REAL LIFE NEWS: DNA CONTAMINATION IMPLICATED IN IMPOSSIBLE MURDER
by Hazed
Watch TV crime dramas like CSI and you’d think that DNA is absolutely fool-proof when it comes to identifying criminals. But in real life, things are rarely that clearcut.
For example, just because somebody DNA is found in a location, it doesn’t mean they were present when a crime was committed. The DNA could have been left there at any time, before or after the crime - or even deliberately planted as a frame-up.
Then there’s the problem of contamination. No matter how careful the crime scene techs are when they collect samples, things can go wrong during the collection process, or in the lab when samples are tested.
There was a famous case some years ago in Germany, where the DNA of an unidentified woman was found at crime scenes throughout the country, implicating her in burglaries, car thefts and murder. Who was this serial killer? It turns out that the culprit was a woman at the factory that produced the swabs used to collect the samples: they had been accidentally contaminated during the manufacturing process.
An even more intriguing story was reported by the BBC news website last week, that of a murder that seemed to have been committed by a dead person.
You can read the whole story of the time travel murder here. It is a fascinating tale and a warning that you can’t believe everything you see on CSI.
