Posts tagged "DNA"

World Trade Center debris will be sifted for Sept. 11 remains

New York City officials said Friday that construction debris from the World Trade Center site will be sifted to identify human remains from the 9/11 terrorist attacks starting Monday.

In a memo sent to family members of 9/11 victims, Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said DNA testing will continue until every possible identification can be made. The sifting is expected to continue for about 10 weeks on Staten Island.

“We will continue with DNA testing until all recovered remains that can be matched with a victim are identified,” Holloway said in the memo, which was obtained by the New York Daily News.

City officials say about 60 truckloads of construction debris have been collected around the site over the past 2½ years. A skyscraper will replace the twin towers.

Some 2,750 people died at the World Trade Center in the 2001 attacks. So far, 1,634 people have been identified.

The chief medical examiner’s office is leading the operation. It has identified 34 victims and 2,345 possible human remains of previously identified victims since 2006.

Click here for more from New York Daily News.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WTC debris will be sifted for Sept. 11 remains

Construction debris from the World Trade Center site will be sifted for any human remains from the 9/11 terrorist attacks starting Monday.

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said in a memo Friday that DNA testing will continue until every possible identification can be made. The sifting is expected to continue for about 10 weeks on Staten Island.

City officials say about 60 truckloads of construction debris have been collected around the site over the past 2½ years. A skyscraper will replace the twin towers.

Some 2,750 people died at the World Trade Center in the 2001 attacks. So far, 1,634 people have been identified.

The chief medical examiner’s office is leading the operation. It has identified 34 victims and 2,345 possible human remains of previously identified victims since 2006.

Ohio man exonerated of murder after 13 years in prison wins $13.2M

An Ohio man who was exonerated after spending 13 years in prison for murder cried as a federal jury found that two Cleveland police detectives violated his civil rights by coercing and falsifying testimony and withholding evidence that pointed to his innocence.

The jury’s verdict on Friday, which included awarding $13.2 million to David Ayers of Cleveland for his pain and suffering, brings an end to the legal battle he’s been fighting since his arrest in the 1999 killing of 76-year-old Dorothy Brown.

Ayers, 56, was released from prison in 2011 after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed his conviction and the state decided not to seek another trial.

Ayers, who was a security guard for the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, had been found guilty of killing Brown at her CMHA apartment in Cleveland. She was found bludgeoned to death, covered in defensive wounds and naked from the waist down; she also had been robbed. DNA testing later proved that a pubic hair found in her mouth did not come from Ayers.

“This should have been stopped a long time ago,” Ayers told the Cleveland Plain Dealer after the jury’s verdict Friday. “My goal is that it never happens to anyone else ever again.”

A phone number listed for Ayers did not accept messages Saturday.

Ayers filed his civil rights lawsuit in March 2012 against six Cleveland police officers, the city and the county housing authority. Allegations against three of the officers, the city and the housing authority were dismissed by a judge who found that their roles did not violate Ayers’ rights.

One of the remaining officers settled out of court with Ayers for an undisclosed amount. The Friday verdict was against Michael Cipo and Denise Kovach, who were the lead investigators in the case.

Kovach and Cipo could not be reached for comment. They have denied misconduct.

Phone and email requests for comment with Cleveland police and the three city attorneys who represent Cipo and Kovach were not immediately answered Saturday. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that attorney Rachel Steinback of Chicago, who represented Ayers, said the city is self-insured so the award will come from taxpayer money, not an insurance company.

“We did him justice,” Steinback told the paper. “He deserved it. I found him absolutely credible and believed every word he said.”

Among the most serious allegations by Ayers against Kovach and Cipo were that the two detectives conspired with each other to fabricate a confession that he never made, coerced a friend of Ayers to lie by saying that Ayers had told him of the murder before Brown’s body was discovered, and gave key information about the crime to Ayers’ prison cellmate so he could later testify against Ayers about an admission he didn’t make.

In an August filing, Cipo and Kovach argued to have the lawsuit dismissed, saying that they acted in good faith and with probable cause, and that Ayers was responsible for any alleged injuries that he incurred.

Federal Judge James Gwin denied their request late last month shortly before the trial, ruling that Ayers had produced sufficient evidence that the detectives had violated his rights.

Click here for more from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

USS Monitor Civil War sailors buried at Arlington National Cemetery 150 years later

More than 150 years after the USS Monitor sank off North Carolina during the Civil War, two unknown crewmen found in the ironclad’s turret when it was raised a decade ago were buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.

The evening burial, which included a gun salute and a band playing “America the Beautiful,” may be the last time Civil War soldiers are buried at the cemetery overlooking Washington.

“Today is a tribute to all the men and women who have gone to sea, but especially to those who made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf,” said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who spoke at a funeral service before the burial.

