DNA helps police solve six breaking and entering cases

Carl Preston Crawford Jr.

GREENSBORO, N.C. A series of commercial breaking and entering cases from May has been solved after evidence collected from a scene was matched to DNA processed by a contracted forensics laboratory.

Carl Preston Crawford Jr., 27, of 1800 Longfellow St., is charged with breaking and entering into six SUBWAY restaurants throughout Greensboro after evidence collected from one of the crime scenes matched a known sample of DNA processed through Cellmark Forensics BioTracks DNA database.

Crawford previously was arrested on Aug. 20 and charged with breaking and entering into nearly a dozen Radio Shack stores across North Carolina during August and September. Four of those stores were in Greensboro.

After Cellmark Forensics, a business contracted by the City of Greensboro to do DNA testing, notified the Greensboro Police Department that the SUBWAY evidence matched Crawfords DNA, detectives took out additional warrants for his arrest on Sept. 29.

In May 2014, the Greensboro Police Department entered into a two-year contract with Cellmark Forensics for the analysis, search, match, and retrieval of local DNA samples. The agreement also allows for local DNA samples that meet certain technical criteria to be compared against state and federal samples in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) operated at the North Carolina State Crime Lab.

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DNA helps police solve six breaking and entering cases