Will DNA "Solve" the Madeleine McCann Case?

DNA technology is a wonderful thing. Sometimes it is the defining piece of evidence that puts the killer away. Sometimes it is the only way a homicide case that has been cold for years can finally identify who committed the crime. But, sometimes DNA is used to close cases the police want put to rest and the use of it is not exactly kosher.

We have just heard that Scotland Yard requested Portugal gather DNA from four suspects last year. The question in folks mind is, what will they link this DNA to? Was there some DNA in this case we are unaware of or are they going to retest some evidence and find this DNA? Or is something very concerning going on with Scotland Yard's request? Let me give you two examples to ponder.

There is a very high profile case in the US that included ten murders, four of them of a family that began the supposed series. The case, the BTK (bind, torture, kill) homicides, though heavily investigated by local police and the FBI came up with blank for thirty years. Then, through a weird twist, a man by the name of Dennis Rader, a local married man who did code enforcement, made a dumb mistake and got the police interested in him. Very long story short, he was arrested and charged with all the murders in this series, and he confessed in court to each and every one of them with a description of how he did them; there was no actual trial. One of the most unusual wrap-ups I have ever seen. He got life in prison and some deal for his wife. There was a huge press conference with local law enforcement and the FBI and lot of congratulations passed around. Everyone went home happy; the police agencies, the media because they got a great story, the public because the police finally caught the guy, and the families who now had answers.

Except there is a big problem with this ending to the BTK crimes; the police never had to show the evidence they claimed they found at this man's house and they never showed the DNA reports that supposedly linked this man to the deaths of the family of four and one other woman who was killed a number of years later. Because this man confessed in court and was truly very creepy, no one seems to be questioning his links to all the crimes.

Let me say this; the guy is a serial killer, no doubt. I believe he killed one of the female victims (I believe a later copycat killing) and I believe he murdered a woman not specifically included in the series who was murdered after 1990, when the death penalty was reinstated in Kansas. I believe the prosecutors made a deal; confess to the other crimes and we won't charge you with the one which will get you executed. In other words, Rader could become an infamous serial killer and duck the death penalty at the same time; I would take the deal if I were him.

But, I think the court confession was a charade. Dennis Rader didn't say anything in the courtroom that we already didn't know or the police already didn't know. But it is the DNA claim that was really fraudulent. First of all, I know firsthand from the detectives on the family homicides that the DNA was too degraded to be of use. Which is why my suspect in those crimes (who was a suspect in an unrelated murder and was one of the main suspects in the BTK killings at the time) could never be charged. Rader's DNA was also supposedly linked to a crime in which the woman's husband had been a suspect right up until Rader was arrested. Now, how could that be if there was DNA available in that crime all along? But, I guess the media doesn't want to ask those questions because the storybook ending was very satisfying.

There is another case in which a convicted (for life) rapist just got charged and convicted of a twenty-year-old crime. He was convicted solely on DNA; no witnesses, no other physical evidence, no confession. In fact, the man took an Alford plea in court (which means he admits the state may be able to convict him but he doesn't plead guilty to the crime) and he stood up in court and told the judge, "did not kill that girl." Now, I know a psychopathic rapist is hard to believe; after all, he didn't even allow his defense to fight the case. He took the Alford plea on Day Two, stunning his lawyers who have told me he did so because he couldn't get the drugs he wanted in the jail he was transferred to and he didn't want to lose his prison cell back at the penitentiary if he was gone too long. He already had life and this conviction wasn't going to affect him in any way. They told me the DNA report was questionable.

I bet it was. The detective on that case AND the state's attorney had both told me years back that "there were no sperm fractions found" which meant there was no DNA with which to match to anyone; hence, no arrest could be made and certainly no conviction. Yet, oddly enough, years later, the case was suddenly closed with magic DNA and a suspect nobody cared about.

People hear DNA and they automatically think that this means solid proof. They don't understand that DNA testing has its failures, it incorrect analyses, and, sometimes, the claim DNA linked a suspect to a crime can be completely fabricated. It is hard for people to believe this goes on, but it does and the issue has been rarely addressed (although one book, Tainting Evidence, broke the silence on this).

So, if DNA suddenly pops up to link to any of these recently questioned suspects, I think the majority of people will accept a Scotland Yard claim to its existence and validity. One way they can do this is to claim that a partial profile matches one of the suspects, enough for Scotland Yard to be convinced the suspect was involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, but, unfortunately, not to the extremely high legal standard required to prosecute. If they claim there is a partial match and then add in some behavioral stuff, like phone calls made that night, the case can be "solved" and shelved  of the and most public will accept the conclusion without giving too much thought to the possibility that no DNA actually really linked any of these men to the death and disappearance of Madeleine.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

July 2, 2014



  
Published: July 27, 2011

By Pat Brown
Rating: 
(5.00 based on 5 reviews)

What really happened to Madeleine Beth McCann in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007? Was she abducted as the Gerry and Kate have claimed or did something happen to Madeleine on May 3 in the vacation apartment and the incident covered up? Criminal Profiler Pat Brown analyzes the evidence and takes the readers through the steps of profiling, developing a theory that is intriguing and controversial.

