Showing posts with label Avery's DNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Avery's DNA. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Judge Orders Scientific Testing to Proceed in Steven Avery Case

Kathleen Zellner's Press Conference on 8/26/16 [Full Transcript]

Zellner's Motion for Post-Conviction Scientific Testing, Filed on 8/26/16
Zellner's Motion to Hold Appeal in Abeyance and Suspend the Briefing Schedule, Filed on 8/26/16

Introduction to Parabon Snapshot DNA Phenotyping Service


Law enforcement now has a new DNA tool that helps nab suspects and close cases (video above). The service, developed by Parabon NanoLabs of Reston, Virginia, is called the Parabon® Snapshot™ DNA Phenotyping Service (Snapshot). It predicts the physical appearance of individuals from the smallest of DNA evidence samples, creating a composite image or “snapshot” of any DNA source.
These critical items of evidence will undergo testing as part of the court order:
Blood flakes recovered from the floor near the center console of Halbach’s RAV4.

Bloodstain cutting from the driver’s seat.

Bloodstain cutting from passenger’s seat.

Swab of the RAV4 ignition area where blood was found.

Swab of bloodstain taken from the rear passenger’s door.

Swab of bloodstain taken from a CD case found in vehicle.
Additionally, three other items of evidence used to secure Avery’s arrest and eventual conviction are subject to the new testing order. Those items are:
A vial of blood said to be a sample of Avery’s blood from 1996. This was the vial of blood that Avery’s murder trial defense lawyers Dean Strang and Jerry Buting came across during their pretrial case research inside the clerk’s office at the Manitowoc County Courthouse.

A spare key for Halbach’s vehicle found in Avery’s bedroom by Manitowoc County Sheriff’s deputies James Lenk and Andrew Colborn.

The swab from the hood latch of Halbach’s RAV4 that later generated a DNA profile for Avery. Forensic testing on the hood latch was not performed by the Wisconsin State Crime Lab in Madison, even though the lab initially impounded the vehicle and conducted a battery of standard forensic tests. Rather, the swab of the hood latch that yielded the DNA profile of the murder defendant did not occur until six months later. In April 2006, Calumet County sheriff’s officials decided to carry out their own forensic testing of the hood area. They did not swab the interior hood release.
Zellner has said she wants to determine if the hood latch DNA swab was fabricated from other known DNA samples that were in the possession of Calumet and Manitowoc County law enforcement.
"Testing we've already done will establish that Steven Avery is innocent... The confession [Brendan Dassey's] has been invalidated so were down to the evidence at the crime scene: the key, hood latch, blood in RAV, and bullet... We are going to get to the bottom of who killed Teresa Halbach. And we currently believe that we will establish it was not Steven Avery." - Kathleen Zellner, Press Conference, August 26, 2016
There is a blood stain found at an important position on the RAV4. The blood stain in question, A23, was found on the rear cargo door handle. Below are the results for that stain. Circled in red are mentions of A23 and the relevant results for this stain. The key part is in blue, the claim of insufficient for interpretation (the "insufficient for interpretation" is the opportunity for bias and is, in essence, subjective):



From the official reports we know that Sherry Culhane developed a partial profile from blood stain A23, deemed it insufficient for interpretation, and did not conduct any further testing.

It is possible Kathleen Zellner retested items that were originally tested in the RAV4:
1) In 2007, Judge Willis ordered that Avery or his attorney could retest the blood evidence from the RAV4 at any time.

2) Willis' order did not include new testing (though Zellner cited Wisconsin law and then presented how she has met the criteria for new testing) and didn't include the retesting of ALL the other evidence. So, in Zellner's motion for post-conviction scientific testing, she is requesting new testing and to retest other evidence from the original trial.
There could be someone else's blood or DNA mixed with the blood found in the RAV4's cargo area. Zellner specifically pointed out in her motion:
"One of the most compelling scientific facts pointing to planted blood evidence is that there was no mixture of Ms. Halbach's and Mr. Avery's blood despite the State's claim that the bleeding Mr. Avery threw Ms. Halbach in the rear cargo area of her vehicle."
Zellner told reporters on August 26, 2016 that "testing has been completed on items that Avery's attorneys did not need to request from Calumet County."

