A6 Murder DNA evidence

[Victor]

No. The Complete lifecycle of the knickers is not known. If you want to accept a partial lifecycle as being complete then...well...what can one say?
Cellophane or paper envelopes are not suitable for the storage of samples that are to be tested for DNA. Not today and certainly not 40 odd years ago. Samples should be frozen.

Wrong - as I said the fragment was excised as documented and then stored away and found how it had been left - this is the lifecycle. The suitability of the storage is irrelevant to the lifecycle, the fact and knowledge of the storage is relevant.

Why do you say samples need to be frozen? That link you gave before Xmas says quite clearly that DNA is inherently stable and needs something to trigger degredation.

It is not possible to detect where DNA came from or when it came in contact with a particular surface by any transfer method using any DNA testing technique.

True.

So therefore contamination is not purely isolated to blank controls.

That doesn't follow, but is also true.

It may have been transferred to the sample exhibit before the lab even sees it or after the blank has been set up.

"May have" is also true.

It could even be in the reagent used.

In which case it would show in the blank - that is exactly one of the reasons for using a blank.

This does not even take into account stochastic effects that occur unpredictably when the amount of template is below the stochastic threshold. This is around 125pg of original template DNA. LCN is always used when template levels are lower than this for obvious reasons.

Go and find out what "unpredictably" means. Why do you keep predicting that contamination, allellic drop-in and drop-out and other unpredictable effects occur?

KR,
Vic.

[reg1965]

Hi Vic

Wrong - as I said the fragment was excised as documented and then stored away and found how it had been left - this is the lifecycle. The suitability of the storage is irrelevant to the lifecycle, the fact and knowledge of the storage is relevant.

Why do you say samples need to be frozen? That link you gave before Xmas says quite clearly that DNA is inherently stable and needs something to trigger degredation.

You are wrong. The knicker fragment was excised on the 28th December 1961. The committal proceedings took place between the 22nd November and the 5th December 1961. No one knows what was handled and what wasn't at the committal. (R vs Hanratty, 2002. p115)

Please identify the link I gave. You should give references to posts and articles that you refer to. Otherwise how does one know what you are talking about?

In which case it would show in the blank - that is exactly one of the reasons for using a blank.

From R vs Bamber 2002 found @

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2002/2912.html&query=hanratty&method=all

Paragraph 503 includes:-

68. LCN DNA profiling will often detect DNA completely unrelated to the crime. It sometimes detects DNA originating from people who had dealings with the exhibit before and after the crime and DNA from people involved in the manufacture of reagents and test equipment.

Go and find out what "unpredictably" means. Why do you keep predicting that contamination, allellic drop-in and drop-out and other unpredictable effects occur?

Go and do some reading on the subject of stochastic effects when dealing with low levels of original template DNA, in the sub 125pg range.

Cheers
Reg

[Victor]

The knicker fragment was excised on the 28th December 1961. The committal proceedings took place between the 22nd November and the 5th December 1961. No one knows what was handled and what wasn't at the committal. (R vs Hanratty, 2002. p115)

Well you've definitely got the date of excision wrong...

From the judgment:-
Para 113
"The knickers arrived at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory (MPL) on 23 August 1961 where they were examined by Dr Nickolls, the director and his assistant, Henry Howard. They were found to be stained with seminal fluid in the area of the crotch and at the back for five inches upwards from the crotch. Vaginal fluid from Valerie Storie was also present. There were smaller quantities of seminal fluid of blood group AB assumed to have come at some earlier stage from Michael Gregsten. Although the laboratory records are not dated, the notes are numbered sequentially and we are confident that the knickers were examined almost immediately and in any event no later than 23 September 1961 when the notes show that certain samples taken from Peter Alphon were examined at the laboratory. The handkerchief came to the laboratory on 25 August, was screened for blood and semen and, none being found, seems to have been put to one side."