The Monitor made nautical history when the Union ship fought the Confederate CSS Virginia in the first battle between two ironclads on March 9, 1862. The battle was a draw.

The Monitor sank about nine months later in rough seas, and 16 sailors died. In 2002, the ship’s rusted turret was raised from the Atlantic Ocean floor, and the skeletons of the two crew members were found inside.

On Friday, the remains of the two men were taken to their gravesite by horse-drawn caissons, one pulled by a team of six black horses and the other pulled by six white horses. White-gloved sailors carried the caskets to their final resting place near the cemetery’s amphitheater. A few men attending the ceremonies wore Civil War uniforms, and there were ladies in long dresses from the time. The ceremony also included “Taps,” which was written the same year that the Monitor sank and became associated with military funerals as early as the Civil War.

The sailors buried Friday would not have recognized some parts of the graveside service, however. The military band played “America the Beautiful,” which wasn’t written until three decades after the Monitor sank. And the flags that draped the silver coffins were modern ones with 50 stars, not the 34-star American flag of the early 1860s.

The cemetery where the men will lie, however, has strong ties to the Civil War. Arlington was established as a military cemetery during the war and is on grounds formerly owned by the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. One of the cemetery’s first monuments was a memorial to unknown Civil War soldiers.

A marker with the names of all 16 men who died onboard the Monitor will ultimately be placed at the gravesite of the sailors buried Friday. Researchers were unable to positively identify the remains, though they tried reconstructing the sailors’ faces from their skulls and comparing DNA from the skeletons with living relatives of the ship’s crew and their families. Medical and Navy records narrowed the possibilities to six people.

What is known is that one of the men was between 17 and 24 years old and the other was likely in his 30s. A genealogist who worked on the project believes the older sailor is Robert Williams, the ship’s fireman, who would have tended the Monitor’s coal-fired steam engine.

Relatives of some of the men who died attended Friday’s ceremony. Diana Rambo of Fresno, Calif., came with four other family members. She’s related through her mother, Jane Nicklis Rowland, to Monitor crewman Jacob Nicklis, who died when the ship sank. The family didn’t know a relative had served on the ship until they received a letter requesting DNA, but Rambo said she’s since learned more about the “connection to history that we never knew we have.” She said after the ceremony that she’s less concerned about knowing for certain who was buried Friday.

“It kind of doesn’t matter. It was all about honoring the 16,” she said of the ceremony.

150 years later, Union sailors from USS Monitor to be buried at Arlington

Two Navy sailors slated for heroes’ burials at Arlington National Cemetery have waited a century and a half for the honor.

The men were among the crew members who perished aboard the legendary Union battleship the USS Monitor, which fought an epic Civil War battle with Confederate vessel The Merrimack in the first battle between two ironclad ships in the Battle of Hampton Roads, on March 9, 1862.

Nine months later, the Monitor sank in rough seas off of Cape Hatteras, where it was discovered in 1973. Two skeletons and the tattered remains of their uniforms were discovered in the rusted hulk of the Union ironclad in 2002, when its 150-ton turret was brought to the surface. The Navy spent most of a decade trying to determine the identity of the remains through DNA testing.

“These may very well be the last Navy personnel from the Civil War to be buried at Arlington,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said. “It’s important we honor these brave men and all they represent as we reflect upon the significant role Monitor and her crew had in setting the course of our modern Navy.”

Although testing has narrowed the identities of the men down to six, descendants of all 16 soldiers who died when the ship sank are expected at the ceremony. Diana Rambo, of Fresno, Calif., said DNA testing showed a 50 percent chance that one man was Jacob Nicklis, her grandfather’s uncle. A ring on his right finger matched one in an old photograph, adding to the likelihood he was her relative. She plans to be at the cemetery when he is buried.

“It’s been interesting to be connected to something so momentous, and we’re looking forward to the ceremony,” Rambo told FoxNews.com.

She said the development has brought several branches of the family together as they sift through old letters and photos and piece together their shared genealogy. One letter in particular made her long-lost relative seem real.

“I’ve started doing the research, and even read letters he wrote to his father saying he really didn’t want to go,” said Rambo, who was able to tell her 90-year-old mother of the Navy’s revelation a week before her death. “And you think about how many of these kids today are in that situation.”

David Alberg, superintendent of the Monitor sanctuary, pressed for the pair to have Arlington burial honors, as did the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Maritime Heritage Program and descendants of the surviving Monitor crewmembers.

Although most schoolkids learn that the Monitor fought the Merrimack to a draw in 1862, the ship that the Monitor took on was actually dubbed the Virginia, and built on the hull of the U.S. Navy frigate USS Merrimack. Some 16 sailors died when the Monitor sank, while about 50 more crewmembers were plucked from the sea by the crew of the Rhode Island.

