| Crime |
On May 22, 2017, Samantha Figani (23) was shot at the front door of her home in Orofino, Idaho. She died in the hospital. Her boyfriend had revealed an hour earlier to an ex, Jessica Colpitts, that he and Figani were dating, and a friend had driven Colpitts to Figani’s house. Colpitts was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. |
| Evidence |
DNA was swabbed from gloves and other articles of clothing that matched what Colpitts was seen wearing on the day of the murder. |
| DNA |
Sorenson Forensics produced the DNA data from the evidence. |
| Match |
Manual interpretation of the data was inconclusive – there were too many contributors for the method. |
| TrueAllele |
On the same DNA data, the computer’s statistic connecting the gloves with Colpitts was 95.5 thousand. A match between other articles of clothing and Colpitts were in the sextillions. |
| Cybergenetics |
On March 21, 2019, Beatriz Pujols testified at the trial in Clearwater, ID via video conference about the computer DNA match statistics. |
| Outcome |
On March 29, 2019, Jessica Colpitts was found guilty of murder in the first degree. |
