Numerous DNA Hits!

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by RiverRat, Feb 2, 2008.

  1. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/feb/02/colorados-growing-database-dna-scoring-more-hits/

    DENVER — Colorado’s burgeoning DNA database registered an unprecedented 25 “hits†in a two-week span last month, laying the groundwork for arrests the past two days in a 1976 killing and a series of sexual assaults in the Denver area in 2004 and 2005.

    The flurry of activity, which also led to last weekend’s arrest of a suspect in a decade-old Boulder slaying, comes after years of work to build the state’s computerized criminal DNA system at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

    And that system, which now includes more than 71,000 genetic profiles, may get another boost if Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey is successful in pushing legislation that would allow authorities to take DNA samples when someone is arrested on felony charges.

    “This is a wonderful day for law enforcement - no question about it,†Aurora police Division Chief Ken Murphy said Friday after the arrests of Ricky Lee Harnish, 52, in the 1976 killing of a Columbine High School student and Michael Lollis, 43, in nine sexual assaults from 2004 and 2005.

    Pete Mang, deputy director of the CBI, said that the 25 “hits†registered by the state’s DNA database between Jan. 10 and Jan. 24 included a robbery, two homicides, three car thefts, three sexual assaults and 16 burglaries.

    The homicides included the December 1997 killing of Susannah Chase in Boulder and the December 1976 slaying of Holly Marie Andrews near Bakerville in Clear Creek County.
     
  2. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    The SkyMask Rapist Arrested!

    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/feb/02/arrest-spurs-da-to-push-for-change-in-law/

    A call came out of the blue Thursday from the state's crime lab saying it had matched the DNA for a suspect in nine rapes - and it sent detectives scrambling to arrest a man they'd been after since 2004.

    Michael Keith Lollis, 43, also known as Michael Pigford, was arrested Thursday at a community corrections facility in Centennial and is being held on three bails of $350,000 each, authorities said Friday.

    The Colorado Bureau of Investigation was doing a routine test of Lollis' DNA after his conviction on a felony count of forgery last year when it suddenly matched the DNA of a notorious serial rapist.

    The man wearing a ski mask and wielding a knife was attacking women in metro Denver every one to two weeks during 2004 and 2005.
     
  3. Little

    Little Member

    Wow, great posts RR.

    The more multi-tasking criminals entered into this system the more hope for cases being closed.

    Little
     
  4. Voyager

    Voyager Active Member

    Great News RR....

    Thanks for bringing this very encouraging news to FFJ...It gives hope for a resolution to the Ramsey case and a number of other outstanding Colorado cases which occured during the years we have been here together in an effort to find answers to the JonBenet Ramsey murder....

    I am excited about the new technology and the excellerated effort that this technology is bringing to crime detection and criminal identification...

    I am remembering that a number of our astute members have remarked over the years that technology would catch up with the existing evidence in the Ramsey and other murder/abduction/abuse cases and that these cases would be solved over time because of these advances...

    Now these prediction seem to be coming true....I know all of us will be watching and waiting here for evidence to be analyzed in a new way and be brought to bear on the cases which we have so intently studied here...

    Please keep us further informed RR as you encounter new information on these technologies...

    Thanks Kiddo,
    Voyager
     
  5. Paradox

    Paradox Banned for Stupidity by RiverRat

    acceleration 3. change in velocity with reference to an increase.

    excel 1. to surpass others or be superior in some respect.

    Excelleration though is an appropriate "new wordism"; i.e. an acceleration in excelling at the scientific method providing more and more ways to use DNA analysis.

    The increase in technology might FORCE the Boulder DA's office to re-open the Ramsey case, which is de facto closed.

    What irony, an increase in knowledge, something that Boulder supposedly prides itself on, has shown the idiocy inherent in the Boulder philosophy via the use of DNA analysis in the Karr wreck.

    Further advances in crime fighting thechnology, if applied to the Ramsey case, can only help eliminate the false suspects and narrow the umbrella to Patsy and John.

    The medieval minds of the Strange Boulder Theosophical Culture can only be chagrinned by the excelleration of technological advances in crime detection.
     
  6. Elle

    Elle Member

    This is very encouraging news RR. Thank you for posting this.

    Sincerely hope the Ramsey case will be re-opened, Paradox.
     
  7. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Well, it seems to me that if all of the unsolved cases are suddenly resolved due to DNA except for the Ramseys......Henry Lee was right - this is not a DNA case.
     
  8. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    I wish they'd find ONE PERSON who would match the Ramsey 9+ marker DNA. Then the RST would have their scapegoat...up until the alibi, explanation, etc., moved him out of the suspect pool.

    I say "one person" because there would be millions, no doubt, with a full three plus markers missing.
     
  9. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/feb/03/dna-expert-pleased-by-arrest/

    DNA expert pleased by arrest in Chase slaying
    Criminologist Lee assisted in Chase slaying investigation
    By Vanessa Miller
    Sunday, February 3, 2008

    World-renowned criminologist Henry Lee, who was flown to Boulder 10 years ago to analyze evidence collected in Susannah Chase's beating death, said this week that investigators should be praised for making an arrest in the cold case.

