Cotton Swabs are the Prime Suspect In 8-Year Phantom Chase 344
matt4077 writes "For eight years, several hundred police officers across multiple European countries have been chasing a phantom woman whose DNA had been found in almost 20 crimes (including two murders) across central Europe. It now turns out that contaminated cotton swabs might be responsible for this highly unusual investigation. After being puzzled by the apparent randomness of the crimes, investigators noticed that all cotton swabs had been sourced from the same company. They also noted that the DNA was never found in crimes in Bavaria, a German state located at the center of the crimes' locations. It turns out that Bavaria buys its swabs from a different supplier."
Ewwwwwww... (Score:5, Funny)
So they shredded a woman for swabs? I thought we were only good for barbecue, masks, book covers, lampshades and creepy garments.
Re:Ewwwwwww... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh my, are you like, a woman?
Oh my oh my oh my oh my
Re:Ewwwwwww... (Score:5, Funny)
What about her accomplice? (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, Irish police, working on the theory that such a well-travelled criminal may have been been provided with transport by an accomplice, have apparently identified her driver:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0219/1224241418104.html [irishtimes.com]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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So they shredded a woman for swabs? I thought we were only good for barbecue, masks, book covers, lampshades and creepy garments.
I'm pretty sure you missed one...
Re:Ewwwwwww... (Score:5, Funny)
The thing women can be useful for that you notice is not on the list is really the dishes ? Wow. This really is Slashdot!
Great way to hide (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great way to hide (Score:5, Funny)
There are some jobs where you really shouldn't express dissatisfaction by spitting in the products.
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If the contamination screwed up the law enforcement customers' tests, I wonder what other customers' tests it screwed up. Does the vendor sell these swabs to hospitals, for example?
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Please sit down, I have some difficult news for you. The test results have come back and it seems the man you knew as your father was not your biological father. DNA testing shows that your true father was a middle aged german woman, possibly with a congenital heart condition. I know this must come as a shock to you.
It's clear what this means (Score:2, Funny)
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OJ didn't do it!
APB (Score:5, Funny)
Sherlock Holmes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sherlock Holmes (Score:4, Interesting)
Aliens did it?
Re:Sherlock Holmes (Score:4, Funny)
I suspect a highly secretive and powerful organization known only as the GNAA.
Yours truly,
Slashdot Troll.
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"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Sherlock Holmes is fictional.
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No shit, Sherlock!
Holmes being fictional doesn't imply that the principles found in Conan Doyle's books aren't valid.
Whether a real person said something or a real person wrote that a fictional person said something doesn't change the wisdom of what was said, does it?
There are plenty of "laws" that I find useful that stem from fiction, including TANSTAAFL, Hanlon's Razor and even one or two grains of wisdom from that old fictional anthology about the Palestinian guy.
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You're the one who defers to authority if you think that what an author says is less valid than what someone in authority says.
Me, I prefer to judge what was said and not who said it.
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Inconceivable!
This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
But ... but ... CSI, computers and experts are always right! You mean they actually have to do investigations instead of blind trust?
I wonder how much hard evidence they discarded because they "knew" it was this same woman?
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a good question. Cops aren't really all that bright, they are methodical and when applied properly, it gets the job done but they aren't exactly the smartest group of people. It's entirely possible that a lot of evidence and/or leads have been discarded or neglected because of this.
Before anyone flames me for stating that cops aren't the brightest of the bunch, when doing science it's often the case where a sample of something is tested before it it treated with the substance being tested. These provide baselines for comparative results and it isn't uncommon for them to be randomly done throughout the course of the experiments because you need a control. Now, if they were the slightest bit intelligent in the subject, they would test raw material periodically to ensure it wasn't contaminated in the same ways they shoot and clean their own guns periodically to ensure they are ready for use. This entire mysterious woman contamination could have been caught before it ever effected one crime scene if something was periodically done to validate the test equipment they are using. Instead, they treat it with less suspicion then a flashlight and just assume that it works as advertised instead of "checking the batteries" every once in a while. Doesn't seem to bright to me.
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Well, I'd like to think that the defense (had it gotten to that stage) would have made the connection that the woman being charged for two dozen random and unconnected crimes works in a Q-tip factory and that maybe, just maybe, she coughed on a box along the way.
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Well, I'd like to think that the defense (had it gotten to that stage) would have made the connection that the woman being charged for two dozen random and unconnected crimes works in a Q-tip factory and that maybe, just maybe, she coughed on a box along the way.
She must cough on each one, extra-special-like. She's been doing it for 8 years...