Regarding the committal proceedings Para 115 says "If the usual procedures of the time were followed it would seem doubtful that any one of the exhibits, barring possibly the gun and certain of the cartridges, would ever have been removed from its packaging or container."

Para 116 says the portion was excised on 29th December 1961. And the most important section:-
"As also seems clear, a fragment of the excised portion was retained by the laboratory having first been placed in a small envelope made of cellophane and sellotape which was in turn put into a small brown envelope and the small envelope into a larger envelope before being treasury tagged to a laboratory file. It was so placed when rediscovered in 1991."

Please identify the link I gave. You should give references to posts and articles that you refer to. Otherwise how does one know what you are talking about?

See post #141. You provided the link and I didn't have time to go searching back through your posts to find it. If you'd respond to comments about the links you provide at the time then I wouldn't have to keep trawling back. It's an interesting tactic of yours to swamp this thread with links and then ignore the comments that they provoke.

LCN DNA profiling will often detect DNA completely unrelated to the crime

Is true but irrelevant because no extra profiles were detected. In fact they were specifically looked for and not found.

And another link of an unrelated trial where they discuss interpretting DNA of mixed profiles. Can you summarise it because I don't have time to wade through more pages of irrelevant stuff.

Go and do some reading on the subject of stochastic effects when dealing with low levels of original template DNA, in the sub 125pg range.

I have, now answer this question...
Why do you keep predicting that contamination, allellic drop-in and drop-out and other unpredictable effects will occur?

As you are avoiding it and refusing to respond to this question amongst others (notably Caz's question about whether you consider all DNA analysis to be inherently flawed and therefore of no value, especially in the hypothetical situation of the LCN anaysis providing a profile of someone other than Hanratty) it must be because you are afraid that the answer you give will undermine your own arguments.

KR,
Vic.

[reg1965]

Hi All

From the link that I think Vic pointed out that I posted just before Xmas.
This is from page 3 of Allan Jamieson's reply to Peter Gill during Hoey (3/12/06) - although Vic is plainly too lazy to do the work himself. Thats probably why he posts here when he should be doing work for his employer!!!

Dr Whitaker’s proffered explanation was that the most rational explanation for such failure was the degradation of the frozen DNA. This is simply scientifically unacceptable.
DNA is an inherently stable molecule and requires something to destroy or degrade it; examples are action by light, cellular enzymes, or bacteria.

From this, cellophane or paper envelopes are unsuitable storage mechanisms for samples that are to be tested for DNA. Bacteria is certainly one agent that would lead to degradation in the case of the fragment of VS's knickers. How could a paper envelope or a cellophone wrap prevent bacterial attack at room temperature for nigh on 30 years? Tell me that Vic.

Regards
Reg

[Victor]

From this, cellophane or paper envelopes are unsuitable storage mechanisms for samples that are to be tested for DNA. Bacteria is certainly one agent that would lead to degradation in the case of the fragment of VS's knickers. How could a paper envelope or a cellophone wrap prevent bacterial attack at room temperature for nigh on 30 years? Tell me that Vic.

Hi Reg,

Surely you are aware that cellophane blocks water and bacteria.

How are you proposing to get bacteria through the cellophane and onto the fragment to degrade the DNA?

Next.

KR,
Vic.

ps. Are you still scared of answering the other questions then?

[Victor]

From the link that I think Vic pointed out that I posted just before Xmas.

Aw is thinking that hard for you. I gave you a apecific post #141 to look at, this is displayed at the top of every post, so no more pathetic excuses.

This is from page 3 of Allan Jamieson's reply to Peter Gill during Hoey (3/12/06) - although Vic is plainly too lazy to do the work himself.

Too lazy to do what work?

Thats probably why he posts here when he should be doing work for his employer!!!

And here you make unfounded assumptions and contradict yourself.

I am doing work for my employer, and have breaks and freetime waiting for processes to complete, where I can pursue my own activities. More fool you for taking a job where you don't!

