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Category: Highlights

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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
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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
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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
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Highlights

Exoneration of Terance Calhoun

In 2007, Terance Calhoun was convicted of sexual assault of two victims. DNA testing excluded him in 2007. Additional DNA testing was performed in 2019 by Bode confirming the original testing. On January 10, 2022, the Michigan State Police reported that a search of the FBI DNA database linked the DNA profile from the condom to a man who “is currently charged with other sexual assault offenses in the Detroit area that are alleged to have occurred between 2007 and 2014.” He was exonerated in April 2022.
May 2022
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Highlights

Maricopa County receives $3 million in federal funding to help solve crimes

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) announced that it would receive about $3 million in grants from the Department of Justice to help victims of crime. MCAO’s $500,000 Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA (COLD) Program grant will enable additional DNA testing, the creation of a countywide database of cold cases, hiring of a data analyst, and an increase of resources available for prosecutors who specialize in cold case homicide investigations. This is the first time MCAO has been awarded this grant, and their goal is to increase the number of successful prosecutions of cold cases throughout Maricopa County and provide closure to the victims of violent crimes.
February 2022
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Highlights

Denver Police solve four related cold case homicides that occurred between 1978 and 1981

The Denver Police Department and law enforcement partners today announced that through the continued determination of investigators, DNA evidence, investigative genetic genealogy and familial DNA search, the suspect in three Denver cold case homicides and an Adams County cold case homicide has been identified as Joe Michael Ervin (DOB: 6/25/51), who is deceased. The murders of three women and a teenage girl occurred in separate incidents between 1978 and 1981. The four cases were linked together and solved through several significant investigative developments beginning 35 years later. The final identification of the suspect in these four murders through Investigative Genetic Genealogy and familial DNA research was a result of Denver’s Integrated Cold Case Project. This project is funded in part through a 2020 Genetic Genealogy & Familial Match Searching grant, awarded to the Denver Police Department by the Bureau of Justice Assistance for a total of $470,000.
January 2022
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County of Monterey

Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni receives a $535,000 federal grant for her cold case task force for use of DNA technology in violent crime investigations and prosecutions

District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni announced today that the U.S. Department of Justice has awarded the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force a $535,000 grant for the use of DNA technology in cold-case investigations and prosecutions. With the support of the grant, the Cold Case Task Force proposes to identify and actively investigate 45 violent-crime cold cases over the next three years where suspect DNA has been identified or where there is DNA evidence that could be used to identify previously unidentified human remains. The grant funding will enable the Task Force to hire an annuitant investigator to exclusively work on qualifying cold cases, as well as to pursue advanced DNA testing at accredited private laboratories.
January 2022
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Highlights

Exoneration of Ted Bradford

Ted Louis Bradford spent almost 10 years in prison for a sexual assault he didn’t commit—and another four years awaiting a new trial—before he was retried and acquitted based on DNA evidence of his innocence in 2010.
January 2019

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