Advances in DNA technology are helping police catch criminals and prosecutors see that justice is served, an Abilene Police Department official says.

A state combined DNA index system, or CODIS, is helping police solve crimes with DNA evidence left behind at crime scenes.

DNA is traced through blood evidence, fibers and touch DNA, such as latent fingerprints said Abilene Police Department Sgt. Mike Moschetto, who works in the criminal investigation division.

Blood, he said, usually is left behind at burglary crime scenes, often when broken glass is involved in the entry of homes or vehicles.

"Criminals are shedding skin and leaving it behind on the scene, and we're using science to piece it together," Moschetto said. "It's catching our criminals. All of this is done outside Abilene and it's not the quickest process, but it has helped us solve cases tremendously."

Whenever DNA is collected, the evidence is sent to a Texas Department of Public Safety lab in Austin that is responsible for keeping a computerized database of DNA.

If a DNA match occurs, the results then are sent back to the agency that requested the evidence. As of December 2011, the lab has aided in 9,413 investigations in Texas and holds offender profiles on 591,816 people since its program launch in 1998.

Although statewide statistics are accessible through the programs website, local numbers are not available, said Rebecca Vieh, CODIS program liaison.

The latest match, Moschetto said, might lead to a man already in prison being charged in an unsolved Abilene burglary. All leads in the case had been exhausted until this year when Moschetto was told blood left at the scene of the crime returned a hit against a man now behind bars in Arizona.

"It initially didn't hit because he had never been arrested before," Moschetto said. "He's now locked up in Arizona and when they updated the database, it flagged that there was a possible match."

The next step, said Moschetto, is to secure a warrant against the man to run a subsequent DNA test for verification.

"It always depends on the circumstance, but it's always right," he said. "I haven't seen an instance where the DNA was wrong if it points to the individual. ... It's an interesting process. This technology will continue to grow as time goes on."

View original post here:
DNA advances aiding Abilene police in cases