Now, are you going to answer those difficult questions or do they undermine your arguments so much that you're afraid to?

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

cellophane or paper envelopes are unsuitable storage mechanisms for samples that are to be tested for DNA.

From http://www.theforensicinstitute.com/...tement%202.pdf

This is simply scientifically unacceptable.

And Reg conveniently ignores:-

DNA has been extracted from mummies (albeit with mixed success), and profiles are routinely obtained in Medical Genetics from blood spots on card stored at room temperature that are at least 40 years old.

from the same source.

KR,
Vic.

[caz]

Hi All,

Happy New Year!

I'm sure you can, with just a little effort. I'm sure you can tell everyone just what you yourself think this evidence was that convinced the jury. Unless perhaps you haven't read and studied any books on the matter........

RKO,
James

I too would like to know what evidence Caz thinks convinced the jury. For the life of me I have been struggling with this one for years. Nothing about the evidence convinces me.

Hi James & Reg,

Why is my opinion relevant? All I did was make the simple observation that the original jury found the evidence presented to them convincing enough to find the man (whose DNA was obtained years later from two pieces of physical evidence) guilty beyond reasonable doubt. You’d have to ask the jury members why they all found the case against him convincing at the time, and which aspects clinched it for them. I wasn’t there so I’m buggered if I know.

The respondents claimed that the contamination, if it ocurred, must have been semen. So the hanky could not have been the source of contamination, because, again according to the respondent, it was said to only contain a mucusy substance.

As has been put on numerous occasions, here and elsewhere, the hanky was Hanratty's, he said so in court. So his DNA would be expected to be on it.

Nobody knows the full lifecycle of the exhibits so for the court of appeal to conclude in summary that contamination was nothing more than theoretically possible is playing fast and loose with the known facts.

Reg, you kindly provided a link to the transcript of the 2002 BBC Horizon programme, from which I quote:

JOHN BARK: Exhumation did take place. We were able to obtain DNA from the remains and when we compare that DNA point by point with the DNA that we'd found on the handkerchief and on the knickers we found no discrepancies. We had a match there and therefore this considerably strengthened the evidence that we were looking at DNA from James Hanratty rather than anybody else in the population.

I really think you need to go back to basics here and remind yourself that if you’re happy with the hanky being Hanratty’s, and the contents of his nose providing a discrepancy-free, degradation-free DNA profile after 40 years, you have yet to provide a plausible explanation for a matching discrepancy-free profile turning up on the knicker fragment, if it wasn’t from the same man’s 40 year-old degradation-free semen stains.

If there is no actual evidence of contamination, how can it be anything more than 'theoretically' possible? What known facts are you playing fast and loose with to take it beyond that?

From this, cellophane or paper envelopes are unsuitable storage mechanisms for samples that are to be tested for DNA. Bacteria is certainly one agent that would lead to degradation in the case of the fragment of VS's knickers. How could a paper envelope or a cellophone wrap prevent bacterial attack at room temperature for nigh on 30 years? Tell me that Vic.

But the man was dead by 1962, so even if his DNA could have been transferred onto the knicker fragment via a contamination event involving his hanky or trousers, it very obviously didn’t become hopelessly degraded due to bacterial attack or anything else. So what is your preferred theory? That Hanratty’s DNA accidentally contaminated the knicker fragment and resisted degradation for 40 years? Or that degradation made it impossible for DNA from the knicker fragment to have been reliably matched with DNA from the hanky, or identified as Hanratty’s? Contamination or degradation?

In either case, of course, Hanratty could still have been the rapist, since your argument would rely on the rapist’s DNA being absent or unidentifiable.

You also gave us this:

68. LCN DNA profiling will often detect DNA completely unrelated to the crime. It sometimes detects DNA originating from people who had dealings with the exhibit before and after the crime and DNA from people involved in the manufacture of reagents and test equipment.

