Tiny Town Abuzz About DNA Sweep

In Truro, Mass., three winters after a murder stunned the town and left a little girl without her mother, many hope the way to justice will start with a little cotton swab.

Officials are asking all male residents to volunteer to give DNA samples, hoping to trace one to semen found on the murdered woman's body.

Every winter, with tourists gone, the town of Truro, Mass. turns sleepy and quiet, so quiet that what happened there in January 2002 still seems hard to believe, says The Early Show's Tracy Smith.

The body of 46-year old writer Christa Worthington was discovered in her Truro home, more than 24 hours after she'd been stabbed to death. Her two-year-old daughter, Ava, was found near her — crying and hungry, but alive.

"It's inconceivable that she's gone, let alone murdered," said Ava's father, Tony Jackett, to the CBS News broadcast 48 Hours in June, 2003.

He was questioned. So was another of Worthington's old boyfriends.

Still, the case remained unsolved.

Now, reports Smith, officials are hoping a DNA sweep, will find a match for semen found on Worthington's body.

Chris Mason of the Massachusetts State Police says, "I ask them, 'Will you help me help this little girl.' And almost overwhelmingly, they say 'Yes.' "

"I guess," one male resident told Smith, "I don't really have a problem (with the DNA sampling) if it's gonna help catch the guy."

A man who was swabbed Sunday told Smith he didn't mind.

But, reports Smith, some do mind, because police have said they may pay special attention to those who refuse to do the test.

John Reinstein of the American Civil Liberties Union official explains, "We think this a particularly insidious form of coercion. Basically, 'I'm doing what I have a right to do, and I'm gonna have to pay a price for it.' "

DNA sweeps are rare and controversial. In 2003, police trying to catch a serial killer in Baton Rouge, La. asked men to volunteer DNA, but it didn't help them make an arrest.

"I think," says a female resident, "it's in the cause of finding a killer and I think it's good to focus on the rights of the victims."

Jackett, Ava's father, tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler, "I was probably one of the very first ones (to give a sample) when I was asked to give my DNA, to adjudicate myself in court, to prove I was the biological father of Ava."

On the current sweep, Jackett tells Sysler, "If it's a tool that's going to help them find the killer and bring justice, then I'm all for it. It's voluntary. …They're all adults. They can say no if they want to, and some have. But they think so far that they have overwhelmingly given their DNA without any incident. Most of them."

Maria Flook, author of "Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod" said to Syler, "I think people are under pressure when the D.A. says that, if people aren't volunteering, they're going to look at those individuals a little more closely. But I don't think the D.A.'s office really wants the DNA. I think what they want to do is get people talking. They want people to be a little unsettled and perhaps, with this shaking up of people, somebody is going to talk."

Syler asked Jackett point-blank if he's been ruled out as a suspect: "No one has been ruled out," he responded. "They've never really named a suspect. … I've never been publicly named a suspect, nor has anyone else. But, at the same time, no one has been ruled out, either."

A New York Times article Monday says Jackett and an ex-boyfriend of Worthington's who also had been questioned have been ruled out.