Although the Monitor sank soon after the battle, it still outlasted the Virginia, which the Confederates were forced to scuttle in early May. The Monitor sailed up the James River to support the Army during the Peninsula Campaign, taking part in the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff before sinking while being towed during a storm off the Carolina coast. The ship’s gun turret, engine and other relics are on display at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia.

DNA match leads to arrest in 1982 cold case homicide

More than 30 years after a high school student was found dead in a drainage ditch west of Portland, authorities this week charged her former neighbor with aggravated murder — a case cracked through advances in DNA technology, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said.

Kenneth Lee Hicks, 49, of St. Helens, was arrested Wednesday and booked into the county jail. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Thursday, The Oregonian reported.

Hicks was 19 when Lori Billingsley’s body was found Oct. 10, 1982, in a drainage ditch in the community of Aloha. The 17-year-old had been beaten, stabbed, strangled and sexually assaulted.

Hicks was Billingsley’s neighbor and the last person to see her alive, the Sheriff’s Office said. Sgt. Bob Ray said Hicks was a prime suspect at the time, and detectives believed he knew more than he was telling during interviews. After more than a year of pursuing the case, detectives decided there was insufficient evidence to arrest him.

In 1991, when DNA evidence was gaining recognition as an investigative tool, the Sheriff’s Office submitted evidence from the Billingsley homicide to the Oregon State Police crime lab. No profile was identified and the case grew colder.

In December 2010, Mike O’Connell, a retired sheriff’s office detective, returned part-time to help solve cold cases and started working on the Billingsley homicide. DNA technology had advanced a great deal in two decades and, last April, O’Connell served a search warrant to obtain Hicks’ DNA.

Hicks’ DNA profile matched the DNA evidence from the homicide, Ray said.

Ray credited Detective Jim Welch, now deceased, for conducting a thorough investigation back in 1982, saying his work was invaluable to the detectives who re-examined the case.

“The DNA was just the last piece of the puzzle,” Ray said.

The case was presented to a grand jury, and Hicks was indicted Tuesday. District Attorney Robert Hermann will prosecute the case he was assigned 30 years ago.

Man arrested for 1985 New Orleans cold case rape

New Orleans police have arrested a suspect in a 1985 rape.

Troy Williams, 42, was arrested in Texas and transferred to New Orleans Wednesday, where he was jailed on rape, armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping and other charges, The Times-Picayune reports.

Police said they found Williams after the Louisiana State Police crime lab checked an evidence kit from the assault for DNA. The DNA found by the lab matched a sample from Williams.

Williams was 15 when the rape occurred, but will be tried as an adult.

For years, even in cases where DNA evidence was available, New Orleans police failed to process evidence kits related to rapes. That resulted in a backlog of hundreds of unresolved cases.

After Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas took office in 2010, the department began to prioritize processing untested evidence in unresolved cases, with assistance from the State Police crime lab and others. Serpas recently said the department has eliminated the backlog of untested evidence.

Police said Williams and another man assaulted a woman on the morning of Aug. 21, 1985. Authorities said one of the two men took $6 from the woman’s purse, and she was forced into a nearby alley at gunpoint. There, she was forced to disrobe and was raped, police said. The woman couldn’t scream for help because the gun was against her head during the attack, court documents state.

Afterward, the two men fled. The woman ran to her sister’s residence and called the police. She then went to a hospital and underwent a rape examination.

This past Nov. 19, New Orleans detective Orlynthia Miller-White received a report from the Louisiana State Police crime lab that DNA from the rape matched a profile of Williams stored on the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, an FBI-managed collection of DNA samples from people convicted of certain crimes.

Miller-White eventually located the victim, who said she didn’t know Williams and had never consented to having sex with him.

On Jan. 17 Miller-White obtained a warrant to arrest Williams. Although police list addresses for him in Harvey and New Orleans, records show he was arrested in Harris County, Texas.

Besides aggravated rape, armed robbery and aggravated kidnapping, he was booked with a probation violation, and on warrants from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and Gretna Police Department, the details of which weren’t immediately available.

Williams remained in jail Friday. His bail has not been set.

DNA evidence clears Texas man convicted in ’81 stabbing death

A 58-year-old Texas man walked free Monday after serving years for a crime he didn’t commit — the repeated stabbing of a woman whose body was found on a dirt road in rural North Texas.

Randolph Arledge was sentenced to 99 years in prison in 1984 for killing Carolyn Armstrong. But a state district judge in Corsicana, about 50 miles southeast of Dallas, agreed with prosecutors and Arledge’s attorneys that he could no longer be considered guilty after new DNA tests tied someone else to the crime.

