"Touch DNA" Cleared JonBenet's Kin

New Technology Analyzes Skin Cells Left Behind When Someone Touches Something

(CBS/AP)  Crime scene DNA is typically recovered from blood or semen stains, but the DNA that exonerated members of JonBenet Ramsey's family in her murder came from invisible skin cells.

This so-called "touch DNA" is left behind when people touch things, because they naturally shed skin cells as touch things, and those cells contain the genetic material.

In this case, the new DNA was recovered by guessing where JonBenet's killer might have handled the long johns she was wearing.

"It's not a stain, you can't see it," said Angela Williamson, director of forensic casework at Bode Technology Group in Lorton, Virginia. That's the company that recovered the new DNA material. She led the work on JonBenet's touch DNA.

To find such DNA, "you have to have a good idea of where someone has been touched, or in this case, where you think the suspect would have touched" JonBenet's clothing, she said, or, she explained to co-anchor Harry Smith on The Early Show Thursday, "if the victim is surviving, to (have them) tell you where they were grabbed, where they were held down during the assault."

Investigators suggested that somebody pulling down her pants would have touched the waistband and the sides of the long johns, Williamson said. So Bode scientists scraped the surface of those areas with a sharp blade to see if they could find DNA.

While the amount of DNA they found was much less than would appear in a stain, there was enough to be processed in the routine way DNA is analyzed, Williamson said. (In other cases, so-called "low copy number DNA" has to be processed in a different way).

DNA from two sites on the long johns matched genetic material from an unknown male that had previously been recovered from blood in JonBenet's underpants. The matching DNA from three places on two articles of JonBenet's clothing convinced the district attorney that it belonged to the killer, and hadn't been left accidentally by a third party.

Williamson said Bode has done thousands of touch DNA recoveries over at least three years.

John Ramsey found his daughter's body in the basement of the family's home in Boulder, Colorado, on Dec. 26, 1996. A child beauty queen, she was 6 and had been strangled.

[nodemotwit]

Makes one wonder if this technology will also make it easier to frame an innocent person with a crime. Meaning, could the real perp gather ''touch DNA'' ahead of the actual crime, from the fall-guys computer keyboard (wk/hm), for example, and then contaminate the crime scene at the ''touch-points'' ? Seems like this would be alot easier than getting a hold of someone%u2019s actual blood.

[susanhelit]

LE hired handwriting experts. They found John Ramsey completely excluded, and Patsey almost excluded - the smallest possible match they record. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a perfect match, they rated her a 4.5. You can find an expert to say anything - but when it comes to several experts hired by LE - they don''t find a good match, only a "cannot be excluded". Snow was not all around the house, and there was a footprint that belonged to none of the Ramsey''s in the basement. And with those LE lies being released immediately to the press, it''s not hard to understand why they got a lawyer and did not choose to go with a LE polygraph.

For some, a decade of hatred is hard to leave behind, better to find the type of conspiracy theories and misinformation that normally make us puke when it is a defense attorney trying to clear his client, and try to believe them. I know a person like that. They''re hiding their head in the sand, because to recognize what they thought about an innocent mother is just too much to take.

[brianp55]

Wow, how could anyone be naive enough to believe that the Ramseys were involved in the death of their daughter? Could it be the almost instantaneous attempt to hide behind lawyers? Could it be the refusal to participate in an FBI-sponsored polygraph test? Could it be the laughable attempt to substitute their own polygraph tests? Could it be the absence of intruder footprints in the snow anywhere around their house? Could it be the handwriting analysis of the so-called ransom letter...which more than one expert concluded was written by Patsy? Could it be the complete non-existence of any lead or evidence "clearly" indicating the presence of an intruder in their house...that is, until the mighty "Touch Test" was foisted upon us. Next we will have to listen to John Ramsey feigning indignation in a forced "I told you so" tone about the wrongs perpetrated by the public and the police upon his family. This is going to be nauseating.

[susanhelit]

This exonerates them. It''s all been a bunch of rumors, a general dislike of the parents, and a ton of conspiracy theories. There''s footprints from unknown shoes, unknown intruder DNA, and a note written in someone else''s handwriting that some people are ready to ignore, because otherwise they have to face up to a decade of hating and blaming the innocent parents of a murdered child.

Look to the police investigator who came on to convict the Ramseys, knowing they were guilty, who looked at the evidence and found they were not - he lost his job for following the evidence. The judge who looked at all the evidence and said it pointed to an intruder, not the parents.

This isn''t random police/tech DNA - it was in the dead girls panties, mixed with her blood. It''s in the leggings her killer dressed her in, two separate places.


It''s astonishing how so many are ready to ignore DNA when it turns on them, when it shows someone they wished to believe guilty, innocent, the same DNA they''d believe in a heartbeat to convict others.

[susanhelit]

This exonerates them. It''s all been a bunch of rumors, a general dislike of the parents, and a ton of conspiracy theories. There''s footprints from unknown shoes, unknown intruder DNA, and a note written in someone else''s handwriting that some people are ready to ignore, because otherwise they have to face up to a decade of hating and blaming the innocent parents of a murdered child.

Look to the police investigator who came on to convict the Ramseys, knowing they were guilty, who looked at the evidence and found they were not - he lost his job for following the evidence. The judge who looked at all the evidence and said it pointed to an intruder, not the parents.

This isn''t random police/tech DNA - it was in the dead girls panties, mixed with her blood. It''s in the leggings her killer dressed her in, two separate places.


It''s astonishing how so many are ready to ignore DNA when it turns on them, when it shows someone they wished to believe guilty, innocent.

[nedthanjohns]

CBS shame on you for reporting on a story without knowing the facts. This DNA evidence in NO WAY exonerates the Ramseys. Mary Lacy is an incompetent DA who has shown how unprofessional she was during the John Mark Carr fiscal. She is an embarrassment to Boulder and law enforcement in general. Go here for the most sensible story written about this latest news:

http://origin.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_9839651

Come to www.websleuths.com for the most up-to-date and accurate facts surrounding this case

[brianp55]

We''ve just seen the addition of a new phrase to our collection of legaleze terminology:

"Rush to exonerate"