DNA of sex offenders being tested in cold cases

Quick facts:

There's a new effort to find cold-case killers and rapists, including whoever was responsible for the rapes and murders of Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian back in 1986.

Twelve-year-old Michella and 13-year old Jennifer both were riding their bicycle alone near Tacoma parks when they were abducted and murdered. Michella, whose body was found in Puget Park, was killed in March of 1986. Jennifer, who was found in Point Defiance Park, was murdered that August. Both girls were sexually assaulted, and police believe the same man is responsible for both murders.

But even though investigators distributed a composite sketch of a man on a bicycle seen following Jennifer the day she disappeared, no suspect has ever been identified.

Pierce County native Lindsey Wade was 11-years-old when the girls were murdered. Wade is now a detective with the Tacoma Police Department working cold cases, including the two murders she's never forgotten.

It was really the first time I can recall hearing about something in the news that was particularly terrifying to me, Wade said of the two cases.

While looking into the 1999 disappearance of 2-year old Teekah Lewis, Wade learned that the DNA of 36 residents of the Special Commitment Center at McNeil Island the facility that houses our states civilly committed sexually violent predators -- had never been collected and processed because they committed their crimes before state law made DNA collection from sex offenders mandatory in 1990.

Wade told KIRO 7s Amy Clancy she was surprised to learn that the DNA of those long-imprisoned serial rapists and sex offenders was not in any database that would allow her -- or other detectives -- to solve other cold-case crimes.

I was shocked, I was really surprised, Wade said. These are pretty much our states worst of the worst, in my opinion, when it comes to sexually violent predators.

So with money from a federal grant, Wade was able to collect all the SCC residents' DNA, have it tested, and entered into the crime-fighting database called CODIS.

See the article here:
DNA of sex offenders being tested in cold cases