And as Victor has pointed out it’s entirely irrelevant, since the DNA detected in this case was Hanratty’s, who was related to the crime due to the inconvenient fact that a jury convicted him of it. Moreover, if unrelated DNA is ‘often’ detected by this technique, the fact that it wasn’t in this case doesn’t exactly support an argument for the hanky or knickers being subjected to wanton mishandling or careless storage procedures. Alarm bells might have rung had Hanratty’s DNA turned up among several completely unrelated profiles, but it seems to have stood out like a sore thumb, with only the victim’s - and that attributed to her lover - for company. I don’t see how that could be accounted for by contamination OR degradation; luck, guesswork or gross incompetence. And I don’t recommend blaming it on blatant manipulation and dishonesty either.

Conveniently ignoring how the hanky got wrapped round the gun in the first place presumably by the shadowy, mysterious conspirators...

Hi Victor,

Indeed. Anyone arguing that an associate of Hanratty’s, with access to both his hanky and the murder weapon, planted them on the bus to frame him, must address the fact that it would all have come unstuck very quickly if he had not obliged with the right blood group (he could easily have been the only slightly less common group A) or had he been able to verify where he was when the gun was used. Either would have been beyond a framer's control, and would have put Hanratty in the clear and any known associates in a very precarious position.

I will attempt to catch up with the main A6 thread soon, but I have an awful lot to wade through so I hope it will be worth it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Victor]

Indeed. Anyone arguing that an associate of Hanratty’s, with access to both his hanky and the murder weapon, planted them on the bus to frame him, must address the fact that it would all have come unstuck very quickly if he had not obliged with the right blood group (he could easily have been the only slightly less common group A) or had he been able to verify where he was when the gun was used. Either would have been beyond a framer's control, and would have put Hanratty in the clear and any known associates in a very precarious position.

Hi Caz,

As I've highlighted in your post, first this conspirator must get hold of the weapon! So if Hanratty wasn't the murderer then how did the France's or whoever get hold of it?

The other very interesting thing is the DNA results from the handkerchief - only Hanratty's profile detected and only in the mucus stained areas. This means that it's a perfect example of LCN working exactly as expected, no additional profiles from anyone, no lab tech's profiles, no profiles from all those people who supposedly handled it at the trial, no profiles from degredation, no allelic drop-ins or drop-outs, no profiles from Edwin Cooke - the immaculate example of LCN working!

So if it worked perfectly with the hanky, why shouldn't it work just as well with the knicker fragment?

KR,
Vic.

[caz]

Hi Vic,

Yes, hence the precarious position that anyone doing the framing would have left himself in, had Hanratty been able to prove he could not have been the rapist. A signature or ticket putting him in Rhyl or Liverpool would have done the trick. How was a framer to guess that Hanratty would have nothing tangible to show for his visit to northern parts, assuming they even knew what he had done and where he had been while the crime was taking place?

Questions would immediately have been asked about who Hanratty mixed with, who had a reason for trying - and failing - to frame him (with the evidence left on the bus and at the Vienna) and how in hell they obtained the murder weapon.

Presumably, the reasoning re the knicker fragment goes something like this:

Firstly, all the rapist's group O semen must either have been confined to the part of the garment thrown away (making the fragment worse than useless as a surviving piece of crime scene evidence) or his DNA must have degraded completely over the years, unlike that of his victim and that attributed to her lover.

Secondly, the match between hanky and knickers must either be some horrible mistake, or due to DNA from Hanratty having contaminated the latter to the extent that it survived for forty years alongside the DNA from VS and MG.

I don't know what the chances are of only the one rogue profile surviving that long and showing up, especially if it's argued that it came from something other than semen. Like what exactly?

Even if semen is conceded to be the source, I find it a huge stretch that an innocent man, wrongly convicted and hanged for want of a scribbled signature on a guest house register, would be so unlucky that an emission left on his trousers in innocent circumstances managed to find its way onto the victim's knickers and cling on for dear life, while the rapist himself, and anyone and everyone else who shed a cell in the knickers' direction since, failed to leave the least impression.

