DNA now spelling more guilty verdicts

Technology and an expanding database is making DNA the molecular building block that's unique as a fingerprint exponentially more successful in solving crimes in Texas.

The number of crimes solved after a suspect's DNA matched with offenders' DNA samples stored in the national repository known as CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) recently passed the 10,000th mark.

The state averaged only about 200 matches a year during the first five years after the database was created in 1996.

That number leaped to an average 1,000 hits a year for the next 10 years. In just the past 11 months, the matches have nearly doubled to 1,943, records show.

Some of the high-profile CODIS matches in the San Antonio area over the past two years have included:

DNA on a Kansas City baseball cap was analyzed in 2011, leading to the arrest of Jeremiah Barefield in the 1997 slaying of Kimberly Coleman, 31. Barefield was targeting a security guard when he shot and killed Coleman, an innocent bystander.

Jose Baldomero Flores III was arrested in 2011 in connection with the death of Esmeralda Herrera, 30, who was beaten and strangled before her apartment was set on fire. DNA on a beer can in Herrera's kitchen, along with hairs, fibers, cell phone records and a bloody shoeprint, linked Flores to Herrera's slaying. However, charges were dropped against Flores. He was released from jail and the investigation into Esmeralda Herrera's death remains open.

Daniel Flores Garcia, then 49, was arrested in 2011 in a decades-old cold case after DNA connected him to the death of Marilyn McDonald. McDonald was 37 when she was beaten and stabbed to death in 1986.

Many of these crimes might never have been solved if not for this database, said Steven McCraw, who heads the Texas Department of Public Safety, which manages the database.

Detective Robert Bunnell, one of SAPD's cold case investigators, agrees.

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DNA now spelling more guilty verdicts