Forensic science has played a critical role in helping solve cases in crime, terrorism, organized crime, white-collar crime, and cybercrime, among others. A lot of success is witnessed in solving crime especially cold cases that would have gone unsolved due to lack of evidence and technology that would process and analyze blood or DNA traces in crime scenes and evidence collected. Due to technological advances in serology and DNA testing, crimes that had long gone cold have been solved even if the perpetrators are no longer in existence (Litmanovich & Latta, 2018). One such case is the Boston strangler case in which 19-year-old Mary Sullivan was found dead in her apartment after being raped and strangled in 1964. Albert DeSalvo was the perpetrator, along with ten other victims. He had confessed to the ten murders and added Sullivan’s confession but later recanted, leaving space for doubt that he was not the perpetrator. The doubt was immense after he was killed in a prison stabbing in 1974. However, due to DNA testing advancing, the Y-chromosomes passed down in the lineage of male members of the family were traced in his nephew and pointed detectives on the right path. An exhumation of DeSalvo’s body and DNA tissue test from his femur confirmed the test results to be a 99.9% match closing the case in 2013. A second case is the 1990 brutal attacks on elderly women in Goldsboro, North Carolina, by an assailant dubbed the Night Stalker. Through DNA analysis from vaginal swabs, authorities confirmed that the perpetrator was the same in three incidences. The Goldsboro Police Department got a cold hit in 2001 credited to DNA testing advances and database development in North Carolina DNA database. The Night Stalker confessed to all three crimes. All law enforcement departments throughout the country have unsolved cases. These cold cases can be solved through recent advancements in serology and DNA technology. However, DNA testing and serology are not without their challenges. Even with technological advances, there still could mean some errors in the system either in the way evidence is collected or the way it is analyzed through incompetence. Wrong results yield a wrongful conviction or the release of a criminal because of insurmountable evidence (DuPre, 2013). Take, for instance, Josiah Sutton’s case in which he was charged and convicted for raping a 41- year- old woman at the back of her car in 1999. The conviction came through anchored upon DNA evidence only that the technician handling the evidence was incompetent. Sutton’s mother found reprieve for her son through KHOU 11, a program subjected to authenticate DNA test results from Houston lab through private labs. Authenticating Sutton’s results came back inconclusive to matching the DNA sample obtained from the victim’s vehicle. Four years in jail and Sutton is exonerated in 2004. A second case involving incompetence in DNA testing is Ronjon Cameron’s case in 2003. Results from one of the samples exclude him from the case, but a sample from a different location neither excluded nor included him in the scene. After testing advancements in 2012, he was excluded and exonerated from the crime. Conclusively, DNA and serology play a vital role in solving cases; however, collection and analysis of the samples should be done carefully and conclusively before the findings can be used in a case.
Works Cited
Litmanovich, E., & Latta, S. L. (2018). Investigating DNA and blood . New York, NY: Enslow Publishing.
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DuPre, D. P. (2013). Homicide investigation field guide . Oxford: Academic Press.