In her motion, Zellner made it sound like they had already run some tests that prove Avery's innocence.

Therefore, it stands to reason she is referring to the RAV4 or other evidence collected and tested by her team.

Zellner filed the motion to access the State's evidence and test it.

 In Zellner's motion for post-conviction scientific testing, she requested:

Items for new testing for sources of DNA, page 15
Item ID, the hood latch with Avery's DNA, received for testing in April 2006, the "sweat" DNA; source testing to identify if the DNA is from saliva or blood
Item C, the RAV key with Avery's DNA; source testing to determine if there is blood or saliva on the key
Items for new and improved testing, page 19
Items IE and IF, the battery clamps and cables
Items AJ and AK, the license plates

Item A15 and A16, the blinker light and lug wrench

Items IB, IC, IE, IF, IG, IH, which are the RAV's exterior door handle, interior passenger door handle, left battery cable, right battery cable, interior door handle, exterior door handle

Item CV, women's purple thong panties recovered from white trailer near the Mercury station wagon where the plates were found

Item A, new testing on RAV: the bar that moves the seat forward, the prop bar which holds up the hood, the interior hood release

CASO Property No. 8675, more advanced DNA testing requested on human pelvic bones recovered from the quarry

CASO Property No. 7958 and 7953, DNA testing on burnt material found at the Radandt deer hunting camp
Radiocarbon testing (or DNA methylation testing) to determine the age of Avery's blood in the RAV4 and Grand Am, and from the garage and bathroom floors, as well as other areas in his home, page 26
Forensic testing using radiocarbon could conclusively prove whether or not the blood evidence identified as Mr. Avery in the RAV4 was from a fresh wound in 2005 or from the 1996 blood vial taken from Mr. Avery, indicating that is was planted from a previously taken blood sample.
Radiocarbon testing of additional blood scrapings from the RAV4 in addition to scrapings already collected.
Ballistics testing, page 42
On the .22 bullet fragment recovered from Avery's garage and the unspent .22 shells taken from his bedroom.
The Bones in the Quarry
The pelvic bone appears to move from here, to there, and then back to where it was.

There was never any evidence found of more than one human being. Meaning out of the three locations remains were found, Leslie Eisenburg did not find any duplicate bones or bones with male characteristics. The pelvis belongs with the rest of the skeleton.

Once the pelvis shards were officially recorded in CASO as being found in the quarry (instead of the burn pit), Kratz was suddenly met with a problem - why would Steven put the Tibia in the "Janda burn barrel #2" and drive the pelvis to the quarry, but leave the vast majority of the remains by his house?

This was why Kratz says the pelvis bone is 'possibly human.' It was crucial that the pelvis not be identified as human. Recall what Kratz said, "The bones were in such a shape that whether they are human or not, could not, even by the FBI, be determined."

This made it easier for Kratz to tell the jury that Straing, by mentioning the bones in the quarry, was making a big deal out of nothing - 'speculation and conjecture.'

When Strang and Buting first laid eyes on the results of the FBI report, they saw that the lab was returning 'Processed DNA samples ... that should be stored in a refrigerator / freezer and isolated from evidence that has not been examined.

Strang and Buting note in their Motion to Exclude FBI Witness Testimony and Motion to Compel Disclosure of Exculpatory Evidence - "Clearly specimens were processed and DNA was generated. The results may be exculpatory since if they were inculpatory they would certainly have been noted."

Is the above resolved by considering item BZ? The tibia - the bone which is recorded as being in two maybe three places at once?

A loose theory: Item BZ was never sent to the FBI. Kratz was forced to manipulate documents / witnesses to make it appear as though they both were sent because the defense noticed the FBI Report details 'Processed DNA.' Kratz needed to show that the processed DNA was not from the pelvis (which Kratz describes as possibly human) - but from the tibia (which Leslie describes as unquestionably human).

