20-Dec-2023

TrueAllele cold case justice from New York City's "uninterpretable" DNA evidence

On June 10, 1995, a gas station attendant was found dead in a Brooklyn auto shop. He had been strangled with a cord around his neck. Twenty-two years later, in 2017, the New York City (NYC) Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) found a DNA mixture on the cold case cord.

But OCME couldnʼt interpret their DNA data. Since the lab couldnʼt determine the “likely number of contributors to the sample,” they made “no interpretation or comparisons” with their probabilistic genotyping software. NYC failed to produce DNA match information.

L.M.ʼs public defender then had Cybergenetics examine OCMEʼs “uninterpretable” DNA data. The companyʼs powerful TrueAllele computer doesnʼt have the labʼs limitations. On the same DNA data, the computerʼs match information between the cord and L.M. was 114 billion times less probable than coincidence – a strong statistical exclusion.

On June 22, 2023, Cybergenetics Casework Supervisor William Allan testified at the NYC trial about his TrueAllele results. Despite aggressive cross-examination by the prosecutor, scientific expert Allan got his accurate and objective computer message across to the jury – L.M.ʼs DNA was not on the cord. The Brooklyn jury delivered a full acquittal of L.M.