Monthly Archives: January 2013

The attorney for a man accused of robbing a service station/convenience store in Redstone Township in 2007 says his client was out of state when the crime occurred; prosecutors say DNA puts him at the scene.

That was the case Monday before Fayette County Judge John F. Wagner Jr., with defense testimony expected to be heard today.

Vikram Yamba, 28, of Monroeville is charged with aggravated assault, robbery, illegal possession of a firearm, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and theft in connection with the April 18, 2007, crime.

Neither defense attorney David Kaiser nor prosecutor Doug Sepic are disputing the commission of the crime: that two men entered the Citgo station on Route 40 around 5 a.m. April 18, 2007, and that a man wearing a yellow Pittsburgh Pirates ball cap fired two shots from a handgun after demanding money from the clerk, who refused to comply.

Videotape from the store surveillance system was shown in court Monday, showing the two men entering the store, one wearing a green hat, the other a yellow one. Two hats matching the descriptions were found down the road from the business, near the intersection of Route 166 and Simpson Road, along with a striped sweatshirt, a T-shirt and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, clothing items seen on the suspects in the video.

The store clerk, Diane Hatfield, identified the long-sleeved T-shirt as the item the man with the gun and the yellow cap used to cover his face.

Two experts from the state police laboratory in Greensburg testified that DNA samples were taken from the sweatbands on the ball caps. The DNA sample from the green cap has not yielded any matches, but in 2011 the sample from the yellow cap, known as Item 5 in the police inventory, was positively matched to DNA from Yamba, leading to his arrest in the case.

Forensic scientist Julia Brolley testified that only one persons DNA was found on the band from Item 5 and it was matched to a known sample of DNA taken from Yamba.

Kaiser said a robbery occurred, but it wasnt committed by his client.

He was actually in Maryland at the time of the incident. The only connection is the DNA found on a hat a couple hundred yards away, Kaiser said. No one identified him.

See more here:
DNA, ball cap tie suspect to robbery

The attorney for an Alliance man on death row for a double murder says a new DNA test on a cigarette butt could be a key part of evidence if her client got a new trial.

The attorney representing the state says new analysis would not prove Tyrone Noling is not guilty even if the cigarette butt was linked to a man who had once been a suspect in the case.

The Ohio Supreme Court heard those arguments Tuesday in Columbus and took Nolings request for new DNA testing under advisement.

Noling was convicted of shooting and killing an elderly couple, Bernhardt and Cora Hartig, in their Atwater home in Portage County in 1990. He was sentenced to death in 1996.

The cigarette butt was found in the driveway of the Hartigs home and DNA showed it did not match Noling.

Carrie Wood, an attorney with the Ohio Innocence Project, said she wants to determine if the cigarette butt contains the DNA of Daniel Wilson.

Wilson, convicted of murder in another case, was executed in 2009. He lived near the elderly couples home.

Both attorneys argued over whether state law allows more DNA testing in the case. Nolings request was denied previously based on state law at the time.

State law allows for more DNA testing, not less, Wood said.

Victor V. Vigluicci, the attorney representing the state, said that even if a new test matches Wilsons DNA to the cigarette butt, it doesnt prove he killed the elderly couple. At most it would indicate Wilson flicked a cigarette butt out the window while driving by the home, Vigluicci said.

Go here to see the original:
Alliance man on death row pins hopes on DNA test

CHAPEL HILL -- DNA evidence left at the scene of the murder of a UNC-Chapel Hill student last September has provided a break in the case, Chapel Hill police announced Tuesday morning.

The body of Faith Danielle Hedgepeth was found at about 11 a.m. Sept. 7, 2012, by her roommate in the apartment they shared at 5639 Old Chapel Hill Road (Hawthorne at the View apartment complex).

The investigation has revealed that Hedgepeth and her roommate went to a local Chapel Hill nightclub, The Thrill, early that morning. She was last known to be alive around 3 a.m. at the apartment.

The Chapel Hill Police Department investigators have partnered with other local, state and federal agencies on the case. Evidence analyzed by the N.C. State Crime Lab has revealed DNA left at the scene by a male suspect, according to police.

Investigators are confident this DNA will identify the offender and help us to exclude individuals not involved in this crime, police said in a news release.

After consulting with the Federal Bureau of Investigations Behavioral Analysis Unit, police now believe identifiers of the offender may include:

The suspect was familiar with Hedgepeth and may have lived near her in the past.

The suspect was unaccounted for during the early morning hours of Sept. 7, 2012.

The suspect may have made comments regarding Hedgepeth to close associates in the past.

There may have been some change in the suspects behavior after the murder (including an unusual interest in the case) or a change in his performance at work or school.

Original post:
DNA provides break in UNC student's murder

Jan. 8, 2013 If you want to understand a novel, it helps to start from the beginning rather than trying to pick up the plot from somewhere in the middle. The same goes for analyzing a strand of DNA. The best way to make sense of it is to look at it head to tail.

Luckily, according to a new study by physicists at Brown University, DNA molecules have a convenient tendency to cooperate.

The research, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, looks at the dynamics of how DNA molecules are captured by solid-state nanopores, tiny holes that soon may help sequence DNA at lightning speed. The study found that when a DNA strand is captured and pulled through a nanopore, it's much more likely to start the journey at one of its ends, rather than being grabbed somewhere in the middle and pulled through in a folded configuration.

"We think this is an important advance for understanding how DNA molecules interact with these nanopores," said Derek Stein, assistant professor of physics at Brown, who performed the research with graduate students Mirna Mihovilivic and Nick Haggerty. "If you want to do sequencing or some other analysis, you want the molecule going through the pore head to tail."

"What we found was that ends are special places ... and that has a consequence for the likelihood a molecule starts its journey from the end."Research into DNA sequencing with nanopores started a little over 15 years ago. The concept is fairly simple. A little hole, a few billionths of a meter across, is poked in a barrier separating two pools of salt water. An electric current is applied across the hole, which occasionally attracts a DNA molecule floating in the water. When that happens, the molecule is whipped through the pore in a fraction of a second. Scientists can then use sensors on the pore or other means to identify nucleotide bases, the building blocks of the genetic code.

The technology is advancing quickly, and the first nanopore sequencing devices are expected to be on the market very soon. But there are still basic questions about how molecules behave at the moment they're captured and before.

"What the molecules were doing before they're captured was a mystery and a matter of speculation," Stein said. "And we'd like to know because if you're trying to engineer something to control that molecule -- to get it to do what you want it to do -- you need to know what it's up to."

To find out what those molecules are up to, the researchers carefully tracked over 1,000 instances of a molecule zipping through a nanopore. The electric current through the pore provides a signal of how the molecule went through. Molecules that go through middle first have to be folded over in order to pass. That folded configuration takes up more space in the pore and blocks more of the current. So by looking at differences in the current, Stein and his team could count how many molecules went through head first and how many started somewhere in the middle.

The study found that molecules are several times more likely to be captured at or very near an end than at any other single point along the molecule.

"What we found was that ends are special places," Stein said. "The middle is different from an end, and that has a consequence for the likelihood a molecule starts its journey from the end or the middle."

More:
DNA prefers to dive head first into nanopores