A6 Murder DNA evidence

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]

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.

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]

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.

Well the full lifecycle of the knickers is known if you are willing to accept that from the excision and blood-typing and packing away until it was found it was "known", albeit locked away unobserved in cellophane which in turn was in a brown envelope.

If it was contaminated then you'd detect the contamination - surely that's obvious. No contamination detected is equivalent to uncontaminated.

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.

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. So therefore contamination is not purely isolated to blank controls. It may have been transferred to the sample exhibit before the lab even sees it or after the blank has been set up. It could even be in the reagent used.

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.

[Victor]

The respondents claimed that the contamination, if it ocurred, must have been semen.

And this was seemingly accepted by all.

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.

So the hanky couldn't have contaminated the knicker fragment because there was no semen on it. OK.

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.

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

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.

Well the full lifecycle of the knickers is known if you are willing to accept that from the excision and blood-typing and packing away until it was found it was "known", albeit locked away unobserved in cellophane which in turn was in a brown envelope.

If it was contaminated then you'd detect the contamination - surely that's obvious. No contamination detected is equivalent to uncontaminated.

KR,
Vic.

Dr Dan Krane who produced a statement in evidence in the Omagh Bombings appeal (2007) stated on page 11 of his report that:-

Given that LCN analyses can conceivably
generate results from as little material as a single cell of an individual, the only way to be
confident that results have not been obtained solely through contamination is to
demonstrate conclusively with continuity records that contamination is not even remotely
possible.

In Hanratty this continuity of record keeping is not known.

Apart from their DNA not showing up on the hanky... that indicates that contamination by direct transfer in that case is non-existant.

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.

[Victor]

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.

How about:-

1. VS identification.
2. JH poor performance in the witness box
3. JH admitting he lied - the changing alibis
4. JH terrible character (criminal record, incarceration history, bad conduct whilst incarcerated)

KR,
Vic

[Victor]

Graham mentions both DNA and fingerprints but it is important to underline the fact that your DNA travels to places that you have never been. For your fingerprints to end up elsewhere requires a far more sophisticated transit mechanism that just moving through the air, like being planted. Even so it should be pointed out that with forensic evidence such as DNA it is not the question of why it is there but how did it get there that should in the uppermost of concern for criminal investigations.

Come off it Reg get some perspective, DNA can't magically appear on the other side of the world, it can't jump through walls or teleport itself about, what it does do is shed from your body as skin cells (and hair, etc.)

By that we mean not merely evidence which might be true and to a considerable extent probably is true, but, as the learned trial judge put it, "evidence which is so convincing in truth and manifestly reliable that it reaches the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.".

Which is why LCN results are given in the form 1 chance in billions, which is "beyond reasonable doubt".

His quote is about the trial when the knicker fragment wasn't shown. Although at the commital at Ampthill no one knows who handled what. (P115 Appeal Court Ruling)

Regards
Reg

Apart from their DNA not showing up on the hanky... that indicates that contamination by direct transfer in that case is non-existant.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Without a full transcript of the hearing it is not clear how sample profiles of Storie or Gregsten were obtained or whether it was just assumed that they would be there. In the case of Gregsten it is only considered as being attributed to him rather than definitely from him.

Hi Reg,

"only"? Nowhere does it say it was not definitely from him, after it had been identified it would naturally be considered as attributed to him.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

The actual reliability of DNA testing of such incredibly minute particles is not generally accepted, see again:

http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/0/6285f6867724e1e685257124006f9177

and related articles.

Hi Sara,

I think that article is what's generally classified as scaremongering.

I didn't find a single reference to the proportion of "wrong" results compared to the number of correct ones.

The repeated references to "bad analysts", "contamination" apply equally to virtually every technique including SGM+, fingerprinting, and basic evidence collection ("raids", "busts" where you can have planted evidence).

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

It's important to keep in mind the essential distinction, which is not being made much on either thread (and certainly not by posters believing Hanratty to be guilty beyond doubt), between accepted DNA testing of decent sized samples, and the highly controversial new technique known as LCN (Low Copy Number) testing. This can take an infinitessimal particle of DNA and 'clone' it to get a pattern. The dangers should be obvious even to the uninitiated and unscientific; yet this is the technique used in the final 2002 appeal!

Hi Sara,
This is the same argument that is used whenever a technique is introduced - just like fingerprints. There is not, and never has been, conclusive proof that no two individuals have the same fingerprints. And yet the "establishment" still use them.

The phrase "infinitesimal particle of DNA" is misleading. DNA is a polymeric molecule, not a particle; isn't infinitesimal, it's of finite size (although very small); the "cloning" happens billions of times every day in your own body and everyone else's too; and most significantly is a legally accepted technique.

The Forensic Institute itself has come out against the technique as a tool of evidence - and this is using contemporary DNA fragments, let alone old and possibly degraded or contaminated fragments.