Criminal Profiling Topic Of The Day: The Other Side Of The Coin

My long fascination with the use of DNA in forensic science has led me to contemplate the subject of genetically engineered persons. In all of the above examples, these individuals had some type of physical or mental imperfection. Yet they gave us some of the greatest gifts that society enjoys today through their talent, intellect, and scientific and artistic abilities. For example, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, bringing our country out of the great Depression by passing minimum wage laws, creating the Social Security Administration, starting initiatives to replant our country's forests, and promoting the arts. FDR was also confined to a wheelchair after being stricken with polio. If there was a television in every living room in the United States as there is today, it is doubtful that American voters would have elected a man in a wheelchair to lead our country. It is difficult to imagine how this would have altered our involvement in World War II, and consequently, the entire course of our nation’s history.

What makes the people shown in the above cartoon different from anyone else with the same conditions and diseases or even people without any of these afflictions? Is it an inner strength, a will to over overcome adversity? If so, could this strength of will be a result of factors such as environment, experience, or interactions with other people? Could it be some kind of inherited gene, or a combination of all of these things? The truth is we can't be sure. The human race is made up of individuals, each one unique. This is true not only in our DNA and in genetics, but also in something we call the soul, or the human spirit.

In reality, cloning takes place every day, all around us- even in us. For instance, the cells of our skin are constantly reproducing, creating exact copies of other skin cells. Many organisms reproduce by asexual reproduction, creating new organisms by making exact copies of themselves, which can be considered cloning. Our crops can be genetically modified in order to resist disease, pests, and to have more nutritional value. Scientists have attempted to clone mammals for many years. Some have even been successful after many failed efforts at a cost of millions of dollars. The method used is called nuclear transfer. This involves removing the nucleus of a cell, which contains the organism’s DNA, from the donor cell and implanting it in an unfertilized egg. However, can this truly be considered a clone? Even if the nucleus is removed and implanted without damaging any of the genetic material, it must still interact with the cytoplasm of the unfertilized egg host, which interprets the DNA encoding.

In the case of humans and cloning, the preferred subject would be intelligent, and healthy in mind and body. However, the cloned individual would have none of the experiences and memories of the original person. So we must consider what constitutes a “preferred subject” and what doesn't. Should it be based solely on an individual's physical and intellectual attributes, or does the spirit and the inner self come into play- their emotions, thoughts, ambitions, experiences, and their ability to overcome life’s adversities?

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: AIDS prevents Solving of Murders

There is one odd side effect of AIDS awareness that few people are aware exists. Some rapists and serial killers are terrified of becoming HIV positive and so they use condoms in the commission of their crimes. They may not actually be using condoms to thwart identification by law enforcement or to prevent the linkage of crimes, but simply because they don’t want to get a disease. How about that for getting the message across about safe sex?Yes, while serial killers don’t mind taking the lives of others, most have a real aversion to losing their own. Consequently, they don’t take on victims that will fight back, they avoid death penalty states, and some wear condoms to protect themselves from contracting HIV. Of course, some attack children and those they consider possible innocents, but, if they can’t get those victims, a condom will do.

The number of serial homicide cases without semen evidence is on the rise. While the missing semen may be due to the inability of the killer to function sexually or that he has reach such a level of experience that he is careful not to leave DNA, we shouldn’t jump to that conclusion. It may just be that he is a health nut.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: “DNA Evidence”

Almost everyone is familiar with the term “DNA evidence” used in criminal investigations. But just what is DNA, and why is it used for evidence?

DNA is found in the cells of every living thing. In humans, a DNA molecule contains 23 pairs of chromosomes. One chromosome from each pair comes from your mother, and the other comes from your father. Because no two individuals’ DNA is exactly alike (except for identical twins), it can be used to identify perpetrators and victims of a crime, and it can link them to each other or to a specific crime scene. DNA extracted from the cells of blood, body fluids such as saliva or semen, or tissue are some of the samples that can be used for identification of an individual. Since a single piece of DNA is too small to be analyzed, a process called Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR, allows us to make enough exact copies of the same piece or sequence of DNA until we have a sample large enough to identify the person it came from. This is referred to as DNA amplification and output analysis.

