Preventable Crimes : case studies on the potential of DNA technology to reduce crime
Chautauqua County
On the morning of November 25, 1998, a woman was confronted by a rapist in her home in Jamestown, Chautauqua County. In June 2001, a Chautaugua County Probation officer secured a DNA sample from Andrew Tehoke who was serving a probation term for a 2000 Burglary 3rd conviction. Tehoke's DNA profile hit against the DNA profile developed from forensic evidence recovered in connection with the 1998 sexual assault and he was subsequently convicted of the offense.
Erie County
A DNA Databank hit linked Lamont Coleman, a man with a history of sex offenses, with the sexual assault of a female professor which took place on March 31, 2000. The attack occurred in the same building on a college campus where, in 1987 another female professor had been assaulted. Coleman was convicted of the1987 attack and his DNA profile was entered in the State's DNA Databank. It matched with the physical evidence recovered at the scene of the 2000 assault. Coleman was a national fugitive for two years and listed on the FBI's Most-Wanted list prior to his capture in July, 2002.
Following a DNA Databank hit in April 2000, Ishmael Saladeen was indicted for the 1982 murders of a 54 year-old male and an 84 year-old female who were killed during a robbery in a photography studio in Buffalo. During the commission of this crime, the owner of the studio and five other victims who entered the store were tied up and robbed. The elderly female was strangled to death and the male victim fatally shot. One of the surviving victims was also raped and sodomized. The surviving victims all had a caustic solution splashed in their eyes apparently in an effort to blind them and prevent identification of the perpetrator. With the advent of the state DNA Databank, the Erie County Department of Central Police Services Forensic Science Laboratory developed the perpetrator's DNA profile from evidence recovered from the victim who was sexually assaulted during the 1982 attacks. Within a year of these crimes, Saladeen was convicted for a separate incident of two counts of Attempted Murder in the Second Degree and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Pursuant to the 1999 amendments to the DNA database law, a DNA specimen was collected from Saladeen and his DNA profile was found to match the DNA profile of the perpetrator of the sexual assault. The Statute of Limitations prevented the indictment of the defendant on the rape and sodomy charges; however, as a result of him being linked to the photography studio scene through the sexual assault evidence, Saladeen was convicted in a jury trial on December 11, 2001 for Murder in the Second Degree.
Madison County
In 1992, the small village of Cazenovia (20 miles east of Syracuse) was celebrating the Fourth of July with a carnival. A 15 year old boy left the restaurant where he worked to meet his parents for the festivities. On the five minute walk along a wooded footpath to meet his parents, the boy was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered. His body was discovered in Cazenovia Lake the next day. Thousands of leads were pursued all over the country (given the fact there were so many transient people in town that weekend of the carnival.) In February 2001, the case was solved when forensic evidence recovered from the victim was found to match the DNA profile sample of Jeffrey Clark. Clark's DNA specimen had been collected for inclusion in the DNA Databank based on his conviction for Sodomy 1st in 2000. Clark subsequently entered a plea of guilty to the 1992 murder.
Monroe County
In November 2002 a man was killed during a failed burglary when he woke up to the sounds of someone in his home. The victim approached the intruder and during the ensuing struggle managed to call police before being mortally wounded. Police arrived to find the victim but no suspect in the house. Crime scene technicians collected 10 blood samples from the Gates, NY home, 9 of which matched the victim, but the tenth did not and was loaded into the State DNA Databank in January 2003. This sample returned a hit on Bryan R. Hawkins who had been required to submit a sample for inclusion in the databank for a previous Burglary conviction as a result of the 1999 amendments to the DNA Databank law. Armed with this information police confronted Hawkins, who denied involvement in the murder, to request that he submit a sample for confirmatory testing. Hawkins agreed and upon testing, the sample matched the DNA found at the scene. Subsequent to the match, police were able to find two witnesses that remembered seeing Hawkins with a cut finger on the day the Homicide occurred. Hawkins is now serving a term of 25 years to life for the 2nd degree murder conviction.