Yep, and they investigated the possibility of degradation and contamination and eliminated both.

I seriously fail to see how anyone who has read this damning 'review of the Review', itself by forensic scientists, can imagine that the LCN verdict on the panty fragment can be considered safe. (If indeed it even was from the panty!)

Wow, so the scientists tasked with providing expert opinions on molecules so small they can't be seen with the naked eye are so incompetent they can't even recognise a couple of inches of material

If the judge in the final Appeal had been able to read this 2008 review back in 2002, I doubt he too would have thought the evidence safe. As it was he was 'blinded by science', as so many seem to be on here.

Is that an admission that you've been "blinded by science"?

Since the last fragment of this purported piece of 'evidence' was destroyed in an attempt at obtaining the supposed DNA in 2002, we shall never know 'beyond doubt' and this essential aspect of the case will imo always be debatable

Only if you can accept that somehow the alleles detected were a perfect match for Hanratty in the right order... that's beyond doubt for me.

By the way I can't find the ref now, but Michael Hanratty is down as saying that the panties or piece of panty and other pieces of evidence were not only all dumped into the same box or case each day for carrying back and forth to court, but they were freely handed by the usher in charge of them to various witnesses (and to Hanratty himself presumably, inc his handkerchief), and handled by them indiscriminately. Draw your own conclusions!

Yes, the large remainder of the knickers were not treated in a DNA free environment or manner, but the fragment tested was cut out beforehand. So categorically, Hanratty had no access to the knicker fragment and could not have contaminated it.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Right, back to topic: one point which has been debated endlessly is that there was no other DNA on the fragment of panty used in the final appeal tests than 'Hanrratty's'. I don't think this means much, frankly.

Other than it indicates that contamination DID NOT happen.

Posts 1770 ff (main thead) discuss this with some posters pouring scorn on the idea of an 'impotent rapist'.

That's because of the "visible semen stain" which was blood typed.

There was reportedly DNA from two men on the original sample of panty, but only from one on the fragment finally tested. The fragment was so infinitessimal - it had to be cloned over and over to get any 'pattern' - that there is imo no GUARANTEE that it didn't come from cross-contamination. The abscence of any '3rd party' DNA on the final or even the original one fragment is therefore not conclusive. Just because the judge dismissed the possibility, does NOT mean we are obliged to do so. He used the handkerchief as part of his reasoning.

That's very exaggerated and completely misunderstands the technique and what the judgment says, the hanky is referred to solely in the context of 'The same would have to be true for the hanky'.

But the handkerchief is almost certainly a red herring - it's imo so obviously a plant, with the gun and THREE!! BOXES of ammo - that it can be discounted as evidence of Hanratty's involvement, on its own.

Evidence please. If it's so obvious then you've got some evidence to back up this OPINION.

DNA forensics are the new shibboleth of science, almost impossible to counter by the defence and certainly impossible to follow by a jury (or most judges!). Only in the UK are they given such credence, with juries heavily influenced by forensics programmes on TV, which are FICTION, to see DNA evidence as infallible.

Not forgetting New Zealand and the Netherlands which both also allow LCN results as permissible evidence.

I fail to see how anyone who bears these matteers in mind can think that Hanratty's guilt is cut and dried, proven beyond doubt. The unreliability of DNA evidence (and the fact it rests entirely on INTERPRETATION) MUST put his guilt in doubt for any open-minded person, even if it doesn't prove his innocence.

All scientific results rely on INTERPRETATION. Every single result. Sometimes that interpretation is done by a computer, but someone had to program the computer to INTERPRET those results.

Your last sentence is so tautological I'm staggered, it basically says "Every open-minded person agrees with me. I am the epitome of open-mindedness and if you don't agree then you're closed-minded". Reminds me of Animal Farm 'Everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others'

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

In fact some of the comments in a report regarding the Armagh case are so pertinent they bear repeating; this concerns Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA (bold is my own emphasis)


<< It allows DNA profiles to be uncovered even when there is only a tiny amount of DNA present, sometimes as small as a millionth the size of a grain of salt.

Yes, I seem to recall 7 cells is sufficient.

"Low Copy Number tests are much more prone to flexible interpretation, than with the conventional tests.

Slightly misleading, but generally true. LCN is much more sensitive so the signal to noise ratiio is higher which makes interpretation more complex.

"Because of its great sensitivity, there are much greater concerns about the persistence of DNA and its ability to be transferred from one article to another. It's just too easy for contamination to occur, or for DNA to have become associated with an article through very innocent, very old contact."

Transference and persistence are issues with any DNA test, the more sensitive it is, the more of an effect contamination can have.

How can any verdict based entirely on this technique be regarded as relaiable, let alone infallible?

This implies: No test is perfect and no matter how much development takes place it never will be, therefore abandon all scientific research.

Why are you still using that computer? It doesn't always give you the right results, or even the right web pages all the time, so it's fatally flawed. Right?

KR,
Vic.