isn't there like, a huge national backlog of rape evidence kits that have yet to be processed for dna and other evidence?

I mean, to me, that would kind of take precedence, no?

Rather than spin the cycles looking for some methhead who stole a VCR?

Edited - that's just one example I could make of things that, to me, would be more important than burglary with no deaths associated with it...I mean, are we totally %100 caught up on every possible crime that has DNA submitted for it, so now we can start processing all the little shit?

clicked expected to read he jizzed on some woman's panties or something.  Heck nowadays maybe men's boxers or something

Burgs are steps away from assault, sexual assault and murder.

DNA test costs what, $79 with Amazon Prime? It's not like they combed the house for stray hairs, dude left a puddle of blood.

Collecting blood evidence at a B/E scene is an everyday thing here. Doesnt matter what the victim's socio-economic status is either.

Or maybe based on everything the officer observed he didn’t see anything that he thought would be of evidentiary value? Sorry, but a back door getting kicked in and the perp running straight into the living room and yanking a TV isn’t going to provide much. There’s levels to it and every case doesn’t have evidence to go off of. Just because they showed up and wrote a report doesn’t mean they didn’t consider the overall scenario and likeliness of evidence.

Just an FYI, for an unknown subject you can file an arrest warrant for the actual DNA profile so the statute of limitations doesn't run out.  Depending on your area, there are other orders from the court you can obtain to get the verification sample from someone out of your reach.  The issue with the second test is that a lot of the times, proper ID is not obtained when the 1st sample is collected from the subject (fingerprint verification).

happens all the time - he's likely been in the system before and it came back as a match.


now digging  and comparing your DNA to 23 & me to find your uncle that wanted to see his family tree is usually reserved for big cases (I can only remember 1 or 2). They probably already had this guy as a suspect and just needed confirmation.


The bigger issue with the commercial sites is they're shipping your DNA off to China - who can then engineer "things" to target certain DNA profiles....

Fingerprinting basic crime scenes should be done by the responding officer, very simple, cheap and effective use of resources.  Basic fingerprint kit under $20 dollars and will last years.  Suspects don't wear gloves like they everyone thinks they do.  I have seen serial rapist (testified in that one) captured with less than a dollar's worth of supplies and a little time caught by the responding Patrol Offices putting a few minutes effort into the scene.  I know a few 500+ officer departments that every officer from the Chief to every academy cadet is issued a kit and expected to use it, and surprisingly do with great results.  The break down in the process is if you don't have the forensic support to do the analysis in a timely manner.

God forbid the cops do their job and track down criminals...

RAPID DNA has been around and been in use for along time, just not by US Law Enforcement and it was resisted by most DNA sections in crime labs in the early days.  All of their pushback and concerns have been put to rest for most part since those early days.  Very effective, portable and incredibly valuable investigative tool to use for real time results.  I was working with a RAPID DNA company and large US Metro area back in 2014 on a proof of concept project.  Had one of their units running off a power converted in the back of my suburban.  Was able to get samples in under 90 minutes.  Only draw back was you can not get results from touch DNA or mixture samples which removes the instant results capabilities from just those types of samples.  The system I was using did not consume all of the collected sample when testing so you were still able to take these problematic no result samples and run them through the traditional DNA testing back at the lab and get the resulted later on.  So nothing lost, just the expense of the test.  For the rest of the single source samples your would have the instant results.  Also if you linked and sync'd the internal database it with the CODIS database (state level) you would have the profiles in the units memory for when it was unplugged and taken to the field, giving you the most updated database to work from.  We tried to almost give this technology and workflow away back then for an operational model to use as an real time working example for future sales only to have DNA staff resist it like a cat getting bath.  They called wanting the same deal about 4 years later after realizing the opportunity missed.  

Thank you. It's good to hear real world facts, not 'I read on the internet...'

Amazing the things lost because of institutional inertia. Maxim's machine gun, Christie's tank suspension, Rapid-DNA...

This. When I was a prosecutor, if there was even the chance of DNA on a felony case (at least where there was an actual victim and not "society"), I had it sampled and run through CODIS.

If you are dumb enough to cut yourself on a broken window, you are dumb enough to do something stupid during a burglary (like stab a witness).

1. Backlogs are dependent on location.

2.  Felony burglary is not  "little shit"

Yes, and the most insidious part of the commercial DNA testing sites is that a relative can totally fuck other members of the family.

