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Oregon DNA lab at 5,000 hitshis jeans, and decided ‘jorts’Forensics groups uses genetic evidence to solve crimesBY STUART TOMLINSONTHE OREGONIANCLACKAMAS (AP) -Forensic scientist Heather Feaman has processed DNA evidence collected from crime scenes related to just about any crime you can mention, from arson and rape, to robberies and burglaries, to car theft and murder.She once got a positive match, or “hit,” from the cut-off lower legs of a pair of jeans that a burglary suspect left behind after breaking into a home. There were enough skin cells inside the pant legs to get a conviction.It was her favorite piece of evidence ever, she said.“I imagine he got hot inwere the way to go,” Feaman said from the Oregon State Police’s Forensic Services Division lab in Clackamas.Feaman, who has a biology degree and a master’s in forensics, started at the lab in 2006, the same year the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS program in Oregon had its 1,000th hit, linking a convicted felon to a crime based on a DNA sample.Earlier this week, the system recorded its 5,000th hit. The work is hard but rewarding, Feaman said, especially in cases where no suspect has been identified.“When you press that initial search button and it pops up and tells you there is a hit in the Oregon database, it can be very exciting,” she said. “You can have no idea who did it and then there’s a match.”In September 1991, Oregon legislators approved alaw that required convicted sex offenders and murderers to submit blood samples for a DNA database.In 1999, those convicted of first - degree burglary and first-degree assault had to submit samples. Three years later, the law was expanded, requiring all felons to submit samples. The sample is collected using a non-invasive oral swab, Feaman said.As a result , the database has grown to include DNA samples from more than165.000 convicted felons in Oregon. Each week the samples are compared to more than 11 million samples in the National DNA Database.More than 700 of the5.000 hits were spread across 42 states, including a recent hit that helped link suspected serial killer Bobby Jack Fowler to a 1974 murder in British Columbia.Fowler, who died in anOregon prison in 2006, was then linked to at least four other murders in Oregon.The work is done in a building the lab shares with the Oregon Medical Examiner’s office, just across the street from a Costco.Each step of the process - from extraction, to amplification, to copying and analyzing DNA samples - is done in what Feaman calls “magic boxes.”The individual steps are performed in separate labs in separate work spaces laid out in a U-shaped configuration to prevent cross contamination.“Approximately half of the burglary cases we process will result in a CODIS hit,” said Tom Barnes, director of the OSP lab in Clackamas.“For every two burglary cases we DNA process, one will hit to either a convicted offender or another case.”
Newspaper Details
Gazette Times
Corvallis, Oregon, US
Sun, Feb 24, 2013
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Mark S.
USA 31 Jul 2024
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