THE BIRTH OF DNA EVIDENCE

The birth of "DNA forensic identification" began with the tragic sudden death of fifteen-year-old girl, in the cold clear evening of November 21, 1983. The location was "Black Pad", a lonely footpath that divides the cemetery from the local psychiatric hospital in the British village of Narborough in Leicestershire. As the morning frost lifted, a hospital porter hurrying to work noted through the high wrought-iron fence, the pale lifeless body described initially as a partially clothed mannequin. Officially, listed as death by asphyxia due to strangulation, the brutal rape and murder of this teenager was different. The murderer had left his genetic calling card in the seminal stains found on the clothing and the body. The revolution of forensic DNA typing had begun and the use of serological or protein subtyping of biological tissues was ending.

Like a "bad movie" and a repetitive plot, the body of another fifteen-year-old girl was found August 1, 1986 along another foot path called "Ten Pound Lane" in the village of Enderby a short distance from the first murder scene. The pathologist report confirmed death was caused by manual strangulation and essentially paralleled the "Black Pad" murder. The serological protein forensic test developed from seminal stains identified the contributor as having the phosphoglucomutase (PGM+1) secretor A status that matched the first victim's killer profile and approximately 10 percent of male population of Britain. A major investigation quickly resulted in the apprehension of a young kitchen porter who confessed to the murder committed along the "Ten Pound Lane" footpath. In an attempt to solve both murders and link the biological evidence, an exciting new test soon to be known as "DNA fingerprinting" was applied by Dr. Alec Jeffreys the scientist who had developed the procedure. When the test was completed, Dr. Jeffreys had exonerated an innocent man (the prime suspect) as well as linked both murders through an identical genetic signature. On November 21, 1986 in the Crown Court of Leicester, the young kitchen porter made legal history as the first person to be exonerated from a crime through the use of genetic evidence. One year later, Colin Pitchfork was arrested and later found guilty of the rape and the murder of both girls. After an extensive investigation and the comparison of numerous serological (4,583) and genetic profiles of potential male inhabitants in the surrounding villages, science had matched the genetic profile to one person. In 1988, he was sentenced to life for the two murders and became the first person to be convicted for murder based on genetic fingerprinting known in North America as DNA Typing. (Reference: Wambaugh, Joseph, The Blooding, 1989)

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