ORLANDO, Fla. - After a quarter-century of waiting, all it took was a can of beer to crack a cold case, according to investigators.
Orange County deputies arrested Kenneth Robert Stough Jr., who is accused of murdering a convenience store manager back in 1996. Public safety expert and former deputy James Copenhaver say the crime scene technicians back then did an excellent job.
Did I miss something? Great, the can had his blood.. But how did having the can,with the DNA, help? Why did they have him, why did they run his DNA? Yeah it's early, still sleepy, might have missed it.
SO, he killed someone with a knife. He cut himself, leaving blood at the scene. The police ran his DNA results against one (or more) of those sites people join to find long lost relatives or some similar crap. The cops find a familial match and then follow him (and likely his relatives) until he discards a DNA exemplar that they can test. Then they get a warrant and collect buccal swabs. Bada boom, bada bing. Quod erat demonstratum. At least, that is the way that the process is described where I have read about it.
They didn't have a voluntary sample from the perp. The blood was from the crime scene 25 years ago. The "voluntary" sample was from the beer can recently (saliva, likely). Not sure how you track a DNA sample to relatives...
Did I miss something? Great, the can had his blood.. But how did having the can,with the DNA, help? Why did they have him, why did they run his DNA? Yeah it's early, still sleepy, might have missed it.
ReplyDeleteSO, he killed someone with a knife. He cut himself, leaving blood at the scene. The police ran his DNA results against one (or more) of those sites people join to find long lost relatives or some similar crap. The cops find a familial match and then follow him (and likely his relatives) until he discards a DNA exemplar that they can test. Then they get a warrant and collect buccal swabs. Bada boom, bada bing. Quod erat demonstratum. At least, that is the way that the process is described where I have read about it.
DeleteOkay, yeah, I remember hearing about cold cases being solved because someone in their family did the DNA test.
DeleteUse ancestry.com to get the right family, then the dna on the beer can for the exact match.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't have a voluntary sample from the perp. The blood was from the crime scene 25 years ago. The "voluntary" sample was from the beer can recently (saliva, likely). Not sure how you track a DNA sample to relatives...
ReplyDeleteBecause, until relatively recently, doing DNA from small amounts of dried blood was hideously expensive and needed a large sample to get it right.
ReplyDeleteThe first real round of major advances in DNA testing came from, sadly, 9-11. Testing small blobs and smears only to find out who they belonged to.
Now? Just part of a drop of dried blood can be used to get a good sample. And the price has come down to a relatively reasonable amount.