For example, if grandparents sent off for testing, their grandchildren can be identified by virtue of a near match (sharing 12.5-25% of DNA with a grandparent who is in the database)

European Royalty has been doing this for centuries! Ever heard of the Habsburg lips?

Genetic testing alone does not identify individuals. The tests have be used in conjunction with genealogy databases, social media posts and other tests.

I can get how someone who sowed their wild oats for 15 years might fear that "Are you my daddy?" knock on the door. {shrug}

There are very few tools that can be used solely for good or evil. Using them responsibly is the prudent thing. IMHO.

Your state, MN, has one of the better DNA crime labs in the country.  They are very successful at low threshold samples (touch DNA).  

As for the DNA backlog of rap kits.  That was caused more by workflows of Law Enforcement agencies in how investigation units cleared cases involving sexual assaults.  These actions caused the related evidence to not be processed and pile up in evidence rooms.  With these missteps in prioritizing cases and clearing them by using criteria that did not match the FBI UCR requirements over the years, thousands of cases piled up across the nation.   The issue was when you clear all of your sexual assault cases "victim refuses to cooperate" or something similar to get it off your desk and case list the evidence was no longer sent in.  When going back and start testing these old cases that should be active, you will start to see the same suspect DNA start showing up in several cases in a certain geographical area.  This information is huge to help with a follow up victim interview to help flip them to cooperate and move the case forward to prosecution before there are more victims.  This "backlog" was also a great opportunity to have a reason for a politician to look serious and caring in front of the cameras to help force open "uncle sugars" wallet to the states to deal with another govt caused problem.

They'll cooperate with law enforcement sometimes, but they don't add your DNA to CODIS, which is the database police will be runningthe sample against. If law enforcement runs DNA and gets a hit, it's because the match is a convicted felon.

Jesus christ people. It takes 30 seconds to swab DNA and a few minutes to impound it as evidence and send it to the state lab for testing. It's extremely routine and would absolutely be done in any felony case where obvious DNA evidence like blood is available.

Take off your cop hating tin foil hats for once and realize you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

Burglary is a pretty serious crime.  I would want the police to test the dna if some criminal broke into my property and left behind blood.

DNA isn't like it was ten years ago.  

It's mainstream now and not as difficult or expensive as it used to be.  

I’ll post this again in case you didn’t see it. I see you just cherry picked one to quote.



Robbery evidence is usually pretty crappy and doesn’t yield many results that can be searched against the DNA database. The suspects don’t normally get hurt and leave blood or anything else that yields good results. It’s usually touch evidence from things they handled.  Again, mostly terrible results.
Rape kit evidence - there may be a backlog.  It is one of those things that gets sensationalized a bit though. The case scenarios range from violent abduction and rape to “my boyfriend wanted sex but I didn’t” to “I think I was raped. Something just feels weird. I went to sleep in my bed and when I woke up, I dunno I feel funny. to “I was raped on Tuesday. I had unprotected sex with my boyfriend on Wednesday. It’s now Saturday and I want to get checked out”. To a woman becoming uncooperative during the investigation.
Homicides always get priority.

There is simply too much crime and too much evidence for it all to be worked.  Cases need to be prioritized in a way to provide results that are beneficial as a whole.
A burglary case with blood evidence should take priority over a 7-11 robbery where the suspect touched the counter before robbing the place. That counter swab is trash. How many people out their hands there?  It’s a low success rate sample.
The burglary case should take priority over the rape case where the woman went to sleep in her own home. Not intoxicated or drugged up. No signs of anything other than she woke up and felt something was wrong.

Everything isn’t black and white and leaving all the blood burglary cases to rot because they are “just” burglaries doesn’t help.  You want to find these people before they escalate to robbery if someone is home or worse yet sexual assault or homicide.

ETA: just a thought exercise
Two case scenarios and You can only pick one to get worked in the next 6 months.

1 - your house broken into. Blood left on scene.  Your ______ was stolen. You know the evidence may lead to a database hit.

2 - two known felons are buying/selling drugs. One shoots and kills the other. Suspect is arrested and isn’t getting out on bond.

Which do you choose?

Seconded
.gov doesn’t want to add money to the budget to actually fund labs

That seems a bit high for today.  Maybe not for the government though.

In Seattle you'd be lucky to get a cop to even show up.

Good on them for making the effort!