And this one is just for you, Detective Jimbo Junior...>hack< >wheeze< >bloodsplutter<
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It could be entirely possible that the same police doing the collecting is also doing the testing. Perhaps not on the samples they collected themselves but testing other people's samples. Many of the lab technicians are or could be field certified and full blow cops to boot.
The problem that links this to the cops is that they create the procedures for collecting the evidence. If they aren't periodically sending blank samples in, then things like this happen. DNA, like Blood type evidence was originally supp
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Interesting)
The police actively don't hire [nytimes.com] people that are too smart. Which scares the shit out of me.
Intellectual outliers destabilize control structures.
Being predictable to your teammates/backup under all circumstances is an essential part of performing a life and death job - whether performing undersea construction or policing the 'projects.'
Having a tendency to come up with bright ideas under pressure is simply a liability in the world of street level law enforcement.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Having a tendency to come up with bright ideas under pressure is simply a liability in the world of street level law enforcement.
Hmm... I call bullshit, but I do this with a nice little story to soften the blow.
When I was in the army (which used to be mandatory in my country), our units where made up of people from all walks of life. We had the rich and the poor, the bright and the slightly dim, in all four combinations.
Whenever something dangerous happened, it allways involved someone less intelligent. Please note that I don't define "less intelligent" based on the actual incidents, but on obeservations made when living toghether as two companies for almost a year.
These people forgot to unload their weapons, fired from behind the line during moving live fire training, repeatedly managed to throw grenades which had not been properly handled so they did not explode and had to be detonated by others. Several of them managed to leave behind their own AK5 with a full magazine of live amunition inserted for the public to find.
I saw no potentially deadly situations caused by people with high IQ. The smart people on occation whined about illogical orders, but they always understood when not to "fuck around", i.e. during live fire.
High IQ is only a problem when it is missing. A lack of impulse control and short attention span is a problem.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply put: ADHD and assault rifles don't mix.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Funny)
It took a lot of conversation to reach this insight.
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Having a tendency to come up with bright ideas under pressure is simply a liability in the world of street level law enforcement.
Bullshit. I'd love to hear you explain how this might possibly be the case. Give my a plausible hypothetical situation.
In reality, people capable of sophisticated intelligent thought can't stand driving around in a car mostly doing nothing for 8 hours a day. They're trying to hire people that are less likely to quit.
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Obviously he didn't manage the boredom of his current job, since he was looking for a new one.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:4, Insightful)
Being predictable to your teammates/backup under all circumstances is an essential part of performing a life and death job - whether performing undersea construction or policing the 'projects.'
Which, in reality, never works, because then they are too stupid to predict their teammates anyway. :P
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The police actively don't hire people that are too smart. Which scares the shit out of me.
You're talking about US police. The requirements for aspiring police officers in Germany are significantly higher.
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The police actively don't hire people that are too smart. Which scares the shit out of me.
You're talking about US police. The requirements for aspiring police officers in Germany are significantly higher.
They only let in ubermensch?
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Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.
Because this statement makes just as much sense:
Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who was foreign was rejected.
That judge needs a new job fast.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe the judge was just unable to get past this question:
"If you're so smart, Mr. Jordan, why weren't you smart enough to intentionally score low enough to get the job?"
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
How about how scary it would have been for the woman? Just imagine if the government got a hold of her DNA in a few years as part of some new Not-Really-Totalitarian-Fascist-Plot-We-Are-Really-Your-Friend program to grab DNA data for massive profiles of their citizens? She gets handed her ID card back and then picked up by the police a few hours later as the databases are furiously matching old crimes to new citizen data. She has no idea what is going on, just that they state they have DNA evidence of her involved in crimes all over the EU.
Considering how much the police and the courts blindly trust all the data coming from forensic laboratories, she would be well and truly fucked.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:4, Insightful)
she would be well and truly fucked because apparently all cops are stupid idiots who just go "the computer says it was you, so we're not even going to bother asking you that question you seen on TV - you know, the one going 'where were you on the night of', or even gather evidence for a solid care or present that evidence to a judge - we're just going to lock you up, for life, right away".
oh wait. that's not how that stuff happens in any reasonable nation.
In fact.. -because- that's NOT how that stuff happens is that they realized there's gotta be something going on with the swabs themselves.. as opposed to, say, the DNA lab handling them. Or that the same woman really -was- involved in the actual crimes themselves.
I know it's popular to say that DNA evidence is being used to lock people up left and right, but very few cases -hinge- on that DNA evidence (some exceptions are e.g. rape cases where DNA from a sperm sample collected is pretty strong evidence that moves the question of "did the woman even have sex with that man?" to "was the sex that she had with that man a case of sexual violation?")
