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| Gaps in DNA databanks have led to tragedy |
| By google.com |
| Published: 12/14/2009 |
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MADISON, Wis. — During what police say was a 20-year killing spree in Milwaukee, Walter Ellis left his DNA behind all along the way — everywhere but the one place where it might have saved a life. Ellis should have given a DNA sample to the state crime databank during a prison stint in the early part of this decade, but he had another inmate pose as him, authorities say. As a result, when analysts tried to identify DNA in bodily fluids from one of the slayings back in 2003, no matches turned up. Investigators didn't connect Ellis to the crimes until this fall, when they seized genetic material from his toothbrush. By then, it was too late for the woman police say was Ellis' seventh and final victim. "If they would have got his DNA when they were supposed to get it, maybe my cousin would still be here," said Sarah Stokes, whose cousin, 28-year-old prostitute Ouithreaun Stokes, was found beaten and strangled in an abandoned rooming house in 2007. An Associated Press review found tens of thousands of DNA samples are missing from state databanks across the country because they were never taken or were lost. The missing evidence — combined with big backlogs at the nation's crime labs that result in DNA samples sitting on shelves for years without being analyzed and entered into the databanks — is preventing investigators from cracking untold numbers of cases. And some of those gaps have had tragic consequences. Read More. |
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