11-Dec-2023

TrueAllele helps convict Pennsylvania man using “uninterpretable” DNA evidence

In January of this year, Blair Watts reported his Pennsylvania business partner Jennifer Brown as missing. Her dead body was found in a shallow grave. When Watts misuse of Brown’s funds was discovered, he became a murder suspect.

Cadaver dogs “alerted” the victim’s unlocked kitchen window. Had Watts carried the victim’s body through the window? A private forensic lab tested DNA from the window; the four-person mixture mainly had the victim’s DNA. But “due to the limited data obtained, no conclusions could be made on the minor alleles” from the other three DNA contributors.

A mixture of victim and suspect DNA helps uncover the crime story. The mixture puts two people together in the same place, on the same window. A lab’s “uninterpretable” data can be highly probative. The Montgomery County detective sent the data to Cybergenetics for TrueAllele analysis.

TrueAllele found support for Watts’ DNA being in the window mixture. A match between a 3% window contributor and Watts was 29 times more probable than coincidence. Only 1 in 387 people would match the window as strongly as he did. In December, Cybergenetics Casework Supervisor William Allan testified before a Norristown jury. Watts was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.