Remember, we were told the tibia was the only bone found with tissue.
Analyst Sherry L. Culhane STATE CRIME LABORATORY - MADISON

CONFIDENTIAL report of laboratory findings
Exhibit 313 (March 31, 2006)
Exhibit 312 (December 12, 2005)
Exhibit 311 (November 14, 2005)

ITEM BZ

Sherry Culhane testified that she removed tissue from the very bone that Dr. Eisenberg packaged and shipped directly to the FBI. We really don’t know where item BZ came from. We do however know that the reported result of the STR DNA test was grossly misstated. The reported “partial profile”  — 7 of 16 locations should have been recorded as “inconclusive” because it was an indication that the test didn’t work — the sample was too degraded to trust the result. Instead, it was reported that since seven alleles matched the standard profile, statistics indicate that only one person of a billion would have that partial profile in a Caucasian population. It was suggested that although it was not a conclusive match, it was very unlikely that the specimen could have originated from anyone beside Teresa. This was very misleading, but the defense never refuted it. The FBI received charred remains purportedly from the shin bone on 11/16/05 and performed mitochondrial DNA testing. They compared it to DNA from Karen Halbach’s (Teresa's mother) buccal swab. It is unclear why no one sent the FBI Teresa’s DNA to compare to the charred material (designated as Q1 by the FBI). Since the MtDNA database is small, the report only concludes that Teresa cannot be ruled out as the contributor. No one from the FBI testified at either the Avery or Dassey trials. [Source]

Item BZ - Two pieces of charred material.

The profile previously developed from the apparent charred material (item BZ) is listed in the following- table (See Laboratory Report No. M05-2467 issued December 5, 2005 by this analyst) :

The partial profile, at seven loci, developed from the charred material of item BZ is consistent with the profile developed from the pap smear reportedly collected from Teresa Halbach (item EF) (See Laboratory Report No. M05-2467 issued December 5, 2005 issued by this analyst).

From Culhane's report:
Based on the PARTIAL DNA profile developed from the pap smear slide reportedly collected from Teresa Halbach (item EF) it is the opinion of this analyst, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, that Teresa Halbach is the source of the DNA isolated from the swabbing of a soda can (item A14) and the reddish/brown stains (item Al) from the cargo area of the RAV4 vehicle (item A). The partial profile developed from the charred remains of item BZ is consistent with the PARTIAL profile developed from the pap smear reportedly collected from Teresa Halbach (item EF). 
Eisenberg at Dassey's trial describes the material on item BZ as muscle (day 4, exhibit 150).

http://imgur.com/a/APbCX

They gave the Halbachs the bones that were "reported" to be human. BZ was charred muscle tissue from the bone which the State used to identify the remains as belonging to Teresa Halbach. DNA was not obtained from the other bones.

[–]abyssus_abyssum wrote at reddit:

I think what is confusing you is the wording. The pap smear is not a partial profile (BTW, it was also re-checked using her mother's mitochondrial and genomic DNA), if you look here

http://imgur.com/PyL8sny

it is a full profile, 2 numbers at heterozygous and 1 at homozygous markers/loci. The reason she calls it partial is because she is comparing it to the partial profile of item BZ, the charred flesh remains, seen here

http://imgur.com/OlbBoQJ

Since the limiting factor is the partial profile when you compare it to a full profile it is a partial match. I admit I would call it a partial match but definitely the pap smear is not a partial profile.

If you do not trust her statistics you can re-calculate using this 2015 FBI STR frequency table found here

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/lab/biometric-analysis/codis/expanded-fbi-str-2015-final-6-16-15.pdf

I did the calculations and did not get significantly different probability. I did not want to post it due to the common occurrence of confirmation bias on this sub. People basically often read into things too much. Also, if you do re-calculate remember she used a frequency table from 2005 so you would expect some differences.

This all in Exhibit 313.

I also noticed she was not matching it in that exhibit to the charred remains. It could be a typo or at that moment in time her PCR was not working to good. There is a full profile in Exhibit 313 of the pap smear.

ITEM A23

Item A23 - swabbing from the rear exterior door handle of cargo door.

Chemical analysis of the reddish/brown questioned stains/crusts of items A2, A3, A4, A7, A10, A11, A23 and B2 previously indicated the presence of blood. (See Laboratory Report No. MOB-2467 issued November 14, 2005 by this analyst.)

In addition, human DNA isolation was also performed on items A11, A23...

Partial DNA profiles were obtained from items A23 and DD1. Due to the limited genetic information these profiles are insufficient for interpretation.

Chemical analysis of the reddish/brown questioned stains of items A1-A4, A6-A10, A11, A12, A23 and B1-B5 indicated the presence of blood. 

