IAPE Evidence Blog

jacksonsun.com
BYLINE: Lau­ren Foreman

Jack­son, TN

A Chicago native has been con­victed of rap­ing a Jack­son woman in a 1997 case that took author­i­ties 13 years to put together using DNA analy­sis and a cre­ative strat­egy for prosecutors.

Last month, Madi­son County Judge Don Allen sen­tenced Joseph Davi­son to 24 years in prison for the crime. Allen required that Davi­son serve 85 per­cent of the sen­tence, accord­ing to a news release from Jack­son Police Chief Gill Kendrick.

Jack­son police have called the rape con­vic­tion an unprece­dented cross-state case in which they charged a DNA pro­file of an unknown rape sus­pect to get things mov­ing before the statute of lim­i­ta­tions per­ma­nently closed the case.

“At the time the assault occurred in 1997, DNA pro­fil­ing was still an up and com­ing sci­ence here,” Kendrick stated in the news release. The 1997 case was the first of its kind in Madi­son County.

On June 27, 1997, an intruder who had qui­etly entered a Jack­son woman’s Arling­ton Avenue home “threat­ened her, cov­ered her face with pil­lows and raped her,” accord­ing to the news release.

Jack­son offi­cials could not find the man but entered DNA gath­ered from the crime scene into an index sys­tem that did not come up with a match until 2010.

“By ini­ti­at­ing a pros­e­cu­tion against the principal’s genetic iden­tity (even though we did not know his name at the time), we stopped the statute of lim­i­ta­tions from run­ning out, ” Kendrick said in the release.

Work­ers at a Ten­nessee Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion lab in Nashville noti­fied the Jack­son Police Depart­ment of a match with Joseph Davi­son in August 2010.

Davi­son had left Jack­son for Chicago in 2006 after being con­victed of aggra­vated bur­glary and attempted rape charges, charges that occurred before a 1998 Ten­nessee law requir­ing con­victed felons to pro­vide DNA samples.

The Chicago Police Depart­ment arrested Davi­son on Nov. 26, 2010. And a change in Illi­nois law had strength­ened that state’s author­ity to col­lect sam­ples from cer­tain offenders.

“DNA has changed the whole out­look on cases like this,” Jack­son Police Capt. Mike Holt said. “Had we not done some­thing, we wouldn’t have been able to prosecute.”

Since the 1997 case, Jack­son police have issued about four of the ‘John Doe’ war­rants a year.

“And they are not all sex­ual assault cases,” Holt said. He said some war­rants con­cern burglaries.

Holt said he hoped local imple­men­ta­tion of “John Doe war­rants” would set a prece­dent for other cities and inspire leg­isla­tive changes regard­ing statutes of lim­i­ta­tion and DNA evidence.

“I think it reaf­firms the impor­tance to us in law enforce­ment that even when we don’t know who the sus­pect is, we have to do every­thing right to keep those cases viable,” Holt said. “In hopes that there will be jus­tice some day.”

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

Lin­coln Jour­nal Star, journalstar.com
BYLINE: LORI PILGER
Link to Article

Lin­coln, NE

David R. Mor­gan (cour­tesy photo)

Police say they now can put a name to a DNA pro­file charged in a “John Doe” arrest war­rant in Decem­ber for a 2009 bur­glary at a down­town hard­ware store.

And it could be a big arrest, con­sid­er­ing the same man’s DNA is tied to DNA left behind in eight more break-ins, mostly in the Grand Island area, police say in court records filed this week.

David R. Mor­gan, 35, already is in prison in Lin­coln and was sent there on an 8– to 12-year stretch out of Hall County for pos­ses­sion of Lortab — a nar­cotic pain reliever — with intent to deliver and pos­ses­sion of burglar’s tools.

That appears to be just the start of Morgan’s legal troubles.

To date, he faces six sep­a­rate bur­glary charges, one in Lan­caster County and five in Hall County.

He is sus­pected in a Nov. 30, 2009, bur­glary at Baker Hard­ware, 801 N St.

In Grand Island, he is sus­pected of one Jan. 10, 2011, at a Sub­way; Oct. 31, 2010, USA Steak Buf­fet; June 30, 2008, First Bro­kers; July 1, 2008, Cen­tury 21; and Sept. 27, 2008, Ace Hardware.

Hall County pros­e­cu­tors charged Mor­gan in May, about two months after Grand Island police sought a war­rant for a swab of his DNA.

In it, an inves­ti­ga­tor said police were able to get DNA in the break-in at USA Steak Buf­fet, inside Cen­tury 21 and at Home­town Mar­ket in St. Paul, a town north of Grand Island.

“These bur­glar­ies are being linked together because the same DNA pro­file has been devel­oped off of evi­dence found at the indi­vid­ual crime scenes,” Grand Island Police Offi­cer L.J. McConnell wrote in court records.

Another offi­cer had taken down Morgan’s plate num­ber after spot­ting it at about 3:30 a.m. Oct. 31 near the USA Steak Buf­fet. The bur­glary wasn’t dis­cov­ered until later that morning.