Judge James Lagomarsino agreed to release Arledge on bond while the process of overturning his conviction is pending. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must accept Lagomarsino’s recommendation for the conviction to be formally overturned, a process that is considered a formality.

Arledge wore shackles around his wrists and ankles at the start of the hearing, but was later taken into a back room by two deputies to have them removed. When he returned, Arledge hugged his two children. His daughter was 4 years old and his son 7 when he was sent to prison.

“They suffered more than anybody,” Arledge told reporters afterward. He gestured to his daughter, Randa Machelle Arledge. “She’s always talking about, she wanted me to come pick her up from school. Now she’s picking me up.”

His children said they remained hopeful through the years, not doubting his innocence.

“Every time he came up for parole, it was broken, shattered hopes,” his daughter said.

Armstrong’s body was found in August 1981 on a rural dirt road in Navarro County, according to a court filing by Arledge’s attorneys. She had been stripped naked from the waist down and stabbed more than 40 times.

Her abandoned car was found miles away with several pieces of evidence, including a black hairnet on the left side of the driver’s seat. Hair taken from that net was preserved for three decades. In 2011, more advanced DNA testing linked samples from the hair net and elsewhere to someone else.

Navarro County District Attorney Lowell Thompson said authorities are searching for the person matched to the DNA and believe they know where he is. The case “will stay open until we solve it,” he said in an interview.

While Thompson credited the system for freeing Arledge, he said he remained committed to finding Armstrong’s real killer for her relatives.

“It’s their daughter; it’s their sister who was victimized,” Thompson said. “I empathize with them as much as I can, but you know it’s not easy for them to have to have all this brought back up.”

Armstrong’s relatives who attended the hearing declined to comment as they left court.

Like many wrongfully convicted inmates, Arledge was sent to prison with the help of faulty eyewitness testimony. Two co-conspirators in an armed robbery testified at his trial that he had admitted to stabbing someone in Corsicana and that he had blood on his clothes and knife, according to the filing by Arledge’s attorneys.

One of those witnesses has since admitted to lying about Arledge due to a personal dispute, the filing said.

Arledge became the 118th person in Texas state courts to have his conviction overturned, according to the University of Michigan’s national registry of exonerations.

State lawmakers have passed several measures to try to prevent wrongful convictions. Texas now has a law allowing all inmates convicted of a crime to seek new DNA testing. It also has the nation’s most generous law for ex-inmates who have proven their innocence, providing a lump-sum payment of $80,000 for each year someone wrongly spent behind bars, as well as an annuity and other benefits.

Arledge spent some of his prison time in Tennessee on an unrelated armed robbery conviction. He was placed in a Texas prison in 1998 after being paroled from Tennessee, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said. For that reason, it’s unclear how much compensation he will receive.

DNA may determine whether uncle killed Pennsylvania woman in 1977

DNA testing may finally prove whether a family member is guilty of the 1977 murder of a Pennsylvania woman, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

According to the paper, Shaun Ritterson, 20, was found dumped on a wooded Bucks County mountainside, stabbed five times. The corpse had been hacked up, its organs removed.

Shaun Ritterson had disappeared after a night out with friends. Her body was found two days later by a father and son who were driving by Buckingham Mountain.

The victim’s uncle, Harry Ritterson, has been a prime suspect in the case, the Inquirer reports, although the murder remains unsolved.

Harry Ritterson died of cancer last month, and now a sample of his DNA, obtained legally after his death, is being tested to see whether it matches hairs found with the victim’s body.

Such a test was unavailable to investigators in 1977, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Weintraub told the paper.

If the DNA matches, it will add to the evidence, which includes witness statements about Ritterson visiting the site where the body was found while Shaun Ritterson was still missing, and reports he wanted a romantic relationship with his niece, Weintraub said, according to the Inquirer.

“It’s important to follow through and see if he did commit this murder,” Weintraub said. “And if he didn’t, to see who did.”

Click for more from Philly.com

Ex-DA denies misconduct in wrongful conviction

A former Texas district attorney is choking back tears as he recalls a prosecution that wrongfully sent a Texas man to prison for 25 years.

Ken Anderson calls the case of Michael Morton his “worst nightmare.”

Morton was convicted in the slaying of his wife Christine in 1987 but exonerated in 2011 following new DNA tests.

Anderson is now a judge in Georgetown near Austin. He is accused of withholding evidence indicating Morton’s innocence during the original trial. A special court of inquiry on the matter is in its fifth day Friday.

Anderson says he did nothing wrong. He says the office he “ran was professional, it was competent.”

Then, his voice cracking, Anderson added, “We got it right as much as we humanly could.”