ITEM CX

Item CX - questioned stain reportedly recovered from "quarry south of Avery Road" (swabs of possible blood located quarry south of avery's/fresh blood found in the gravel at Radandt's quarry, page 220).

CX. The profiles developed from these samples are listed in the following tables:

CX indicated the presence of blood.

The stain is labelled as item CX. You can find it in Exhibit 313. A full DNA profile was developed. The profile is consistent with a male individual.

Allan Avery, Bryan Dassey and Steven Avery are eliminated as possible sources of the DNA from the reddish/brown stains of items CH and CX.

The blood was tested and found to be an unknown male (Item CX). They got a full profile. It was tested against Bryan, Allan and Steve. It didn't match them. And if you look at all of the Avery standards, it doesn't match any of them.

The results for item CX, the blood stain found in Radandt's quarry (CASO property tag# 8008), are in Culhane's report and on record; therefore, Zellner didn't need to request source testing for the item. A full DNA profile was developed for the stain. Allan Avery, Bryan Dassey and Steven Avery were eliminated as possible sources of the DNA. However, she could have requested new testing not available in 2005-2007, but she didn't, so perhaps she has already matched it to a suspect. If a suspect's profile is proven to be a match it would be huge because the profile came from the State's official report, not an independent lab hired by the defense. So it's more about matching the profile to a suspect at this point.

Item CH - one piece of fabric reportedly cut from "couch."

The profile developed from item CH is not consistent with the buccal cell standards of Allan Avery (item AY), Bryan Dassey (item BS) or Steven Avery (item BU) . This profile is consistent with a different male individual than item CX.

Allan Avery, Bryan Dassey and Steven Avery are eliminated as possible sources of the DNA from the reddish/brown stains of items CH and CX.

ITEMS B2 and CE

B2 is reported as "no DNA" on exhibit 311 by Culhane but in exhibit 313 shows a DNA match to Avery but with additional markers. Culhane called attention to extra alleles found in Item CE which weren't consistent with Avery's profile.

https://i.imgur.com/3KSwkuW.png

https://i.imgur.com/RLou24M.png

DNA CAN BE FABRICATED

Was Avery's DNA mixed with someone else's blood and then planted?

Based on the article below, anyone's blood could be spun to pull out the white blood cells, then injected with amplified (fabricated) DNA.
"The authors of the paper took blood from a woman and centrifuged it to remove the white cells, which contain DNA. To the remaining red cells they added DNA that had been amplified from a man’s hair." [Source]
The paper mentions that fabricated DNA is not methylaed. Zellner requested DNA methylation testing. In August 2016, Zellner indicated in her motion and said at her press conference: "There was not confirmatory DNA testing done." In other words, they never did any tests to confirm any of the samples were or were not from Avery.

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

By ANDREW POLLACK
 

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories.

“DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,” she said. “We’re creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology.”

John M. Butler, leader of the human identity testing project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he was “impressed at how well they were able to fabricate the fake DNA profiles.” 

However, he added, “I think your average criminal wouldn’t be able to do something like that.”

The scientists fabricated DNA samples two ways. 

1. One required a real, if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or drinking cup. They amplified the tiny sample into a large quantity of DNA using a standard technique called whole genome amplification.

Of course, a drinking cup or piece of hair might itself be left at a crime scene to frame someone, but blood or saliva may be more believable.
a. The authors of the paper took blood from a woman and centrifuged it to remove the white cells, which contain DNA. 

b. To the remaining red cells they added DNA that had been amplified from a man’s hair.

c. Since red cells do not contain DNA, all of the genetic material in the blood sample was from the man. 

d. The authors sent it to a leading American forensics laboratory, which analyzed it as if it were a normal sample of a man’s blood.
2. The other technique relied on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a person’s genome.
a. From a pooled sample of many people’s DNA, the scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. 

b. To prepare a DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. They said that a library of 425 different DNA snippets would be enough to cover every conceivable profile.

c. Nucleix’s test to tell if a sample has been fabricated relies on the fact that amplified DNA — which would be used in either deception — is not methylated, meaning it lacks certain molecules that are attached to the DNA at specific points, usually to inactivate genes.
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