The trial of David Butler, which ended last month, provided a near-perfect stage for airing these new doubts. When the police first investigated Foys murder in 2005 they failed to produce a suspect. But then, as part of a cold case review last year, officers rechecked whether the DNA discovered under Anne Marie Foys nails had any matches on the national DNA database.

For some reason, first time around, no matches were found. This time, however, one turned up: a sample recovered from a cigarette butt found in 1998 after a burglary at the defendants mothers house. The police originally believed the butt had been left by the burglar. Instead it led them to Mr Butler who had apparently dropped it during a visit to comfort his mother. After the taking of a full DNA profile, which, again, matched the DNA under the finger nails, the cabbie was charged with murder. This was at the heart of the prosecutions case.

But Michael Wolkind, Butlers QC, took the science apart. The testing procedures were unreliable, he told the jury. The analysis of the DNA under Foys nails had been done at a time before higher-quality standards for handling samples were established. And, he said, even if the DNA was the defendants, there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for how it got there.

Butler suffers from a dry skin condition so severe that his nickname in the local cab trade is flaky. He could have taken a passenger to the Red Light district, handed over some notes in change and passed on his DNA to the passenger who then met with Foy and later handed the notes, complete with Butlers DNA, to her.

The idea that Mr Butler violently attacked her is beyond belief, Wolkind told the jury. Mr Butler never met the deceased, and unsafe science cannot change that fact. Waiting to face-off in court on the day I visited were two of the current luminaries of the DNA-forensics field: Prof David Balding of Imperial College, London and Prof Allan Jamieson, head of the Glasgow-based Forensic Institute, who has become a familiar thorn in the side of prosecutors seeking to rely on DNA evidence.

Prof Balding, a dapper Australian, is one of the worlds leading DNA statisticians. That is to say his speciality is calculating the likelihood of a sample coming from a particular source. He is a firm believer in the power of DNA as a forensic tool.

Prof Jamiesons approach is more combative. He has appeared as an expert witness for the defence in several important DNA-centred trials, most notably that of Sean Hoey, who was cleared of carrying out the 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 people. Jamiesons main concern about the growing use of DNA in court cases is that a number of important factors human error, contamination, simple accident can suggest guilt where there is none. Police and prosecutors, he alleges, have come to see DNA evidence as a shortcut to convictions, and juries are ill-equipped to understand the complex scientific data.

Wherever you have humans involved, youll have the potential for mistakes, he tells me. Theres a growing realisation that the system is not foolproof. In particular, he worries about the tiny amounts of DNA (known as Low Count DNA) that can now be used as the basis of a trial. Modern technology allows forensic teams to capture DNA from two or three cells, as opposed to hundreds or thousands of cells, as used to be the case, and Jamieson believes these sort of minuscule samples are unreliable.

Does anyone realise how easy it is to leave a couple of cells of your DNA somewhere? he asks rhetorically. You could shake my hand and I could put that hand down hundreds of miles away and leave your cells behind. In many cases, the question is not Is it my DNA?, but How did it get there? On February 10, after 11 hours of jury deliberation, Butler was cleared.

Afterwards, at his home in Wavertree, he accused the police of being fixated on the DNA and failing to provide any other evidence. If theyd been a bit more robust with their investigations over five-and-a-half years it would not have got to this stage, he said. The DNA stopped good policemen doing a good policemans job. It was like that was all [the evidence] they needed. They could never say it was my DNA. They talked in probabilities but you cannot put a probability on a mans life.

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The case against DNA

Once more DNA tests on evidence more than 30 years old has raised doubts about convicted Stocking Strangler Carlton Garys guilt.

This time its a partial DNA profile derived from semen found on a gown then 64-year-old Gertrude Miller wore to St. Francis Hospital after she was raped and beaten Sept. 11, 1977, in her 2703 Hood St. home. While the testing conducted by the Bode Technology Group in Lorton, Va., did not yield a complete DNA profile, it was enough to exclude Gary as a possible source of the sperm found on Millers clothing, said Greg Hampikian, a DNA expert for the defense.

