Las Vegas NowDNA Backlog Hurts Chances For Solving Cold Cases

DNA Backlog Hurts Chances For Solving Cold Cases

Thousands of unsolved crimes could be one step closer to justice if crime labs had the resources to tackle a huge backlog. DNA evidence can link crimes to criminals and it can set innocent people free, but not if it is sitting in a crime lab waiting to be processed.

In just the last two years, the Las Vegas Crime Lab's backlog has doubled in size to more than 4,000 DNA samples. But Metro forensic scientists say they are finally catching up.            

Just last month a serial rapist and murderer was tied to a rape in Las Vegas from 2000.             Since 2001, Metro's DNA lab has linked 59 felons to other crimes.

This week, two men convicted for crimes they did not commit walked out of prison. One Atlanta man spent 21 years in prison for rape and a New York jury convicted the other for murder in 1991.

What got them out of jail was DNA evidence not available when their cases went to court. But in an I-Team report, that same kind of evidence could be helping to convict felons on cold cases -- if the evidence wasn't backlogged at the Las Vegas Crime Lab.

Two years ago, the lab had 2,000 cases waiting to be processed. Last August, that number had climbed to 4,600 DNA samples.

They are samples that could connect a convicted criminal to other crimes. Despite those numbers, Metro's forensic scientists are making headway.

Last month, an Indiana jury found 44-year-old Kevin Hampton guilty of rape and murder. The crime was just one of three rape and murder cases tied to Hampton through DNA  evidence. But that is just in Indiana.

Metro Detective Melissa Wilds said, "When Indiana solved their case with DNA in their state, they called us and San Diego and let us know who the suspect was."

Through the national DNA-database called CODIS, detectives in Las Vegas, San Diego, and Terre Haute, Indiana linked Hampton to five unsolved crimes. One was a Las Vegas rape from 2000.

Metro Detective Melissa Wilds said that case had gone cold.

"It would still be an unsolved case. We woulndn't have been able to solve this case," said Wilds.

That time the CODIS system worked. But there is curently a kink in CODIS. And it starts at Metro's forensic laboratory. There, criminalists are drowning in DNA.

Kristina Paulette, a METRO Forensic scientist said, "We have two types of cases that we are kind of working on. We have both actual case work for crimes and things of that nature and then were also working on convicted offender samples."

Last May, there were 228 open cases waiting for DNA analysis. Now, there are just 8.

"The higher volume of cases that we're working obviously the sooner that we can get these criminals off the street," said Paulette.

But the real kink comes with the DNA samples from convicted felons.

In 2005, while forensic scientist Kristina Paulette and three others trained to become Metro criminalists, the lab shut down.

For one year, DNA analysis in Southern Nevada came to a halt.

Last August, 4,600 DNA samples from convicted felons sat on shelves waiting to be download into CODIS.

After more than 1,000 hours of overtime, they are down to 3,400 samples.

Kristina Paulette said, "What's happening now is the more samples that are put in there, the more hits we are starting to get."

Since 2001, DNA entered by Las Vegas forensic scientists have linked 59 criminals to other crimes -- 12 in the last four months alone.

Paulette said, "The more samples that get put into the data base the more crime that we are actually solving."

With six more criminalists joining the team, Paulette says they hope to clear the DNA backlog by the end of the summer. With 4.2 million samples already in the national DNA database, odds are other cold cases may finally be closed.

Wilds said, "It's a good thing when we can catch someone who's traveling all over the place so that they don't continue to travel all over the country and continue to commit these crimes."

The criminalists get about 250 DNA samples from convicted felons a month. Since the lab linked to CODIS in March 2001, forensic scientists have loaded 11,000 DNA samples into the system. That includes samples from felons, missing people, and crime scene remains.

Email your comments to Reporter Adrienne Augustus.