
Undercover cops grabbed a DJ’s chewing gum to crack a teacher’s 1992 murder - sea6ear
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/26/undercover-cops-grabbed-a-djs-chewing-gum-it-helped-crack-a-teachers-1992-murder-police-say/
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sunstone
This seems like an unusual case where a guy murdered once and lived in the
same area for decades afterwards without repeating a crime of violence with
any similar characteristics. The fact that, at the time, he lived within 4
miles of the victim probably doesn't play into things much if they probably
met at a club.

It's tragic of course but it's not clear that there's much to be learned for
law enforcement from this other than that some people can go very far off the
deep end once in their lives and not repeat it.

~~~
jumper_F00BA2
This is the curious part about criminal justice, which like jury
nullification, bribery and witness intimidation, people would very much prefer
to conclude as non-existent: evidence contamination and tampering, despite
auditable records for chain of custody for artifacts of evidence.

Consider that sometimes, lab technicians seem to fake drug test results, for
whatever reason:

[https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/crime-lab-chemist-
accuse...](https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/crime-lab-chemist-accused-of-
fabricating-drug-test-results-/9552.article)

[https://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/27/after-drug-lab-
scand...](https://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/27/after-drug-lab-scandal-
court-reverses-convictions/)

[https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Chemist-at-Boston-
la...](https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Chemist-at-Boston-lab-admits-
she-faked-test-11445558.php)

It's very modern to hold up these examples of trace evidence proving
incredible stories, but trace evidence exists behind the veil of highly
technical instrumentation. But, as long as someone can get out in front of the
scientists and the instruments, if the principle is simple to comprehend, and
there exists a motive and enough power to control the outcome, it's still
possible to game the system.

If the samples of bodily fluids in evidence sat there since 1992, and the
crime were actually committed by someone capable of framing such a crime,
which was committed carefully enough to prevent effective prosecution to begin
with, in order to successfully frame the patsy, they'd need to intervene and
place bogus samples at both points in the evidence chain, or simply bribe all
the lab technicians providing expert opinions.

You might question how or why. Well, they wouldn't need to perform the chewing
gum operation, until after they cemented the bogus semen in the original
evidence locker. What would motivate someone to go that far? Well, pulling
strings comes easy to some people, and history shows us that those people
frequently aren't above murder. So framing a random semen donor comes
naturally to the situation. The motive, of course, would be to protect
themselves at all costs from prosecution.

It's easier to buy the story that genetic evidence or other circumstantial
evidence exonerates the wrongly convicted, because those that benefit are
otherwise powerless.

Unfortunately, given the premise of so many exonerations, it shows us that
convictions can be wrong, and that cold cases should still be reviewed with
serious scrutiny, especially the ones that seem like extraordinary long shots
or somehow might be seeking glory.

------
ggg9990
This is exactly the wrong way to do DNA testing. These tests have a finite
accuracy (say 99.99%), so when you shotgun it across a database of tens of
millions of people, you get a long list of almost all innocent people, at
least one of whom may be placeable at the scene, especially 20 years later.
Most defense attorneys can’t teach statistics well enough to most juries for
them to understand this math.

Lot of innocent people in the next few years are going to go to jail or death
row. I can only pray I’m not one of them.

~~~
darkcha0s
Did you actually read the article? The looked up in a database for the initial
hint, then followed up by matching his DNA (taken from a piece of chewed gum)
to DNA found at the crime scene.

