IAPE Evidence Blog

Los Ange­les Times

Seat­tle, WA

Feb­ru­ary 26, 2010 | 2:12 p.m.

SEATTLE (AP) — DNA evi­dence has led Seat­tle police to arrest an Everett man in what may be one of the department’s old­est cold cases.

A detec­tive arrested 73-year-old Sam Pietro Evans on Thurs­day for inves­ti­ga­tion in the 1972 rob­bery and shoot­ing death of Jack­son Sch­ley and the kid­nap­ping and rape of his wife. Work at a State Patrol crime lab gave police enough infor­ma­tion to make an arrest.

Detec­tive Mike Ciesynksi told The Seat­tle Times that even though the sus­pect is old and infirm, he’s still dan­ger­ous. Evans is sched­uled for a Fri­day bail hear­ing in King County Supe­rior Court.

Inves­ti­ga­tors also are inves­ti­gat­ing Evans in con­nec­tion with an unsolved killing of a man dur­ing a 1968 rob­bery in Seat­tle and the slay­ing of a woman in the early 1970s in Pasco.

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Infor­ma­tion from: The Seat­tle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

Long Island Press, www.longislandpress.com
BYLINE: Patrick Kel­ton
Link to Article

Nas­sau County, NY

Nas­sau police arrested a 27-year-old Freeport man on Tues­day after­noon using DNA evi­dence that con­nected him to allegedly bur­glar­iz­ing a series of busi­nesses in his home­town start­ing five years ago.

Juan Lora was arraigned on four counts of bur­glary at First Dis­trict Court in Hemp­stead on Wednesday.

First Squad detec­tives say Lora broke into JR Gro­cery on Church Street on Aug. 29, 2005, Liza’s Deli on East Mer­rick Road on Sept. 25, 2005 and Nov. 4, 2007, as well as Street Dreams on South Main Street on March 19, 2008.

In each case, Lora threw a rock through a front glass door, entered the store and stole the cash reg­is­ter with an unde­ter­mined amount of cash, police said.

In the first three cases, Lora left blood evi­dence at the scene, which was matched with Lora’s DNA through the Depart­ment of Foren­sic Genet­ics DNA Lab­o­ra­tory, police said.

Lora was appre­hended at the New York State Parole Office in Hempstead.

He is on parole after com­plet­ing a prison sen­tence in Novem­ber 2009 for attempted burglary.

mysanantonio.com
BYLINE: Eva Ruth Moravec — Express-News
Link to Arti­cle
One Photo

Alamo Heights, TX

Dana Clair Edwards
No sign of break-in found at Edwards’ apartment

The father of a woman stran­gled in an apart­ment near Alamo Heights in 2009 says he always sus­pected her ex-boyfriend played a role in her death, but it took DNA from a blood­ied towel for San Anto­nio police to arrest him Sat­ur­day morning.

Jon Thomas Ford, 41, remains in Bexar County Jail on one count of mur­der in con­nec­tion with the Jan. 1, 2009, death of Dana Clair Edwards, 32. Ford’s bail is set at $100,000.

“It really doesn’t bring clo­sure. I think we’re a long way from being through,” said Dar­rell Edwards, who with his wife dis­cov­ered their youngest child bru­tally mur­dered in her apart­ment about 24 hours after she was killed.

“We were very aware when we found our daughter’s body that our lives would change for­ever,” he said Sunday.

Edwards said he’d sus­pected Ford, who had dated Dana Clair Edwards for 21/2 years and was “absolutely” wel­comed into the fam­ily, all along. He said Ford attended fam­ily din­ners and par­ties, and even went on vaca­tion with the Edwardses.

Ford secured a lawyer almost imme­di­ately after the slay­ing, the victim’s father said, and never made con­tact with the fam­ily again.

Ford and his par­ents attended the memo­r­ial ser­vice for the woman he’s charged with killing, said Edwards, who remem­bers shak­ing their hands in a receiv­ing line.

But it wasn’t until Dec. 9 that inves­ti­ga­tors got a report on DNA pulled off a bloody towel that cov­ered the slain woman’s head. Two days later, offi­cials obtained a search war­rant for Ford’s DNA, which was found to match evi­dence on the towel, offi­cials said.

“There were no signs of him being vio­lent when they were dat­ing,” Edwards said, adding that the cou­ple broke up in Octo­ber 2008. “It was cer­tainly not our thought that Thomas Ford could have done this, but as the facts have come out, we believe it.”

The Edwards fam­ily also believes Ford killed their daughter’s beloved Jack Rus­sell ter­rier, Grit, which was found in Olmos Creek about a week after the slay­ing. Offi­cials deter­mined Grit died of blunt force trauma. A sec­ond dog, a res­cued mutt named Toby, now lives with the Edwardses.

Edwards said he plans to attend the trial and will tes­tify if called upon.

“When you lose your daugh­ter, your fish­ing buddy, your best friend, you don’t like the loss,” he said. “You know that nothing’s ever going to replace (her) or make you feel bet­ter about it.”

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org