Because of the variation in the ages of the victims and the modus operandi, investigators were unaware that there was a connection between three sexual assaults that occurred between 1997 and 1999 in suburban Rochester, New York. In 2000, DNA testing of physical evidence recovered at the scenes of these assaults indicated that one suspect had committed the three crimes. In one of the cases, a 4 year old girl was abducted from her home during the night, molested and left on a residential street miles from her home. In another case, a 10 year old girl was beaten and raped by an intruder in her home. In the third case, a 67 year old woman was raped, beaten and robbed in the parking lot of her apartment building. In March 2002, a DNA sample from Robert Griffin was taken as a result of his recent conviction for Attempted Burglary 2nd and entered into the State DNA Databank. Griffin's DNA profile matched the DNA profiles developed from the three sexual assaults. Griffin was convicted of these assaults following a jury trial.
New York City
On January 5th 2004 a serial rapist was sentenced to 35 years in prison for a series of robberies and sexual assaults covering 5 months and 3 boroughs. The attacker, Tyrone Williams, started his crime spree in January 2003 by following a woman into an apartment complex in Chelsea where he robbed and sodomized her. Four days later he then followed three more women into an apartment building in the Bronx raping 2 of the victims and sexually assaulting the third. The following week Williams returned to Chelsea where he followed two women in to an apartment, raping one victim and robbing victims number fie and six. Williams then proceeded to Manhattan raping one victim in a stairwell in Mid-April 2003 followed by a second Manhattan rape in the early part of May 2003. The evidence collected at the scenes of these vicious attacks was quickly analyzed by the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and submitted for a search early in 2003. Williams was arrested by the New York City Police Department the day they were notified of his DNA hit. Williams was required to provide a DNA sample for the NYS DNA Databank following a 2000 conviction for an attempted burglary.
One early morning in October 2000, a young financial analyst on her way to work in midtown Manhattan was pulled into a freight elevator and viciously choked, raped and beaten. The victim bit her assailant, causing him to bleed onto her jacket. A DNA profile was developed from the blood stain by the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner Forensic Biology Laboratory and entered into CODIS. The profile from the crime scene "hit" against the DNA profile of Richard Navas. He was subsequently arrested and convicted for Rape 1st and Assault.
In
the early morning hours of December 21, 1999, as an NBC
Producer walked home from her job in midtown Manhattan,
she was confronted by a man who threatened to kill her.
He pulled her into an open stairwell and raped her. She
lured him to an ATM machine by offering him money, hoping
to capture his picture with the ATM security camera. Unfortunately,
the perpetrator could not be identified in the ATM photo.
Two months after the attack, a DNA specimen was collected
from Lashange Legrand who was on parole
for Attempted Robbery 1st. His DNA specimen had been collected
under the 1999 amendments to the DNA database law. When
his DNA profile was entered into the state DNA Databank,
it matched with the DNA profile recovered from forensic
evidence collected from the scene of the 1999 attack. Legrand
subsequently pled guilty to the rape.
In 1998, a female employee of a major department store had gone into the stock room of the store to pick out a robe. The assailant choked her and proceeded to rape her. Using the pin of her employee badge, the victim stabbed him which caused him to bleed onto the robe and card board that covered the floor. Subsequent to the rape, the rapist fled the stock room covering his face so that he could not be identified on a security camera. In April 2002, the DNA profile developed from the blood stain hit against the DNA profile of Joe Felder. Felder provided a DNA sample for inclusion in the Databank in February 2002 when he was committed to the Department of Correctional Services for Burglary 3rd. On April 15, 2003, Felder was convicted at a Jury trial for Rape 1st.
In
November1995, a woman was abducted, raped and terrorized
in an apparent attempt to get information about drug dealers
that the perpetrators viewed as competition. She was unable
to identify her attackers. A DNA profile was developed from
forensic evidence recovered from the scene and, when entered
into CODIS, found to match the DNA profile of Kyle Hardison.
Hardison's DNA specimen had been collected after the 1999
amendments to the state DNA database law as a result of
a Robbery conviction. He was subsequently convicted of First
Degree Rape and First Degree Sodomy.