That's not to say that I'm in favor of a building a DNA database with everybody's samples in them - but to make it seem like it will auto-jail people is naive in all but the strangest nations where you probably wouldn't get much of a due process regardless of DNA tests being involved or not.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
oh wait. that's not how that stuff happens in any reasonable nation. [emphasis added]
Yes, well, that's the catch. Are there any? Remember, they're all run by politicians.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
I never said or implied that. "Blind trust" was the word I used which indicates negligence, and not stupidity.
Unfortunately, that does happen quite often. There are plenty of men that have been released from prison after 10-20 years for precisely just that.
That's meaningless. I find it hard to categorize any of the actions of the U.S, Canada, U.K, France, Australia, etc. as reasonable. Most people don't, or have you not read most of the posts on Slashdot? In an unreasonable nation they would not need a computer in the first place. Your guilty only because it serves the purpose of somebody that wants you out of the way for whatever reason.
Gotta? Really? As in, for sure? Fo Shizzle?
The investigating officers don't "gotta" do anything. The only choice they have is to 100% rely on the veracity of the findings by their forensic technicians. Anything less puts the whole system in doubt which greatly hampers any investigations by the officers.
When faced with forensic evidence across many crime scenes I don't find it reasonable that the vast majority of investigating officers will be second guessing the findings to figure out how they may be wrong. More likely, they will try to construct a "reality" that fits the findings. That is the danger.
Once it leaves the investigating officers hands, it reaches the courts. The prosecutors don't give two shits about the defendant, the victims, or the truth. They only care about ONE THING, AND ONE THING ONLY. That is, "Can I get a conviction?". I highly doubt any prosecutor has ever thought long and hard about the veracity of any of the evidence in front of them that they are using. As far as the other side, "discredit, discredit, discredit".
Prosecutors and Politicians have one thing in common. They are both whores. In fact, good prosecutors turn into Politicians, and the vast majority of Politicians started as lawyers anyways. Their jobs are not to find the truth, but to bend the truth to whatever agenda they are trying to accomplish. Cynical, I know....
The problem here is the forensic technicians. Every single one of them needs to be fired. Not only could this woman have been at risk, but possibly many others as they clearly did not take the time to do proper science in any, way, shape or form. A lot of victims probably lost out as well since if they could not be competent in the bare fundamentals, what leads us to believe they did not miss huge amounts of evidence?
ALL of the evidence this lab produced is suspect going back at least as far as the first sample was taken in this case. That opens the flood gates for lawyers to get convictions turned over based on this negligence alone. Certainly new trials where the laws allow it.
I realize you are coming to the defense of the authorities here, but this is indefensible. Investigating officers and the courts cannot afford to ever second guess the technicians, so when something like this happens it is perfectly reasonable for people like me to suspect that innocent people have been made victims.
Keep in mind, this was across many laboratories
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine an even worse scenario... the Totally-Not-Fascist DNA database already exists and has her DNA in it at the time this first started. Disproving 20 crimes would probably be easy for her, as a solid alibi to one would call into question the rest. But if it were a single crime, there's no way she'd get out of it unless she were lucky enough to have an alibi on that one specific day.
But hey, no worries, the innocent have nothing to hide!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
this incident has raised major awareness.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:5, Insightful)
How is her DNA getting on these cotton swabs, anyway?
Earlier someone suggested sneezing/coughing, covering her mouth with a gloved hand, and then using the same gloved hand to pack swabs. Hard to avoid this unless she works in an enclosed suit (which is unlikely.)
they might need to be hygienic in other applications
Or not - I use them to clear soldered contacts, for example - couldn't care less about traces of some organic, they'd be all history after I dip the swab into some of our solvents (alcohols and acetone, for example.) Medical people simply sterilize everything before they use it on a patient. So this is an interesting case where highly sensitive biological test is performed without checking that the material is clean and without cleaning it. This may have something to do with the fact that the users here are not highly trained doctors and scientists (who are personally responsible for quality of results) but mere technicians who do the steps by the book but don't quite understand how the whole thing works, and maybe sometimes even don't care to know.
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If you have a process to keep things sterile, then you would not just have everyone handling the things wear gloves, but also surgical masks. It doesn't make much sense to have one without the other.
Re:This is actually pretty scary (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not really, DNA is just a salt by itself it is not really dangerous. Consider if you have eaten anything that was at some point a living object (such as a steak or piece of fruit or a vegetable). That stuff is full of DNA and it hasn't killed you yet. I am surprised that the forensics lab that has been doing this testing did not run the appropriate negative control (cotton swab only) in their PCRs. DNA evidence alone would not lead to a conviction especially if this woman has alibis for the times these crimes were committed (such as she was busy packing cotton swabs at the time of the murder).
