After reading The Death of Anyone, I was keen to learn more about how Familial DNA can be used in criminal proceedings. David Swykert has very kindly written a guest post about investigating crimes using Familial DNA.
Unique DNA Search
Catches the Grim Sleeper - D. J. Swykert
The underlying theme in
The Death of Anyone, Melange Books, poses the Machiavellian question:
Does the end justify the means? Bonnie Benham, the lead detective in
my story, has her own answer. But the legality of this question will
be answered in a real life courtroom in the California trial of a
serial killer dubbed by the media: The Grim Sleeper.
Lonnie David Franklin,
the Grim Sleeper, was caught because his son’s DNA was the closest
match to DNA collected at the crime scenes in the database.
Investigating Franklin’s son led them to investigate Lonnie
Franklin. But there was no direct DNA evidence that linked Lonnie to
the crime scene until they obtained a sample from him after his
arrest. Lonnie Franklin will be the first person in the U.S. to ever
stand trial for murder based on this type of evidence, and its
admissibility issues will be thoroughly tested by defense attorneys.
Only two states at this
time, California and Colorado, have a written policy concerning the
use of Familial DNA in an investigation. The admission of Familial
DNA, with its potential Fourth Amendment violations, has never been
tested in court. The California trial of Lonnie David Franklin will
become a landmark case for the future use of Familial DNA Searches by
law enforcement agencies nationwide.
This is an
update on the legal progress of the trial. Franklin was arrested on
July 7, 2010, The Los Angeles District Attorney’s
Office charged him with ten counts of murder, one count of attempted
murder, and special circumstance allegations of multiple murders in
the cases. A grand jury indictment was issued on March 23, 2011. The
Grim Sleeper has been resting comfortably in jail since his arrest
awaiting trial; the large quantity of evidence in this case, some
dating back thirty years, has caused a lengthy pretrial discovery.
The trial was originally scheduled to begin the summer of 2014, but
was put on hold. It was rescheduled for June 30, 2015, but that
didn’t happen. On Monday August 17, 2015, at a pretrial hearing,
the trial was rescheduled for October 14, 2015. Finally, in the
spring of 2016, The Grim Sleeper was convicted. A long appeals
process is expected.
I
first heard of the technique while working as a 911 operator in 2006.
It came up in a conversation with officers. I thought at the time it
would make an interesting premise for a book. I began writing the
mystery some three years later after leaving the department. I had
just finished editing a first draft of The Death of Anyone in the
summer 2010 when news of The Grim Sleeper’s capture in Los Angeles
was released. I read with interest all the information pouring out of
L.A. regarding the investigation and the problems confronting
prosecutors. All of which are explored in The Death of Anyone.
In my fictional
story Detroit Detective Bonnie Benham has been transferred from
working undercover in narcotics to homicide and is working the case
of a killer of adolescent girls. She is a straight forward
investigator who describes herself as a blonde with a badge and a
gun. CSI collects DNA evidence from the scene of the latest victim,
which had not been detected on the other victims. But no suspect
turns up in the FBI database. Due to the notoriety of the crimes a
task force is put together with Bonnie as the lead detective, and she
implores the D.A. to use an as yet unapproved type of a DNA Search in
an effort to identify the killer.
The Death of
Anyone is available on the Melange Books website and also on
Amazon.com in Kindle and print formats.
About the author
DJ
Swykert is a former 911 operator writing and living in the Cincinnati
area. His work has appeared in The Tampa Review, Detroit News, Coe
Review, Monarch Review, the Newer York, Lunch Ticket, Gravel, Zodiac
Review, Barbaric Yawp and Bull. His books include Children of the
Enemy, Alpha Wolves, The Pool Boy’s Beatitude and The Death of
Anyone. You can find him at: www.magicmasterminds.com/djswykert
He is a wolf expert.
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