Highlights Archives - Page 3 of 4

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Bureau of Justice Assistance

CEBR Funding Contributes to Approximately Half of All CODIS Hits to Date

Recent performance data from grantees show that CEBR funding is responsible for more than 500 CODIS hits per week. Based on the reported metrics, the CEBR Program has contributed to approximately half of all CODIS hits to date. See the FBI’s CODIS-NDIS Statistics page for more information on CODIS and BJA’s DNA CEBR Grantees page for more information on program accomplishments.

May 2023

Highlights

Ohio BCI Receives Federal Grants to Assist in Continued Caseloads in Criminal Investigations

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has awarded two grants totaling $434,099 to the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI). This funding will assist the BCI in meeting expected caseloads and enhance overall lab capacity. This much-needed investment will assist the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in their efforts to test DNA cases at no cost to law enforcement agencies in Ohio. These resources will help Ohio law enforcement bring more criminals to justice and prevent crime in our communities.

April 2023

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Dallas County

Dallas County’s Postconviction funding supports DNA testing that leads to the exoneration of Martin Santillan and the arrest of living suspect in a collaborative multi-state investigation

The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office announces the exoneration of Martin Santillan for his 1998 capital murder conviction after an exhaustive re-investigation initiated by Centurion Ministries, Inc., a Princeton, New Jersey-based innocence organization, and conducted by the Dallas County DA’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), which concluded that Mr. Santillan is actually innocent.

March 2023

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Highlights

DeKalb DA announces break in 30-year-old homicide case, Rebecca Burke identified

The DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office has been awarded a three-year Missing and Unidentified Human Remains (MUHR) Program grant in the amount of $500,000 to identify the remains of 27 individuals found in DeKalb County. The DeKalb County Cold Case Task Force will use these funds to catalog, report, test, identify and return to families the unidentified remains of 27 individuals, including Burke’s remains. To date, some remains have been housed at the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office. Others are buried and will be exhumed to begin the process of identification.

March 2023

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Highlights

Husband of murdered Oregon woman arrested in 35-year-old cold case

The husband of Deborah Lee Atrops has been arrested for her murder, 35 years after her death. The arrest of Robert Atrops was the first major case the Washington County Cold Case Unit has worked on since it began in 2020. The Washington County District Attorney’s Office secured a grant called Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA, which allowed them to launch the Cold Case Unit. The unit focuses on investigating and prosecuting violent crime cold cases involving identified DNA associated with a possible suspect.

March 2023

Hawai’i Innocence Project

Exoneration of Albert “Ian” Schweitzer

In 1991, Albert “Ian” Schweitzer was convicted for the sexual assault and murder of Dana Ireland. After 25 years of wrongful incarceration, on January 24, 2023, his conviction was dismissed based on new DNA testing that excluded him as a contributor to DNA evidence collected from the crime scene and instead identified one unknown male perpetrator. Mr. Schweitzer’s wrongful conviction was also impacted by false testimony, false confession, and ineffective assistance of counsel.

January 2023

Bureau of Justice Assistance

Finding a Serial Killer—and Justice—After 40 Years

Last winter, police in Denver, Colorado, announced that they had solved the cold-case murders of four women who had died about 40 years ago, all of whom had been the victims of one man—a previously unknown serial killer named Joe Michael Ervin. It took years of old-school police work and a cutting-edge investigative technique called forensic genetic genealogy (FGG). It took the combined efforts of law enforcement in Colorado and Texas, along with support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), which used two different grants to help crack the case.

January 2023

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Highlights

Office of the Medical Examiner, District 19, FL uses Strengthening the Medical Examiner-Coroner System funding to achieve accreditation

On November 18, 2022, in conjunction with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, Strengthening the Medical Examiner-Coroner (ME/C) System Program Grant, the Office of the Medical Examiner, District 19 (OME-19), Florida became a fully accredited agency by the National Association of Medical Examiner’s (NAME). Since only twelve of the twenty-five districts in the state are NAME accredited, the OME-19 is particularly proud of this accomplishment. Through hard work, dedication, planning, and the assistance of this grant, the OME-19, in a short period of time, was able to turn what was thought to be something unachievable (due to building and financial constraints) to something successfully achieved.

November 2022

BBC

Cal State LA’s California Forensic Science Institute’s Postconviction funding supports DNA testing that leads to the exoneration of Maurice Hastings after serving 38 years in state prison

Maurice Hastings served more than 38 years in state prison for the 1983 murder of Roberta Wydermyer in California and two attempted murders, but new DNA evidence instead pointed to another man who died in prison in 2020. At the time of the victim’s autopsy, semen was detected in an oral swab. Mr. Hastings had maintained his innocence from the moment he was arrested, but a request for DNA testing of the swab in 2000 was denied by the Los Angeles County District Attorney. Eventually, Mr. Hastings was able to put in a claim of innocence to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit in 2021 and DNA testing found that the semen was not his. The DNA profile instead matched a man who had been convicted of an armed kidnapping where he placed his female victim in a trunk of a vehicle. On October 20, 2022, Mr. Hastings was released from prison and his 1988 conviction was vacated.

October 2022

CBS 12 News

New funding to help solve Palm Beach County cold cases

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) will receive a $500,000 grant through the Department of Justice’s ‘Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA’ program. According to PBSO, the sheriff’s office can now send DNA to private laboratories that use genetic genealogy testing. This testing option is currently not available at the sheriff’s office.

October 2022

Category: Highlights