Blood From Mosquito Traps Car Thief 198
Frosty Piss writes "Police in Finland have made an arrest for car theft based on a DNA sample taken from the blood found inside a mosquito. 'A police patrol carried out an inspection of the car and they noticed a mosquito that had sucked blood. It was sent to the laboratory for testing, which showed the blood belonged to a man who was in the police registers,' a police officer told reporters. The suspect, who has been interrogated, has insisted he did not steal the car, saying he had hitchhiked and was given a lift by a man driving the car. I'm wondering if the suspect should have denied any association with the car at all. After all, who knows where that mosquito had been?"
Re:I can see it now: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Libelous story title? (Score:3, Informative)
Someone who disapproves of a witch hunt?! He must be one of them! Tie him to an anker and see if this wickedness floats or not!
Re:Too many factors (Score:4, Informative)
It was enough to question the guy, who admitted having been in the car, so the mosquito has proven to be a positive lead. Of course, the mosquito does not explain WHY the guy was in the car, but he could have left behind his wallet with ID and still used the same story.
-Restil
Re:Why was his DNA in the system? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too many factors (Score:4, Informative)
by no means should this even remotely count towards conviction as that mosquito could have come from almost anywhere
Huh? It's called "circumstantial evidence".
1. Car was stolen.
2. They identified someone who was not the owner, and associated him with the car.
There could be a million completely reasonable stories about how it arrived there, so it's not "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". However, it is real evidence, and the jury can weigh it along with everything else.
Similarly, if you find a murder weapon in someone's car, they might not have done it. Maybe they are being framed. Maybe it was stolen, used, and put back. However, that's for the jury to sort out.
Re:Yet more profiles in courage (Score:2, Informative)
Come now... as a fellow attorney you know better than to mislead the proles.
That particular legal proposition dates back to the reign of King Canute in 994-1035.
In more modern times i refer you to the 1762 treatise by Sir Michael Foster, Fosters Crown Law.
As your legal training has no doubt informed you, British Common Law is where most of our law
evolved from.
Re:Those Finns are dedicated (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In the land of Texas (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Too many factors (Score:3, Informative)
In other words, the jury is allowed to think "he's not telling us why he was at the murder scene, he's got something to hide". I expect juries in the USA do this subconsciously (even if they're not meant to). I see no problem with officially codifying the areas where inferences such as these are acceptible.
Rrriight... (Score:2, Informative)
It's interesting to see that Yahoo News says it's quoting AFP on this one. What would be more interesting to hear if this is actually a AFP "news" or not. - And if so, it would be very interesting to hear who on AFP was drunk enough to come up with this... =)
Unfortunately stealing a car for joyriding in Finland is not a very big offence. Actually it's not even called stealing, but "unlawful use of motor vehicle". And I dare say the police would even have time to check a car's interior, let alone hunt for a mosquito. I've had my car stolen once, and luckily recovered. I called up the police after it was recovered, and they didn't have time to come by to have a look at it, let alone dust the car for prints. - So, no cool CSI...
And BTW. It's December here in Finland (like I guess it's in most parts of the world), and the mosquitoes died by September...