    But, Lee added, the DNA that landed Diego Olmos Alcalde, 38, in custody for Chase's homicide isn't all that's needed to get a conviction, and Boulder police said they're gathering as much additional evidence as possible.

    "DNA is just a fraction of a case," Lee said, comparing an investigation's need for supporting evidence to a table's need for legs.

    "If you don't have four legs, you don't have a table," he said. "In an investigation you need witnesses, evidence and a little luck."

    Less hope in Ramsey case

    Lee, a DNA expert who's aided more than 6,000 investigations, including the JonBenet Ramsey homicide, said he expected investigators would eventually make an arrest in Chase's death because of the diligent job officers did collecting evidence after the University of Colorado senior was found dying in an alley Dec. 21, 1997.Chase was left to die in the alley near 19th and Pearl streets some time near 2 a.m., and a man called 911 around 3:40 a.m. after hearing her moans. But it wasn't until the sun rose that investigators linked her attack to a second crime scene a block away, where a baseball bat was left on the blood-stained sidewalk.


    In the decade since, officers investigated and ruled out more than 100 people as potential suspects and pored over more than 200 pieces of evidence, including the metal bat and a partial fingerprint lifted from the weapon.

    "Boulder police detectives really worked hard on this," Lee said. "I want to congratulate them."

    He said he's not as hopeful for a resolution in the JonBenet case because of missteps police made in preserving evidence from the University Hill home where the 6-year-old's body was found Dec. 26, 1996. That case was initially treated like a kidnapping, and the crime scene was not immediately secured.

    In fact, Lee said, his lab rates its cases based on their chances of resolution, and the Chase homicide ranked between a 7 and 8 while the Ramsey homicide ranks between a 3 and 4.

    "But you never give up on a case," he said.

    Beyond DNA

    Ten years and one month after Chase's death, Boulder police last Sunday arrested Alcalde on suspicion of fatally beating Chase because his DNA profile -- which was entered into a federal database after he was convicted of felony kidnapping in Wyoming -- matched evidence recovered from the 23-year-old woman's body.

    Lee, who helped start the national database in 1990, said getting evidence from Chase's case into the national system was one of his first recommendations to Boulder police.

    "We suggested they put it in the databank file," he said. "That's the most powerful tool."

    But, Lee stressed, DNA is not the only tool.

    "You have a lot of stuff left behind at the scene," Lee said. "In the Susannah Chase case ... we looked at the baseball bat and the stuff on her clothing."

    Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner said investigators have worked over the past decade to gather and preserve every piece of evidence possible, and now that a suspect is in custody they're compiling their case.

    "Every piece of evidence you have that ties someone to a crime scene is important," Beckner said. "You run down every lead you have. You check everything out as best you can. You have to be thorough."

    Beckner said he won't discuss additional evidence in the Chase case because he doesn't want to hamper the prosecution's case against Alcalde. But, Beckner said, "We have evidence beyond the DNA."

    Beckner wouldn't say if the print from the baseball bat matches Alcalde's.

    He also wouldn't discuss lessons learned from the Ramsey investigation, except to say that detectives learn from every case.

    "At any crime scene, how you process the scene and preserve evidence is crucial," he said. "The more you have, and the more extensive a crime scene is, the better chance you have in finding something that could be important later."

    Of course, not all the evidence collected after a crime is relevant, said Gregg McCrary, former FBI profiler and criminologist. For instance, he said, if someone else handled the baseball bat before it was used in Chase's attack, a print pulled from the weapon might not be important.

    "It could be the fingerprint of another person who doesn't have anything to do with the crime," he said.

    Still, McCrary said, it's important to have physical evidence, in addition to DNA, that associates a person with a crime scene.

    "It's the combination of those things that makes a very tight case," he said. "The more you can layer on, the better case you've got."
     
  10. Watching You

    Watching You Superior Bee Admin

    JBR does not equal DNA.

    There is no way this case will ever be prosecuted and won on DNA evidence for more than one reason. I won't even bother to explain, again, because it takes a fundamental knowledge of DNA and a wealth of common sense, which the RST isn't known for.
     
  11. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    "[Lee] said he's not as hopeful for a resolution in the JonBenet case because of missteps police made in preserving evidence from the University Hill home where the 6-year-old's body was found Dec. 26, 1996. That case was initially treated like a kidnapping, and the crime scene was not immediately secured."

    Which is EXACTLY why Patsy wrote the ransom note, and it worked. The coup de grace was calling over the army of friends to the house in order to help "wait" for the kidnapper's call. By the time LE figured out the case wasn't a kidnapping, but a "staged" death/murder, the crime scene had been contaminated, the Ramsey lawyers engaged, and John and Patsy were out the door. The ransom note bought time and confusion, and in the end, that was all that was needed.
     
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