In PCR DNA amplification, several types of materials and equipment are necessary to copy a specific segment of DNA. In the first step, a DNA mixture is created by adding materials to the extracted DNA and applying heat to unwind and separate the two strands of the ladder like structure of the DNA double helix. The “rungs” of the ladder are complimentary paired together in a sequence unique to only that particular piece of DNA so that each strand then becomes a template used to make an exact copy of its matching strand. Approximately 3 million base pairs of DNA vary from person to person. The remaining steps consist of heating, cooling, and adding enzymes and other materials to the DNA mixture in order to synthesize the correct complimentary base pairs, creating a new corresponding strand that will bind with each of the original separated strands. This cycle is repeated approximately 30 times with each cycle doubling the number of template DNA produced from the previous cycle. Now there is enough DNA in the PCR output to examine and identify as belonging to a specific person. This is done by injecting the amplified DNA into small wells containing a special gel and applying electrical current. This causes the DNA fragments to be separated by size, which forms distinctive bands on the gel. The exact sequence of the bands produced by PCR from the target DNA is then compared to the DNA sequence extracted from a separate sample known to belong to a particular person.

Besides the valuable contribution DNA amplification and output analysis has made to forensic science, it is responsible for significant advances in other scientific areas as well, such as to diagnose inherited disorders, treat disease, and genetically modify crops.

Donna Weaver

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: The CSI Effect

The CSI Effect: A Serious Distortion of Reality

I was reading my readers’ comments the other day as any author will do, enjoying a sense of pride when I get kudos and praise, and wincing when I am called an idiot or a moron - or worse, a fraud. Good and bad, these opinions are par for the course when you are in the public eye. However, some of the anger was directed at my supposed lack of competence based on what folks are “learning” from fictionalized television (and this includes “true crime” and “forensic” shows like Body of Evidence and I, Detective). The result of viewers believing what they are watching is called the “CSI Effect,” and these misperceptions gleaned from television are having an influence on how we think crimes are committed and solved. Take for instance, one comment a reader of my book, Killing for Sport, made about a television appearance in which I said that the killer was in a hurry to get home and wash his clothes: “Anyone who watches Forensic Files or CSI knows that all blood does not wash off and can also leave traces in the sink, pipes, washing machine.” This led this woman to conclude that Pat Brown “knows less than the average person on the street” and that she is a “con artist.”

The lady has half her information correct; CSI does teach its viewers that washing your clothes, even with bleach, is not a sure-fire methodology of removing all biological evidence. Advanced DNA techniques indeed may find DNA even after materials have gone through the wash cycle and because of this, more criminals today have chosen to burn their clothes after committing a violent crime. On the other hand, an awful lot of DNA does get destroyed with soap and bleach and the tests may come back inconclusive, so if you haven’t got a faraway dumpster to lose the clothes in or a match handy, washing the items may not be such a bad idea.

With DNA, are you familiar with other chemicals that destroy DNA? YES. What are they? HEAT, LIGHT, UV LIGHT, HIGH HUMIDITY, DIRT, SOAPS, BLEACH. Is it protocol to clean the work area with bleach so it doesn’t contaminate the area? YES.

(http://www.justiceforjulieandjoel.org/20060718-01.html)

Furthermore, not all criminals are all that smart and many are not even worried about DNA testing. Some still do go home and wash their clothes. Why? Because their first concern is not whether all the blood will wash out to the point that DNA cannot be detected but that it washes out well enough that their mother or their wife or their girlfriend can’t see the blood on it.

Here is a bit from the story of serial killer Joe Kondro:

By then, the killer had covered his tracks. He had washed his clothes, showered, and thrown away his shoes. Police searched his home and questioned him, but came away empty-handed. “I knew they didn't have any solid evidence," he says. "I knew they didn't have a body.”

(http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/109172_kondromissing22.shtml}

In other words, if the police don’t see anything terribly wrong, they aren’t going to be able to get a search warrant and tote your stuff to the lab. Even if they can get a search warrant, not all police detectives do the job as thoroughly and cleverly as CSI would have one believe. From a trial transcript we have this exchange:

Did you see the washing machine? YES. Look in the machine? YES THERE WAS A LOAD OF LAUNDRY. Did you do any test on the laundry? I DON’T RECALL. Did you and Agent Lewis discuss testing the laundry? I THINK SO. I DON’T RECALL IF WE DID A TEST ON LAUNDRY.

(http://www.justiceforjulieandjoel.org/20060718-01.html)

So, washing your bloody clothes may be good enough. The detective may ignore the washed clothes because there are piles and piles of them or because they were washed and then put back with all the other clothes in the closet. It isn’t so easy figuring what is worth taking and what tests you can make the lab do. “Hey, guys, I have fifty shirts and thirty pairs of pants I need you to luminal for blood” …Real life, folks, real choices. This holds true for both the cops and the killers………because life isn’t a television show. Life doesn’t have script writers and editors making sure everything is brilliant and wrapped up by the end of a thirty or sixty minute time frame. Don’t believe everything you see on the box. Shows are made to be fun and interesting and sell advertising; the producers aren’t overly concerned that the contents are accurate or conveyed in a totally truthful manner…………because a television show isn’t life.