No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!
Promega Kit Enables European Forensic Labs To Solve Challenging Cold Cases (Technology Networks – 7/19/2024)
Forensic laboratories in Europe now have a new DNA analysis kit to efficiently process challenging casework samples. The PowerPlex® 18E System, launched by Promega Corporation, uses eight-color short tandem repeat (STR) analysis chemistry to extract more usable information from challenging samples. The kit includes all DNA markers recommended by the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI).
“Different regions have their own legal requirements and databases, as well as distinct genetic variations in their populations,” says Anupama Gopalakrishnan, Senior Product Manager at Promega Corporation. “This kit meets European forensic laboratories’ unique needs while also giving them more information from challenging DNA samples compared to earlier chemistries.”
TrueAllele Solves 1963 Winnebago Cold Case Using “Inconclusive” DNA (Police1 – 7/22/2024)
On the night of June 13, 1963, a white car pulled up to an Enco gas station along an old Wisconsin highway. Oshkosh station owner Wayne Pratt went over to help. The station lights went dark. Pratt’s wife later found his body in a storage room under a blanket. He had been stabbed over 50 times.
After interviewing potential suspects, the case went cold. The lack of physical evidence and eyewitnesses impeded the homicide investigation. The police had questioned 75 people and given 25 lie detector tests.
Winnebago County reopened the cold case in 2012. The Sheriff sent old blood items to the local crime lab for DNA testing. But their results were inconclusive.
In 2015, and again in 2023, a private forensic lab retested the items, finding a degraded low-level DNA mixture of several people. But the lab couldn’t interpret this complex DNA data; the evidence remained inconclusive.
The TrueAllele® Intelligence Solution
On April 3, 2024, the Sheriff sent Cybergenetics DNA data from the blanket. The company’s powerful TrueAllele technology could use all the evidence data, unlike less capable forensic software. TrueAllele successfully unmixed the degraded low-level three-person mixture into three component genotypes.
Suspect Identified in Half-Century-Old Cold Case (Forensic – 7/22/2024)
The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office has developed probable cause resolving the 1963 Homicide of Wayne Pratt. Sheriff’s Detectives, working with multiple specialized DNA companies and laboratories, have identified a suspect in this more than half-century-old cold case.
On June 12, 1963, Wayne Pratt was killed at the former Enco Station along old U.S. 41 in Winnebago County. His wife, Marie Pratt told authorities in 1963 that Wayne had been watching television at home when a car pulled up to the station around 8:40pm. The Pratt’s lived in a small house roughly 50 feet from the station and Wayne had walked over to help the customer. About 15 minutes later, Marie noticed the lights had not been turned on at the station. Marie walked over to the station and found Wayne, deceased on the floor of the back room of the station, covered in a blanket, the victim of 53 stab wounds. Evidence located at the scene suggested the perpetrator was bleeding after the attack as well.
Numerous leads and dozens of interviews were followed up on in the 1960’s in an effort to find the killer. No arrests were made and there was limited information on the case after 1968.
The investigation went cold.
Advancements In DNA Technology Allow Police In Florida To Solve 1999 Murder (Forensic – 7/22/2024)
Police in Florida were able to utilize new technology to identify the owner of a knife with blood and other DNA samples on it to make an arrest in a nearly 25 year old previously cold case homicide.
Officials in Sanford, Florida, announced on July 19 they have arrested Gary Durrance and charged him with second- degree homicide for the death of his then girlfriend Sherry Holtz from 1999.
“Sherry Holtz was brutally murdered and left behind in the woods as if her life had no value. This was someone’s mother, someone’s daughter,” Sanford police chief Cecil Smith said in a statement. “Durrance will now face justice for the horrible and despicable things that he did,” Smith said. “I hope his arrest brings a little comfort to those that loved Sherry and have waited 24 years for this moment.”
Holtz, 50 at the time, was found dead on December 4, 1999 with cuts on her neck and upper body and signs of strangulation, blunt force trauma and sexual battery. She was discovered by an individual collecting cans in the wooded area.
Holtz was last seen at a bar approximately half a mile from her home the day before her body was discovered lying on a concrete slab about 20 feet into a wood line in Sanford. Durrance has denied being with Holtz on the night of the murder.
Meet the ‘Genealogy Wiz’ Whose Early Work Helped Nashville Investigators Identify ‘Leo Jane Doe’ (WKRN – 7/23/2024)
For nearly 26 years, no one knew the identity of a woman whose body was found floating in the Cumberland River.
It was a troubling mystery that Metro Nashville police and genetic genealogists spent years trying to piece together, until finally, they were able to make a breakthrough. Last week, the police department announced that the woman who had only been known as the “Leo Jane Doe” for multiple decades now had a name.
Diane Minor was a country singer, beauty queen and weather personality for WSIX-TV before the station changed ownership and became WKRN. She moved to Nashville as a teenager seeking her first big break in the music business but was originally from Alabama.
Eric Schubert, a 23-year-old genealogist from New Jersey, knew that she was from Alabama four years ago, but that was just the first clue to the massive genetic puzzle.
DNA Doe Project Team ID’s Man Found in Canton in 2020 (DNA Doe Project – 7/25/2024)
The DNA Doe Project and the Stark County Sheriff’s Office have identified Michael Allan Leach, formerly known as Canton Oil Well John Doe.
On March 31, 2020, an oil well worker discovered the skeletal remains of an adult man in a rural area off of Sandy Avenue in Canton, Ohio. Investigators estimated he was between 30-50 years old and had been dead since 2018. He appeared to have suffered previous fractures to his ribs and was missing teeth. A manner of death was not clear, but it was determined that skull and shoulder fractures occurred at the time of his death.
In September, 2023, the Stark County Sheriff’s Office brought the case to the DNA Doe Project to try investigative genetic genealogy to determine the identity of the John Doe after traditional investigative techniques failed to generate meaningful leads. Funding for the case was provided through a sponsorship grant from audiochuck, the parent company of the Crime Junkie podcast.
A sample of bone was submitted for laboratory analysis to generate a DNA profile that was then uploaded to GEDmatch Pro and FamilyTreeDNA.com. Then, volunteer investigative genetic genealogists with the DNA Doe Project took 105 hours to build out John Doe’s family tree to locate the branch of Michael Allan Leach. The identification was confirmed through a direct DNA match with a close family member.
Michael Allan Leach was born in 1957, making him about 61 years old at the time of his death. He was born and attended school in Ohio and his last known residence was in Dover.
“One parent side was fairly well represented in the databases and we were able to build genealogical profiles for that side pretty quickly,” said team co-leader Eric Hendershott. “The other parent side was much more difficult with a grandparent’s immigration from Italy and far fewer matches.”
The team’s research was advanced when a distant DNA relative who was working on her own genealogical mystery provided assistance and important details that enabled them to finally bring together both family sides, leading to the identification of Michael Leach.
“I am always touched by the willingness of distant DNA relatives who provide their assistance in assuring their relatives are provided answers for the identities of their family members,” said team co-leader Traci Onders. “This care for distant relatives that they have never met can be essential to the work we do and is quite remarkable in affirming the basic humanity in us all.”
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups and individuals who helped resolve this case: the Stark County Sheriff’s Office, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; Daicel Arbor Biosciences for extraction of DNA from bone, sample prep, and whole-genome sequencing; Kevin Lord for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro and FTDNA for providing their databases; our generous sponsor, AUDIOCHUCK, who fully funded this case; and DDP’s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring all our Jane and John Does home.