Mean­while, in Lin­coln last Decem­ber, Lan­caster County pros­e­cu­tors filed a rare John Doe arrest war­rant against a DNA pro­file and waited for a match to clear a Nov. 30, 2009, bur­glary at the down­town hard­ware store.

Police said an employee arrived to find the load­ing dock garage door open and loaded shop­ping carts filled with merchandise.

Some­one had pried open a door to get inside, sprayed paint over secu­rity cam­eras, stolen the video record­ing sys­tem, rum­maged through offices and file cab­i­nets and used power tools and saw blades to cut into a safe.

The total loss in mer­chan­dise and cash was esti­mated at $20,000.

In affi­davits for arrest war­rants, Lin­coln Police Inves­ti­ga­tor Christo­pher Mil­isits said offi­cers found DNA thought to have been left behind by the burglars.

Inves­ti­ga­tors col­lected the DNA on swabs and sent them to the state lab.

A year later, police got a report that the lab was able to get DNA from two men, but the pro­files didn’t match any in CODIS, the national DNA database.

On March 10, Lin­coln police said it was the DNA McConnell got from Mor­gan in Grand Island, with a signed court order in March, that came back as a match to DNA on the evi­dence left behind in Lincoln.

A war­rant was issued for Morgan’s arrest in the case on Monday.

The sec­ond sus­pect has not been iden­ti­fied yet.

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

Mon­terey County The Her­ald, montereyherald.com
By DANIEL LOPEZ, Her­ald Staff Writer
Link to Article

Mon­terey, CA

Mon­terey: County’s first DNA-backed arrest warrant

Mon­terey police say they used DNA evi­dence to obtain an arrest war­rant for an uniden­ti­fied ser­ial bur­glar by nam­ing him “John Doe.”

Sgt. Bill Clark said it is the first time in Mon­terey County that such a war­rant has been issued based on DNA.

Issu­ing an arrest war­rant when the suspect’s iden­tity is unknown allows law enforce­ment to sat­isfy the statue of lim­i­ta­tions for pros­e­cu­tion, he said.

That means that if the sus­pect is iden­ti­fied and arrested, the offense can be pros­e­cuted regard­less of how much time has passed since the crime. The statute of lim­i­ta­tions for pros­e­cu­tion of bur­glary and most other felony crimes in Cal­i­for­nia is three years.

In Jan­u­ary, the state Supreme Court upheld the use of John Doe arrest war­rants in review­ing an appeal by a man who was tried and con­victed of a 1994 rape, though the six years statute of lim­i­ta­tions had expired. With a DNA pro­file of the sus­pect, the war­rant was requested four days before time expired and the trial court judge found there was prob­a­ble cause and issued an arrest war­rant for “John Doe.”

Monterey’s John Doe is a sus­pect in a Nov. 20, 2009, bur­glary at the Great Looks hair salon at 850 Munras Ave.

Hair clip­pers and other prop­erty with a value of about $600 was stolen after a win­dow was bro­ken between 4:50 and 7:39 p.m. to get inside, Clark said.

The offi­cer inves­ti­gat­ing the break-in and theft col­lected evi­dence at the salon that was sub­mit­ted to the state Depart­ment of Jus­tice for analysis.

Clark wouldn’t say Fri­day what was col­lected, but police said that last month, DNA pro­fil­ing iden­ti­fied the sus­pect as a male.

The pro­file was entered into the FBI’s Com­bined DNA Index Sys­tem and matches were made to DNA evi­dence sub­mit­ted from an unsolved bur­glary in San Mateo and one in Los Altos, Clark said.

Police believe the same man may be respon­si­ble for other crimes.

“It appears to be a ser­ial bur­glar,” Clark said, adding that a DNA pro­file is unique.

The Los Altos bur­glary took place Aug. 5 at a hair salon. The match from San Mateo, police said, is linked to an April 9 fur­ni­ture store burglary.

Mon­terey police detec­tives have been in con­tact with offi­cers in the two cities in an effort to iden­tify the sus­pect, but they have lit­tle infor­ma­tion, Clark said.

There are no sur­veil­lance videos of the Mon­terey break-in that could help, he said.

The bur­glar could be iden­ti­fied if he is arrested for a felony in California.

State law allows law enforce­ment to col­lect a DNA sam­ple from any­one arrested for a felony. In other states, a sam­ple is col­lected only after conviction.

The deci­sion to seek a John Doe arrest war­rant was made, Clark said, after con­nect­ing the sus­pect to more than one crime.

“We have some­body involved in mul­ti­ple bur­glar­ies,” he said.

The war­rant was approved Monday.

In Mon­terey, prop­erty crimes are a sig­nif­i­cant prob­lem, Clark said, with theft cases reported in 2009 result­ing in losses of about $500,000.

To address the prob­lem, police are receiv­ing train­ing in DNA col­lec­tion from crime scenes and the evi­dence is sub­mit­ted to the state Depart­ment of Jus­tice, as is stan­dard to do when inves­ti­gat­ing vio­lent crimes such as sex­ual assault.

“It’s using new tech­nol­ogy to help us iden­tify crim­i­nals, Clark said. “These peo­ple are involved in many other crimes.”

Daniel Lopez can be reached at 646‑4494 or dlopez@montereyherald.com. 

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