Love,

Caz
X

[jimarilyn]

Secondly, the match between hanky and knickers must either be some horrible mistake, or due to DNA from Hanratty having contaminated the latter to the extent that it survived for forty years alongside the DNA from VS and MG.

First of all, I'm not one of those people who like to pick people's posts to pieces (it's far too tiring, boring, time consuming and counter-productive) so I've just selected this particular paragraph.

Methinks you need to do your homework more carefully as there was only one male profile extracted from VS's knickers. I don't know where you get your information that MG's DNA was extracted from the fragment of knickers.

regards,
James

[Victor]

Methinks you need to do your homework more carefully as there was only one male profile extracted from VS's knickers. I don't know where you get your information that MG's DNA was extracted from the fragment of knickers.

Hi James,

Actually it's a bit ambiguous because they don't explicitly say they did or they didn't, however, they do include a reference to "DNA attributed to Michael Gregsten" which can be interpreted either way.

KR,
Vic.

[jimarilyn]

Hi James,

Actually it's a bit ambiguous because they don't explicitly say they did or they didn't, however, they do include a reference to "DNA attributed to Michael Gregsten" which can be interpreted either way.

KR,
Vic.

Hi Victor,

I'll refer you to the transcript of the BBC Horizon documentary that was screened in May 2002 :-


ROGER MANN: We only have one profile. That profile matches James Hanratty. If that was a contaminant, if that was due to contamination we would expect two profiles, one from James Hanratty due to the contamination and one from the original killer.



regards,
James

[Victor]

Hi James,

The judgment talks about the possibility of a contamination event where Hanratty's DNA wipes out the rapist's DNA, but leaving VS and the DNA attributed to MG.

For that not to be the case we would have to suppose that the DNA of the rapist, also of blood group O, had either degraded so as to become undetectable or had been masked by James Hanratty's DNA during the course of a contaminating event. Moreover, we would also have to suppose that Valerie Storie's DNA had remained in its original state, or at least detectable, and had escaped being overridden by DNA from James Hanratty. The same would have to be true of the DNA attributed to Michael Gregsten.

This obviously wouldn't make any sense if VS or MG's DNA wasn't detected.

KR,
Vic.

[reg1965]

Hi Victor,

I'll refer you to the transcript of the BBC Horizon documentary that was screened in May 2002 :-


ROGER MANN: We only have one profile. That profile matches James Hanratty. If that was a contaminant, if that was due to contamination we would expect two profiles, one from James Hanratty due to the contamination and one from the original killer.



regards,
James

Hi James,

The judgment talks about the possibility of a contamination event where Hanratty's DNA wipes out the rapist's DNA, but leaving VS and the DNA attributed to MG.



This obviously wouldn't make any sense if VS or MG's DNA wasn't detected.

KR,
Vic.

Roger Mann is a specialist advisor to the FSS. He liaises with SIO's as to what exhibits would best yield forensic samples. He gave expert witness testimony for the respondent at the appeal in 2002 yet this was only reported in the judgement in connection with the hanky.

Through all of my research into DNA technology I have never come across a phenomenon whereby contaminate DNA masks other DNA; a mixed profile is what you would get. Were did the judges get this from to formulate the quoted scenario. For starters all 3 all of them know absolutely nothing about the science of DNA to start with. Suddenly they are coming up with all sorts of new and previously unexplained reasons for a single profile to be gained. But that is not true either as in Victors quote from the judgement VS and MG's DNA is mentioned. How where 3 profiles accurately ascertained from the swabbing of the fragment?

I don't give a badgers chuff for the opinions of 3 ignorant appeal court judges when the science in this case is plainly lacking credibility in the wider world.

The whole appeal was nothing more than a whitewash.

reg