It’s the kind of science that’s generated spectacular headlines in recent years: DNA solves cold case murder, DNA proves wrong man convicted and jailed, DNA proves family is related to royalty or one of our founding fathers.And certainly, DNA is routine in paternity testing. What you may not know is that much of the science was first exposed to the world in an Orange County courtroom 35 years ago.I was in that local courtroom on November 6, 1987 as history was being made.To say any journalist or observer really knew the significance of it would be overstating the fact.It was new and different. It was interesting. It was also confusing to follow as genetic evidence was being presented in front of a jury. They were often confused too, but what we know today is that the guilty verdict was a foundational step for a new way to prove the identity of violent criminals, using methods seldom talked about outside of high school and college science classes, since the discovery of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) genetic identification in 1953. It began with a brutal and near deadly attack in Orlando on February 21, 1987.It wasn’t the first attack for the serial rapist, who’d been terrorizing Orange County for more than a year. Karen Munroe was in her house. Her two young daughters were asleep in the next room.The girls’ bedroom window, it was later learned, was the point of entry.“He came into my children’s window (and) jumped on me with a sharp object at my throat,” Munroe said. She was still shaking during our conversation as she retold the terrifying minutes that followed.“I’m trying to like talk to him, to keep him occupied, so he wouldn’t go into the other room and hurt my girls in between fights, in between being choked, in between being smothered. This meant to me that he was here to kill me,” Munroe said. Munroe survived, and days later, Tommie Lee Andrews, a suspect in two dozen attacks was arrested.He was spotted by a couple peaking into a window near Munroe’s home. Police spotted his car, chased him, and Andrews crashed his vehicle. Police found items that may have been related to previous attacks in the vehicle.Two of his fingerprints were found on Munroe’s window screen but she never saw his face.She said she could identify Andrews’ voice, but prosecutors declined to use that as evidence.Andrews’ blood type would only put him in a population of a third of the men in Orlando, not considered solid evidence in court, so prosecutors turned to science.“The only science course I took at the University of Florida was physics for skeptics, is what it was called,” Jeff Ashton, a prosecutor said. The Ninth Circuit Judge in Orange County is perhaps better know as the then-Assistant State Attorney who handled the prosecution of suspected child killer, Casey Anthony in 2011. But in 1987, working with fellow prosecutor Tim Berry on as many as six of Andrew’s rape cases, Ashton remembered a news report he’d seen in 1986.The report explained how a geneticist in England helped police identify a man named Colin Pitchfork as the killer of two girls, Dawn Ashworth and Lynda Mann.In 1987, Ashton saw a magazine advertisement for Lifecodes, a laboratory that specialized in paternity tests.The title of the ad was “He’s Wearing his Daddy’s Genes” with an infant’s picture displayed.Ashton called Lifecodes and asked if the same kind of testing could be used to identify a criminal in a rape case.“They said yeah actually, there are multiple people working on this and we’re just about to go online for forensic cases. You know, we came across Tommie Andrews and the rest is history as they say,” Ashton said. Munroe had faith. She said when she learned of the evidence that would be presented in court, she thought this: “I had no doubt Andrews was going to be guilty,” Munroe said. The State Attorney’s Office sent Lifecodes samples from six cases in which Andrews was a suspect to see if the lab could match his blood with semen, blood and body fluids found at Munroe’s home.Dr. Michael Baird, then with Lifecodes and now Chief Science Officer with DNA Diagnostics Center, was able to make positive matches in Munroe’s and one other case. That case involved victim Nancy Hodge, who was raped May 9, 1986.Baird was confident DNA and his testimony would persuade a jury. “Using DNA to help identify the source of a biological sample in a forensic case, was unprecedented. So I was certainly aware that this was groundbreaking,” Baird said. Prosecutors decided to go to trial against Andrews in the Hodge case first.However, while Judge Rom Powell admitted the seemingly strange scientific evidence, the trial ended in a hung jury.Defense attorneys Hal Uhrig, Ken Cotter and Jim Valerino raised questions about the reality that the science could really pinpoint just one possible attacker. The state tried again weeks later, in Munroe’s attack, and this time, the jury both understood and accepted the evidence, delivering a guilty verdict.Andrews became the first person in the U.S. convicted with DNA.It was especially significant since Munroe could not positively identify Andrews.In February of 1988, Andrews’ retrial in the attack on Hodge used DNA again, and this time, Andrews was convicted.He was sentenced to more than 100 years in both cases combined, a sentence that was later reduced on appeal. WESH 2’s Greg Fox talked exclusively with Andrews behind bars in 2008, even showing his autoradiographs, the “film” that is speckled with dots, and revealed his unique genetic identity, like a fingerprint.Andrews vehemently denied that was worthy proof of his guilt.