Actually, I do believe it's a technically an acid, Deoxyribonucleic acid [wikipedia.org] (which by definition, can be combined with a base to get salt, water, and some heat).
I don't think anyone was actually worried about the DNA being dangerous. I think it was more along the lines of whatever microbes are hitching a ride along with the swabs, since obviously the packer seems to be making all sorts of meaningful contact with the cotton.
Sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it really too much to ask for a SERVER at the other end of that hyperlink?
nyud.net doesn't seem to have it cached, neither does Google. And MirrorDot is no help at all:
Are there any newer slashdot caching tools I don't know about? Specifically one that has this article?
What?? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... Are you bitching that you can't read the article? As in, you wanted to read the article before making a post?
I feel... like I've seen a unicorn or something...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
virgin, virgin :-b
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure mirrordot has not been updated in years.
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
Story is from Stern... (Score:2)
Always state your assumptions (Score:5, Funny)
Health Class (Score:2)
Re:Always state your assumptions (Score:5, Interesting)
It reminds me of early MOSFET technology. No one could get MOSFET's to work on the same level of BJT's because there was horrible leakage in the gate. After several years it became apparent that the gate oxide was contaminated by sodium ions that carried current through the gate.
(Disclamer: This story was relayed to me by one of my professors. I'm not sure how accurate it is.)
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Bad Slice (Score:3, Funny)
Prawo Jazdy (Score:5, Funny)
This sounds similar to the case of Ireland's most reckless driver. [bbc.co.uk]
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Well, that's only to be expected. The British never partitioned Poland.
Real life is slow... (Score:3, Funny)
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That's the hole I can't figure out... Why was this woman's DNA on eight years worth of cotton swabs? Do they seriously buy them in that large bulk that they only need a purchase every 8 years? If there was so much widespread contamination, why wasn't this showing up in even more crimes? Why didn't they figure out that there were two different pieces of DNA on these swabs?
Prawo Jazdy (Score:5, Funny)
This reminds me of the "Prawo Jazdy" story. The Irish police were looking for this dude "Prawo Jazdy" who accumulated a very large number of speeding tickets. He kept committing infractions all across Ireland but always got away whenever he was stopped by giving a different address each time. They thought they had a supercriminal fugitive speeder on their hands until someone noticed that his name was Polish for "driver's license".
thats an interesting defence (Score:2)
So how do you explain your dna at the crime site?
I used to work in a cotton factory. its possible that cotton from that factory ended up to tbe the cotton they used. did you hear about that case where a woman's dna ....
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Good point.
I think I will try and take a second job in as many cotton swap factories as I can over the next couple of years. Looks kinda funny on the resume but could come in REAL handy some day.
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I don't have to explain my DNA being at the crime scene, I have to explain DNA that matched mine being at the lab.
You took a sample of my DNA. You took it to the lab. Please prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you didn't screw up and contaminate a sample somewhere with my DNA. [nacdl.org]
Furthermore, spurious DNA matches are not as improbable as cops and prosecutors like to suggest [latimes.com].
DNA is lousy forensic evidence, and should be used only for exoneration.
And the
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Unfortunately defendants aren't allowed to set rules of the Court. Judge usually does that, and if instead of answering questions you start a political speech in the witness box you'd be silenced pretty quick (and it's not a good idea to anger the judge.) The defendant is free to argue that the lab is at fault, but unless your name is OJ Simpson you aren't getting anywhere, statistically speaking.
Please prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you didn't screw up
Yes, tell the judge that you want a negative
I knew biotech would lead to this! (Score:5, Funny)
We should NEVER have developed human-cotton hybrids.
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It's not as though people haven't been trying.
HeLa cells? (Score:2)
Whatcha wanna bet they're yet another case of contamination by HeLa cells?
(Google for it. It's an interesting story, and a good cautionary tale.)
negative controls?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Police labs are incredibly sloppy. You have to either have negative controls or some sort of validation or acceptance testing on your chemicals and supplies. They have all of these chain-of-custody rituals, but then they use supplies from Wal-Mart.
Re:negative controls?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Police labs are incredibly sloppy. You have to either have negative controls or some sort of validation or acceptance testing on your chemicals and supplies. They have all of these chain-of-custody rituals, but then they use supplies from Wal-Mart.
In the Jayden Leskie [wikipedia.org] case the lab which searched for DNA on the victims body detected the DNA of an unrelated rape victim. Samples from the owner of the DNA had been processed by the same lab earlier in the same day.