Testing in 2010 on evidence from a vaginal wash of strangling victim Martha Thurmond yielded a complete DNA profile that matched neither Carlton Gary nor any other convict on file, Hampikian said. The results matched Gary only to the Sept. 24, 1977, rape and strangling of Jean Dimenstein, 71, of 3027 21st St. Gary was not convicted of her murder.

Hampikian said Tuesday that he has not yet compared the partial DNA from the Miller evidence to the profile derived from the Thurmond case, to see whether the two align.

Gary was convicted of murdering Thurmond, 69, who was found beaten, raped and strangled Oct. 25, 1977, in her 2614 Marion St. home. He was not charged in Millers assault, but in illustrating Garys pattern of breaking into homes and raping older women, prosecutors spotlighted Millers testimony during Garys 1986 trial, having her come to court to point him out as her assailant. She has died since then.

Millers case is distinct not only because she survived and identified Gary, but also because she insisted a single intruder attacked her, offering no evidence a second assailant was there to leave the semen that doesnt match Gary. Though prosecutors did not seek convictions on all seven stranglings or in the Miller rape, they maintained that Gary alone committed the crimes.

Lead defense attorney Jack Martin of Atlanta said these new test results bolster his contention that Gary deserves a new trial. He anticipates the next step will be a hearing before Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Frank Jordan Jr. to discuss the test results.

Declining an interview on Tuesday, District Attorney Julia Slater issued this written statement:

Nearly 35 years after Ms. Gertrude Miller was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted, results of DNA testing of clothing Ms. Miller possibly wore around the time of her attack are now complete. It is the states understanding that the defense has now concluded their requests for testing in this case. Presumably, Mr. Gary will request a hearing regarding the completed DNA testing. The state is limited in its ability to comment about this testing and other evidence. However, on behalf of the victims and their families, the state eagerly anticipates discussing in court the results of DNA testing, responding to the rhetoric from Mr. Garys defense team, and again showing why the jurys decision in this case must be upheld.

Arrested in 1984, Gary two years later was convicted in three of the seven brutal rapes and stranglings that terrorized Columbus in 1977 and 78. He was to die by lethal injection Dec. 16, 2009, when Martin made a last-minute appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, which stayed the execution and ordered a Muscogee Superior Court judge to consider DNA testing. On Feb. 19, 2010, the defense and prosecution came to a consent agreement to DNA-test four items of evidence from the stranglings.

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Stocking Strangler case: DNA results from 1977 rape exclude Carlton Gary

Public release date: 6-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Elisabeth (Lisa) Lyons elyons@cell.com 617-386-2121 Cell Press

You might think that the DNA you inherited is one thing that you absolutely can't do anything about, but in one sense you'd be wrong. Researchers reporting in the March issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, have found that when healthy but inactive men and women exercise for a matter of minutes, it produces a rather immediate change to their DNA. Perhaps even more tantalizing, the study suggests that the caffeine in your morning coffee might also influence muscle in essentially the same way.

The underlying genetic code in human muscle isn't changed with exercise, but the DNA molecules within those muscles are chemically and structurally altered in very important ways. Those modifications to the DNA at precise locations appear to be early events in the genetic reprogramming of muscle for strength and, ultimately, in the structural and metabolic benefits of exercise.

"Our muscles are really plastic," says Juleen Zierath of Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. "We often say "You are what you eat." Well, muscle adapts to what you do. If you don't use it, you lose it, and this is one of the mechanisms that allows that to happen."

The DNA changes in question are known as epigenetic modifications and involve the gain or loss of chemical marks on DNA over and above the familiar sequence of As, Gs, Ts, and Cs. The new study shows that the DNA within skeletal muscle taken from people after a burst of exercise bears fewer chemical marks (specifically methyl groups) than it did before exercise. Those changes take place in stretches of DNA that are involved in turning "on" genes important for muscles' adaptation to exercise.

