Farmington, Maine stabbing of 81 year old woman: No matches found in DNA search

There is no match in the DNA database for blood left at the scene of the stabbing death of 81 year old Grace Burton.
The profile has been run through state and national databases; police have also collected 170 additional DNA profiles.
Click here for more information.

A memorial of flowers lies outside Margaret Chase Smith Apartments in Farmington where Grace Burton, 81, was attacked on June 21. She later died from multiple stab wounds. No arrest had been made, as of Friday. Sun Journal

Scotland launches online murder database

"We will catch you and you will be brought to justice."
The world's first online murder database launched in Scotland earlier this month. The database, known as Operation Phoenix, tracks patterns and trends in murders to assist law enforcement in finding serial killers.
The database was inspired by Operation Trinity, a homicide database developed to examine links between a series of unsolved murders from the 1970s, including the World's End case.
It involved the compilation of data on every female murder in Scotland since 1965.

For more, click here.

Spain: Serial Rapist attacks 6th Victim

DNA links a man who has attacked 6 women since 2008 in Spain. Police there believe that he targets young women on their own in the early hours of the morning, predominantly foreign tourists walking back to their apartments or hotels.

Read more here.

California: West Covina Police Searching For Serial Rapist

West Covina police are seeking a rapist they believe committed six sexual assaults between 2000 and 2011. DNA status in this case is unknown.
The women were all walking or jogging alone when they were attacked.

Read more here.

Palm Beach: Police Seek Help Finding Violent Serial Rapist- sketch

Palm Beach Rapist: Authorities release a sketch

A man who bit, beat and raped at least four women in Palm Beach County since 2009 is still on the loose, detectives say, and they are hoping a revised sketch will help catch him.
The man attacked a woman in April.  The same man has been linked to the cases with DNA.

Read more here.

Rapist in Golden pleads not guilty

A man accused of raping women in Colorado and Washington has plead not guilty. Bail has been set at 5 million dollars. 

The 2008 victim in Washington was charged with false reporting. 

Last month CBS4 reported that O’Leary has plead not guilty to more than two dozen charges stemming from two reported rapes and an attempted attack in Lakewood.  Read more: http://denver.cbslocal.com/2011/07/11/suspected-serial-rapist-heads-to-court/

DNA links two cold cases in Texas

Two cold case slayings have been linked to the same DNA profile. The killings happened six years apart. There was no match for the DNA profiles in the DNA databases.

For more information click here.

15 year old Kristy Wesselman cold case

15 year old Kristy Wesselman was raped and murdered in 1985. The killer left DNA at the crime scene, but it has never generated a hit in state or national DNA databases. The case is still open. Read more about Kristy's cold case here.

Potomac Rapist: Website will launch to help find Mirzayan’s killer

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Investigators in D.C. are hoping that someone will visit a new website and recognize a composit sketch of the suspect in Christine Mirzayan's murder case. 

Christine Mirzayan, 28, was slain Aug. 1, 1998, in woods near Canal Road as she walked home from dinner at a friend’s house.  Police were able to connect Mirzayan’s killer to the person who committed the rapes in Montgomery through a national DNA database.


Read more about the website and DC's rapist here.
Read previous 2nd JD Blog posts about this case here.

New DNA Database for Somali Pirates

New DNA Database will catalogue pirates

The forum, the Contact Group on Piracy, in charge with countering pirates off the coast of Somalia will set up a new DNA database to catalogue these criminals. The database will be set up in 2012. The forum has 480 pirate DNA profiles to date.

Read more here.

Iowa Cold Case Unit- Have unmatched profiles, lack funding

Iowa's two person Cold Case Unit has been working under a federal grant since 2009 to solve cases going back to the 1960s.

Since that time, the unit collected data on 150 unsolved cases going back to the 1960s. The investigators prioritized 50 of them and conducted DNA analysis on 2,018 pieces of evidence.  They have created DNA profiles in 23 of these cases, checked 11 against the database, and received 2 hits.

State officials were denied the federal grant in 2010; the unit will lose one agent.


Read more: http://www.globegazette.com/news/article_d99154ce-9fa9-11e0-a3e3-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1QWFjNZEA

Washington DC area murder 1984- new DNA Evidence

Catherine Fuller, a mother of six, was killed in 1984 by a mob of young people. Of 17 young people arrested, 13 were charged in her death, with 11 being convicted or pleading guilty. Now the Innocence Project is calling for testing of evidence discovered in 2010 in a police storage facility.

"Evidence uncovered by the Innocence Project persuaded D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg to schedule hearings for October. He also ordered post-conviction DNA testing of physical evidence — swabs taken from the victim’s body, hairs, clothing and a metal pipe that may have been used in the attack — that was discovered in 2010 as police prepared to move to a new storage facility."

Read more here.

*Special thanks to A.V. for finding this article!

Potomac rapist may be back

The Potamac rapist operated in the 1990's in the DC area. In 2009, DNA linked him to the murder of a biochemistry student. 
"In the Potomac Rapist, detectives have painted a chilling portrait of a skilled burglar who, despite the populated communities he targeted, stalked his victims for days before breaking into their homes and waiting for them. As his perverse appetites grew, he became more brazen. And as news spread, his attacks seemed to become more violent and theatrical. He would try to engage his victims in a perverse form of pillow talk, asking them about their own previous sexual encounters while he raped them."

• The first rape occurred in May 1991 in a new housing development in North Potomac.
• In November 1991, he attacked an anesthesiologist in Bethesda, Maryland, gaining entrance through a second-floor window and hiding until she came home.
• A month later, he returned again to the North Potomac site and attacked another woman whose husband was away on a business trip.
• A month later and a block away from the last attack, he barged into the basement apartment of a live-in housekeeper less than 20 minutes after her employers left to go to a movie. But this time, the victim fought back. His rape attempt was foiled, but he viciously beat her with a portable stereo before fleeing.
• The attacks abruptly ended until 1994. Then, he attacked a mother of two who lived near a new housing development.
• After another lengthy break he resurfaced again in February 1997 in a middle-class suburb of Montgomery County and attacked a 19-year-old in the kitchen of her townhouse. Before he left, he snatched a $100 bill from her birthday card.
• Nine months later, the Potomac Rapist assaulted his last victim in Maryland, and eight months after that, he killed Mirzayan, a newly married intern with a promising future in biochemistry.

Read The Daily Beast Article.

Santa Fe: Suspect excluded with DNA

Police in Santa Fe say DNA testing has excluded their suspect in the rape and murder cases of  Susan Laporte and Maria Padilla in 1985.

DNA confirms that Luna did not kill 2 women in New Mexico.

Police said In 1987 Kenneth Ray Luna confessed to Utah authorities that he'd raped and killed women in New Mexico. Luna drew up a map that pinpointed where he had dumped the body of one of the victim’s. It led detectives to the outskirts of Santa Fe County. Police said the woman, believed to be a third victim, had been raped and strangled to death.
Luna was extradited back to New Mexico. However, before he could step foot inside a courtroom the suspected killer hanged himself inside his jail cell.

Police posthumously tested Luna's DNA. The DNA test excluded him from the murders. 

For more information click: here.

Brooklyn Serial Rapist- DNA status unknown

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN (WPIX)—

Cops have released a sketch of a serial rapist on Monday who has preyed on at least four women in Sunset Park, Brooklyn since March 2011.
The status of DNA in the case is unknown.

Read more here.