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Could happen to anyone... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Almost all evidence is circumstantial. Nearly all trials contain *only* circumstantial evidence. Oh, and witnesses are generally less reliable than circumstantial evidence...
Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Paging George Kaplan (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd hate to be that woman. In fiction it's Hitchcock but in real life it would be Kafka (unless she is guilty AND works in a cotton swab factory).
control experiments (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why scientists use double blind experiments and control experiments. So, with every cotton swab taken from a crime scene, forensic labs should get one or more "blank" ones to test, without knowing which is which.
Q & A..... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the few instances where an answer is found out BEFORE the question is asked.....
Answer: "It now turns out that contaminated cotton swabs might be responsible for this highly unusual investigation." .....And now the question:
How, exactly, did the DNA get *onto* the swab in the first place?
I always thought... (Score:5, Funny)
I always think that when they take a swab on CSI.
CSI_Stokes - "Sir, I am afraid to tell you this, but,
Article in Speigel (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,615608,00.html [spiegel.de]
Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:5, Funny)
Mega criminal mind
The handler of swabs really is a serial killer.
Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:5, Funny)
It's a new spin off!
CSI: You're Doing It Wrong
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The Coen brothers are set to do a CSI spin-off, Crime Scene Incompetence, sort of like Fargo meets Scary Movie.
I wish I wasn't kidding, that would be a riot!
"Officer Grissom, are you concerned about the security of... your shit?"
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"Officer Grissom, are you concerned about the security of... your shit?"
Oh, you're talking about Crime Scene Incontinence?
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It's a new spin off!
CSI: You're Doing It Wrong
Isn't that all of them?
Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:4, Funny)
Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad that they didn't find the woman who's DNA it is. After all, she would have been severely punished for something that she had absolutely no idea about.
I'm amazed that there was the presence of mind to check the suppliers!
Although, this would be a great "thin-blue-line" skit.
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I'm pretty sure that there'd be about 96 billion ways to disprove each individual charge.
Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:5, Insightful)
You're probably right, but I think the OP's point stands, nonetheless. A non-citizen, possibly lacking the right language skills, and maybe not the most sophisticated person in the world, might get railroaded. In the US, at least, juries tend to give overwhelming weight to scientific or expert testimony of any kind, regardless of how certain or flawed the science is. Even if not, that woman's life would still go to hell the minute the cops found her.
Police and the scientific method are like politicians and economic theory: They talk about the principles, they often appear to use and apply the academic insights, but they tend to throw anything out that doesn't match their pre-existing bias, without a second thought.
I'm not saying that all cops just think "The cuffs are on her: Therefore, she must be guilty." But police work tends to reward and glamorize a dogged pursuit of a conclusion based on a hunch. If a scientific researcher:
* becomes emotionally involved in the outcome of his or her work, developing a substantial personal need to see it succeed, AND
* eschews open, independent peer review and only seeks collaborative opinions from people likely to sympathize with the researcher, generally,
it's a recipe for disaster--cold-fusion, antigravity, perpetual motion machines, etc. Academia has a LOT of braking mechanisms to prevent bad science from getting to the publishing stage, and more mechanisms designed to suppress whatever happens to slip through. Police departments have far fewer checks.
Historically, bad police work hasn't carried much of a risk to the cops who did it--you could railroad a poor, ignorant, minority defendant on a sensational charge without much worry that he would somehow exonerate himself, later. That's starting to change (Project Innocence being the big example), but old attitudes and methods are deeply ingrained in police culture, and won't change quickly.
Anyway, the point is, that these cops devoted hundreds of police and several years of investigations to this case--millions of dollars in costs. But since police labs don't try to have independent outsiders replicate and repeat their experiments, nobody caught this before it turned into a circus.
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I'm glad that they didn't find the woman who's DNA it is. After all, she would have been severely punished for something that she had absolutely no idea about.
Damn. Wasn't it already standard procedure to ignore DNA connected with handling the evidence? Why not? Who gets to decide, and why?
<grammarnazi>whose == the one who [subject] belongs to, who's == who is</grammarnazi>
Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, that's why I leave my semen in every room I every visit, and on every person I meet.
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Re:CSI to the rescue (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, it can still be perfectly sterile.
Sterilizing something, that is killing off everything on and in it that lives, is pretty easy.
But completely removing DNA and other particles isn't. There could still be DNA particles from the person who picked the cotton in the cotton swabs.
When you have a little cell in the swab, there is no easy way to figure out if that is a human cell or a cotton cell, and remove all human cells.
And there *definitely* still is cotton DNA in the cotton swab.
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I understand what you are trying to say, however the example you gave is anything but an alibi: