Category Archives: DNA

The daughter of a New Jersey woman whose casket contained the wrong body said Wednesday that DNA tests will be performed to determine if her mother was accidentally cremated in Canada.

Lisa Kondvar of Warwick, R.I., and her family discovered someone else's body in Margaret Porkka's casket last month at a New Jersey funeral home. Porkka, 82, had died unexpectedly during a trip to St. Maarten over Thanksgiving.

The family suspects Porkka's body was confused with that of a Canadian woman who died on the island around the same time, and was sent to Canada and cremated. Scott Aldridge, a detective in Barrie, Ontario, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the woman in Porkka's casket has been identified as 82-year-old Kathleen Togwell. Her body is being returned to Canada.

Kondvar said bodily fluids were recovered from a casket in Canada that might have contained Porkka's body. The family has sent her hairbrush and toothbrush for DNA testing. Results are not expected until the end of the month, Kondvar said.

"They're just starting on it now," she said. "It's frustrating."

The family wants to take possession of the ashes if they are determined to be those of Porkka. Kondvar said her father, Pete, of Englewood, N.J., is "just broken" after not being able to say a goodbye to his wife.

St. Maarten Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams said last week that the government there has formed a committee to investigate the case at the request of U.S. officials.

Emerald Funeral Home director Orlando Vanterpool said, to his knowledge, he sent the correct remains but that he will provide a refund if it's determined a mistake was made.

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

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DNA Test to Be Done After NJ Casket Had Wrong Body

The scrambling of DNA samples from 11 Denver police burglary cases which led prosecutors to dismiss charges against four people was the result of faulty instructions from the manufacturer of a DNA-matching machine, police officials said Tuesday.

The mistake caused evidence from one burglary case to be tied to another. The four people charged with crimes as a result each confessed to at least one burglary, but the error meant they were charged with the wrong ones. Three of the people had already pleaded guilty, but none served additional prison time stemming from the botched cases, said Lt. Matt Murray, the department's chief of staff.

"Every one of the defendants in these cases did, in fact, leave DNA at some crime scene," Murray explained in a YouTube video released Tuesday night. "That's not an indication of guilt, but ... all were associated with some criminal case, and that the evidence was just transposed and put in with the wrong criminal case."

The mistake happened when the crime lab's DNA-matching machine "froze" while running a tray of 19 samples in June 2011. An analyst then called the manufacturer, which supplied a map for putting the samples back into the machine in the right sequence. More than two years passed before the crime lab realized the samples were replaced in the wrong order, after the machine froze again this past November. That time, the company gave the analyst a different map, and the samples were returned correctly. The crime lab realized the error because of the discrepancy.

Among the people charged with the wrong crimes was a man serving prison time on an unrelated offense; a man who was arrested and spent 24 hours in jail for the burglary, to which he later pleaded guilty and had his sentence combined with the probation he was serving in a different case; and two juveniles, a boy and a girl. Prosecutors let the boy's burglary sentence run concurrent with his sentence for a separate felony conviction, which was a rehabilitation program. The girl pleaded guilty to a bundle of "numerous" felony cases, including the wrong one, and has not been sentenced.

A third man associated with the case, who is serving prison time, was never charged, Murray said. Prosecutors have dismissed the other cases.

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Bad directions blamed for Denver Police DNA errors

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Newswise A mere glass full of water from Monterey Bay Aquarium's 1.2 million-gallon Open Sea tank, among the 10 largest aquariums in the world, is all scientists really needed to identify the Pacific Bluefin tuna, dolphinfish and most of the other 13,000 fish swimming there.

Researchers also for the first time used DNA from water samples to discern which of the species were most plentiful in the tank.

Being able to determine the relative abundance of fish species in a body of water is the next step in possibly using modern DNA identification techniques to census fish in the open ocean, according to Ryan Kelly, University of Washington assistant professor of marine and environmental affairs, and lead author of a paper in the Jan. 15 issue of PLOS ONE.

Currently most scientists net, see or in other ways count fish to determine what species are present and in what proportions in marine environments.

"It might be unpleasant to think about when going for a swim in the ocean, but the water is a soup of cells shed by what lives there," Kelly said. Fish shed cells from their skin, damaged tissues and as body wastes.

"Every one of those cells has DNA and if you have the right tools you can tell what species the cell came from. Now we're working to find the relative abundance of each species present," he said.

It was barely two years ago that an influential paper was published by scientists who determined the presence of an endangered species they were seeking in a river using this "environmental DNA" or "eDNA." Since then the technique has been used to look for other specific species in both freshwater and one marine setting.

"Clearly this is an effective tool in the wild when you know what you're looking for," Kelly said.

Originally posted here:
DNA Detectives Able to 'Count' Thousands of Fish Using as Little as a Glass of Water

Published: 9:09AM Thursday January 16, 2014 Source: AP

Source: Thinkstock

The daughter of a US woman whose casket contained the wrong body said DNA tests will be performed to determine if her mother was accidentally cremated in Canada.

Lisa Kondvar and her family discovered someone else's body in Margaret Porkka's casket last month at a New Jersey funeral home. Ms Porkka, 82, had died unexpectedly during a trip to St Maarten over Thanksgiving.

The family suspects Ms Porkka's body was confused with that of a Canadian woman who died on the island around the same time, and was sent to Canada and cremated.

Ms Kondvar said bodily fluids were recovered from a casket in Canada that might have contained Porkka's body. The family has sent her hairbrush and toothbrush for DNA testing. Results are not expected until the end of the month, Ms Kondvar said.

"They're just starting on it now," she said. "It's frustrating."

The family wants to take possession of the ashes if they are determined to be those of Ms Porkka. Ms Kondvar said her father, Pete, is "just broken" after not being able to say a goodbye to his wife.

St. Maarten Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams said last week that the government there has formed a committee to investigate the case at the request of US officials.

Emerald Funeral Home director Orlando Vanterpool said, to his knowledge, he sent the correct remains but that he will provide a refund if it's determined a mistake was made.

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DNA test after wrong body delivered to family

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