23-Jan-2025

New York v. Bittrolff post-conviction motion

In 2017, John Bittrolff was convicted of two New York cold case murders. The bodies of Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee had been found in wooded areas on Long Island over twenty years earlier. Both women had been strangled and bludgeoned to death.

The Legal Aid Society of Suffolk County sent old “inconclusive” DNA evidence data from the case to Cybergenetics for more informative TrueAllele® re-examination. The computer found new DNA evidence from Colleen’s crime scene: a male profile on her vaginal swab, stretch pants and male dungarees, and two additional male profiles.

On January 23, 2025, Bittrolff moved “for an order vacating the judgment of conviction entered against him on the ground that there exists a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been more favorable to him if this information was known to the jury.”

The motion noted that “prosecutors in Suffolk County have used TrueAllele to re-analyze data on twenty-eight criminal cases and had a witness from Cybergenetics testify at trial on six occasions about TrueAllele’s findings.”

Read the motion here.