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January 19, 2007
DNA database cracks cold cases

By Tom Alex
Register Staff Writer

Martin Sinclair Duffy is in the Polk County Jail because of an astute probation officer and Iowa legislators who authorized money to expand DNA testing and a state DNA database.

Officials say that even a few years ago, Duffy probably wouldn't have been tested. They say the money, which funds the logistics of testing and processing criminals' DNA, has expanded the state's DNA computer database and dramatically increased the number of convicts whose DNA matches that taken in crimes to which they may not have been linked.

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, contains our unique genetic code and transmits the hereditary pattern.

Six years ago officials in Iowa began working on a way to pay for a DNA database. A law intended to broaden Iowa's database passed four years ago, but the statute was contingent on finding money for it and it was largely ignored in a series of cash-strapped state budgets.

Fred Scaletta, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Corrections, said that before July 2005 the law required that only certain criminals - those convicted of felonies or misdemeanor sexual offense - provide DNA samples.

When legislators budgeted money to begin building that database, officials started by collecting samples from those who met that criteria. Even so, the Department of Corrections had a limited number of DNA kits with which to take samples, so they began testing the inmates as they were leaving prisons.

As more money became available, samples were taken of inmates entering the system. Then officials began taking samples from everyone currently under supervision. Finally, they started taking samples from people arrested on lesser crimes if they had a previous felony conviction or misdemeanor sexual count on their record.

And that's why they asked Duffy for a sample. He had a 2005 drunken driving conviction and he was about to finish up his probation last year when a supervisor asked him for a DNA sample.

Officials figure they have samples of DNA from more than 61 percent of the people who are somewhere in the corrections system: in prison, on work release, on probation, on parole, or in another type of residential facility. Samples have been taken from at least 78 percent of the 8,800 inmates currently in prison in Iowa.

The Duffy match was made using the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). That database compares evidence developed as part of a criminal investigation and samples from the Iowa All Felons Database Program.

There are currently 23,000 profiles in the database. In 2006, there were 77 offender hit, which means that officials were able to report the previously unknown identity of a DNA donor.

Bruce Reeve, laboratory administrator with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said there also were 16 forensic hits last year, in which a sample matched another sample from another crime scene. Twenty-eight additional DNA samples connected Iowa cases to previously unrelated out-of-state cases.

"At the end of the year, we were processing more samples and that was resulting in more leads," Reeve said.

After the law changed in 2005, the number of samples received by the laboratory continued to climb. "That created quite a backlog," he said. "We geared up and put people in place to do the work."

Scientists began catching up with the backlog.

Some startling announcements were made.

Earlier this month, officials announced the arrest of a Prairie City man in an 11-year-old case involving the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, based on DNA links in the database.

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