DNA Cold Case Using DNA to Solve Cold Cases

Our federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are charged with the responsibility of bringing justice to every case that comes before them. Especially in the case of homicide, the importance of finding resolution through identification and prosecution (where possible) of perpetrators, is a top priority. This is true even as a considerable amount of time lapses since the emergence of a given case. When an investigation reaches an impasse, exhausts its leads and ultimately finds itself without a trail to follow, it becomes a cold case. Cold cases typically find their way to the backburner as law enforcement agencies focus on solving crimes with more immediately available evidence. It is thus that cases go 'cold,' leaving investigators with no apparent directions to turn for resolution.

However, today, with the emergence and continued refinement in use of DNA evidence, many cold cases are receiving another look. Evidence drawn from a crime scene, most particularly human remains, may be used to draw evidence leading to the identity of both the killer and, in cases where it may be lacking, the victim. Historically, forensics experts would face distinct obstacles as a result of body decomposition, extensive distortion of physical appearance and the absence of critical identifying features. But the ability to use atomic-level samples of biological matter to draw far-reaching swaths of information is altering the nature and potential of cold case forensics. Today, as the discussion hereafter shows, old cases are getting a new look through the lens of DNA.

Discussion:

Today, law enforcement groups are making exciting new leaps in their forensic capabilities due to the availability of DNA testing. According to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), "several law enforcement agencies, prosecutors' offices, and crime labs across...

Often called 'cold case units,' these programs have enabled criminal justice officials to solve cases that have languished for years without suspects. Most frequently, DNA evidence has been the linchpin in solving these cases. For instance, this past July a California man was found guilty of the 1974 rape-homicide of a 19-year-old pregnant woman -- a case that was solved through DNA evidence nearly 30 years after the crime was committed." (NIJ, p. 1)
This demonstrates that DNA evidence has already been used effectively to reach back into history for critical and overlooked information about both victim and assailant. This prospect represents a chance to right past wrongs but overturning wrongful convictions as well. Additionally, DNA evidence may be critical as a new starting point for investigations that were ultimately fruitless in their initial stages.

To this end, one especially compelling case which continues to vex investigators even to present day is that of four New Hampshire homicide victims, three of them children between the presumed age of 1 and 11, and one of them a female between the ages of 22 and 33, believed to be their mother. According to Gast (2013), the case is now 32 years old and involves not just an unidentified killer but even more vexing, four unidentified victims. The bodies had been discovered fifteen years apart, in 1985 and 2000, in two barrels located on a rural property near a trailer park. However, as Gast reports, police could never connect the victims to any missing persons reports and, in spite of considerable follow-up with individuals living in the region at the presumed time of the murders, no identity could ever be established for the victims.

Today, according to Gast, New Hampshire State Police Sgt. Joe Ebert. "hopes the DNA testing may clearly show the relationships…