When the researchers made muscles contract in lab dishes, they saw a similar loss of DNA methyl groups. Exposure of isolated muscle to caffeine had the same effect.

Zierath explained that caffeine does mimic the muscle contraction that comes with exercise in other ways, too. She doesn't necessarily recommend anyone drink a cup of joe in place of exercise. It's nevertheless tempting to think that athletes who enjoy a coffee with their workout might just be on to something.

Broadly speaking, the findings offer more evidence that our genomes are much more dynamic than they are often given credit for. Epigenetic modifications that turn genes on and back off again can be incredibly flexible events. They allow the DNA in our cells to adjust as the environment shifts.

"Exercise is medicine," Zierath says, and it seems the means to alter our genomes for better health may be only a jog away. And for those who can't exercise, the new findings might point the way to medicines (caffeinated ones, perhaps?) with similar benefits.

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Exercise changes your DNA

As growing numbers of DIY biohackers can attest, extracting DNA from cells is an easy process. And you dont need anything special to do it: various household products, like soap and isopropyl alcohol, have the chemical properties required. For NOVAs upcoming program Cracking Your Genetic Code, PBS has made a short promotional video demonstrating how you can draw your DNA out from a sample of cheek cells, and, with the help of a little food coloring, actually see it yourself.

The three steps are pretty much exactly what scientists do when extracting DNA in the lab. First, you collect cells in salt water, which is similar to buffer solutions used in labs. Then, break them open with soap (in the lab, a detergent like Triton-X), which disturbs the molecules of the cell and nuclear membranes so the DNA can leak out. Lastly, use alcohol to separate the DNA from the salt water: Once in the alcohol, which is less polar than water, the DNA will form clumps and precipitate out, becoming visible as clusters of white strings.

The video is a neat reminder that what happens in labs isnt magic: its just basic chemistry.

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Extract Your Own DNA in Three Easy Steps | 80beats

Denver detectives, laboratory analysts and prosecutors have linked a deceased serial killer to four unsolved murders from 1979 and 1988, using DNA and circumstantial evidence.

Vincent Groves, who died in prison in 1996 while serving sentences for two other murders, may have committed as many as 20 murders altogether, according to Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey.

"It's a proud day for us," Morrissey said Tuesday. "We now know that he killed these four women. That's really important to the families of the victims. This gives them an answer."

Denver police obtained DNA from an earlier murder committed by Groves. Then crime analysts used the DNA to link Groves to the murders of Emma Jenefor, 25, Joyce Ramey, 23, and Peggy Cuff, 20, all strangled in 1979. Cold-case Detective Mylous Yearling said strong circumstantial evidence also tied Groves to the murder in August 1988 of Pamela Montgomery, 35.

Yearling said it was very gratifying to call family members of the victims who have gone so many years without knowing who killed their loved ones and tell them the cases were solved.

"They were very surprised. They thought their cases had been forgotten," Yearling said. "I was ecstatic we were able to give them closure."

Jenefor's body was found in a bathtub of her home on the 100 block of Garfield Street in March 1979, according to Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for Morrissey's office. Ramey's body was found in an industrial park near East 56th Avenue and Havana Street in July 1979, Kimbrough said. Cuff's body was found in an alley in the 1500 block of South Ogden Street in November 1979, she said.

Nine years later, a witness last saw Montgomery with a man matching Groves' description driving a very loud, beat-up car that looked and sounded identical to his car, Yearling said. Montgomery's body was found in an alley in the 1700 block between Locust and Leyden streets.

Yearling said that, as part of a cold-case project funded with federal grants for police and prosecutors, he was reviewing unsolved murders when he had an "aha moment." "These were more than coincidences," he said. Yearling tracked down DNA that could be used to compare with the cases.

Groves was an active killer who stalked the Colfax Avenue corridor. Different jobs also brought him to locations throughout the Denver area, Yearling said.

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DNA, other evidence links serial killer Groves to 4 cold cases