In 1991, a 17-year-old girl Harlem girl was sodomized, raped and robbed in New York City. Due to the limitations of DNA science at the time of trial, DNA could not be extracted from the rape kit evidence. Following his arrest and subsequent prosecution for these crimes, a Manhattan man was convicted after a bench trial and sentenced to 20 to 40 years incarceration. Recently, advances in DNA science enabled law enforcement authorities to conduct a new test on the evidence in the case, and a DNA profile from that evidence was added to the databank in April of this year. A subsequent comparison of the crime DNA to the DNA of the incarcerated Manhattan man proved that, in fact, he had not committed the crime for which he was incarcerated. The crime DNA was then searched against the DNA databank, and matched to another incarcerated felon whose DNA sample was added to the databank as a result of the 1999 expansion. Sadly, the existing statute of limitations has expired for these crimes, thereby hindering the prosecution of the true perpetrator. However, the power of the databank to exonerate the innocent, as well as implicate the guilty, is made abundantly clear in this case, and the need to eliminate the statute of limitations for such violent crimes is reaffirmed.
Onondaga County
In November 1975 a woman was found murdered on the shores of Otisco Lake just outside Syracuse, NY. Next to her body police found the business card of a Madison, NY cabinetmaker, Donald Sigsbee. Sigsbee was the prime suspect for a number of years in the rape and stabbing death of the victim but police we unable to positively connect him to the crime. In 1975 the use of DNA evidence had yet to be conceived, but due to the diligence of a single State Police forensic scientist, a sample of the semen from the crime scene was preserved as a microscope slide. That thoughtfulness led to the DNA profile that matched the DNA of Sigsbee taken from a discarded drinking straw. Now 28 years later the family of the victim has their justice and a final conclusion for the death of a loved one. Sigsbee now faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years to life in prison.
In December, 1999, an individual broke into Onondaga County home of an 80 year old woman and raped and sodomized her. She was unable to identify her assailant. Forensic evidence recovered at the scene of the attack was analyzed and the resulting DNA profile entered into the DNA Databank. The profile was found to match the DNA profile of Sean Coyne who was on probation for an Attempted Robbery 2nd conviction. He had been required to provide a DNA specimen as a result of the 1999 amendments to the DNA database law.
Sullivan County
Nearly 18 years of mystery ended when Rommal Bennett pleaded guilty in August of 2004 to the 1986 murder of the owner of a diner in Monticello. A cold hit in CODIS, the national DNA Database system, linked Bennett to the DNA profile recovered from a cigarette butt found in a beer bottle at the victim’s residence. The cigarette butt was analyzed by the New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center in Albany. Bennett’s DNA profile was put into the national database by the forensic laboratory in Minnesota based on a 1994 conviction for a sex offense.
Westchester County
Thirsty? Apparently Angelo Powell was following an October 2003 burglary where he thought it a good idea to help himself to a soda from the victim's home. That thirst was the final straw in a string of burglaries that Powell had committed during his 25 year career as a criminal. The DNA that he left on the rim of the soda bottle was compared to the NYS DNA Databank and hit against a sample Powell provided in 2000 subsequent to a conviction for Burglary in the Second Degree. Based upon the DNA evidence left behind and admitting that he had no legitimate reason to be in the home of the victim, Powell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 16 years to life as a persistent violent felony offender.
The first match against the State DNA Databank solved a 21-year-old murder in Westchester County. In August of 1979, a 22-year-old woman was brutally stabbed to death in her Mt. Vernon apartment. The perpetrator apparently cut himself in the commission of this offense. Bloodstains found at the scene of the crime were preserved and DNA analysis was performed in 2000 by the Westchester County Forensic Science Laboratory. The resulting DNA profile was uploaded to the State's DNA Databank and found to match the DNA profile of Walter Gill. Mr. Gill was serving time in State prison for robbery, an offense that did not require DNA sampling until the 1999 amendment to the DNA database law. Gill was convicted of First Degree Manslaughter.