“That’s you, they say,” Fox said. “No,” Andrews said. “You say that’s not you?” Fox asked. “No, because when they brought this to me, I’m like, ‘Hey man that looks like a bunch of dots,'” Andrews said. That “bunch of dots” was scientifically conclusive. He raped and nearly killed two women. Thirty-five years later, WESH paid a visit to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Crime Lab in Orlando.It’s a massive place now, compared to in 1987.Back then, a few people there were working with DNA.Today, Senior Crime Lab Analyst Tim Petree had this to say:“Now, we’re over 30 people in this biology section that are all working as a team to do DNA tests,” Petree said.“Everyday?” Fox asked. “Yes, everyday,” Petree said. Petree says one of the most remarkable advancements in DNA testing is that identification can be revealed with microscopic traces, not the large stains that were required more than three decades ago.Saliva, sweat, invisible skin cells can all yield enough traces to make a match.“Definitely over 30 years, where we started and where we are now, it’s amazing the changes that have occurred,” Petree said. DNA is now part of our popular culture. It’s a staple of television crime dramas like NBC’s Law and Order SVU.That familiarity has done more than entertain us. It’s educated us.Because of what we know today, jury members have a high comfort level in accepting DNA evidence.Tedious, complex testimony is no longer required. Defense attorneys are not as likely to challenge it. Convictions based on genetic evidence are now routine. For example, in a recent Volusia County trial, it helped the jury understand the genetic link between Robert Hayes and his three murder victims in a 15-year-old cold case.Police are reopening other such cases, re-testing old evidence.George Girtman, Orlando’s notorious “Malibu Rapist,” is facing a new trial in seven cases from the early 90’s. DNA-testing also led to the arrest of Kenneth Stough in a 1996 Ocoee murder.DNA is also a tool for vindication, winning freedom for those wrongly convicted of heinous crimes, including local men like Clemente Aguirre, Wilton Dedge, and William Dillon, who spent a combined 50 years in prison.According to the Innocence Project, DNA exonerations since 1989 number 375 across the nation, and 21 in Florida.“DNA has opened the door for us to have a better understanding about the existence and prevalence of wrongful convictions and why they happen,” Seth Miller of the Innocence Project of Florida said. Considered the single greatest forensic advancement since fingerprints were first discovered in 1880 by Scottish doctor Henry Faulds to be unique to every human, and since 1902 when they were first used to identify and convict a murderer in France, American police can now crosscheck 20 million DNA samples in the FBI CODIS database to try and match criminals with crimes. “I think now it’s the gold standard for identification,” Baird said. Andrews was convicted of raping two women. After serving 24 years in prison and nine years in the Jimmy Ryce facility for violent sexual predators, a judge released him last year over the objections of those two women and three others whose cases were never brought to trial.
It’s the kind of science that’s generated spectacular headlines in recent years: DNA solves cold case murder, DNA proves wrong man convicted and jailed, DNA proves family is related to royalty or one of our founding fathers.
And certainly, DNA is routine in paternity testing.
What you may not know is that much of the science was first exposed to the world in an Orange County courtroom 35 years ago.
I was in that local courtroom on November 6, 1987 as history was being made.
To say any journalist or observer really knew the significance of it would be overstating the fact.
It was new and different. It was interesting. It was also confusing to follow as genetic evidence was being presented in front of a jury.
They were often confused too, but what we know today is that the guilty verdict was a foundational step for a new way to prove the identity of violent criminals, using methods seldom talked about outside of high school and college science…
Read More:How prosecutors used DNA science
2022-11-07 04:21:00