Spring Break
Mathematician explains DNA crim links
Eric Zimmerling
Issue date: 4/12/07 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
In 1988, a 20-year old woman named Lynette White was stabbed to death in South Wales. 12 years later, investigators found a new DNA sample in her apartment that further sparked the investigation and eventually led authorities to a 14-year-old boy, there was a problem, he had not been born yet at the time of the crime.
Dr. Charles Brenner, a forensic mathematician, who also provides consulting to both paternity and forensic DNA testing laboratories, spoke with nearly 25 students about the links between family members that can lead investigators to a criminal.
"The DNA taken from the latest sweep of her apartment was very similar to that of the 14-year-old boy," Brenner said. "Authorities went to the father of the 14-year-old boy and tested his sample with the one taken from the crime scene, it was negative. Then they tested Jeffrey Gafoor, the boy's biological uncle. It was positive and Gafoor admitted to killing her."
Brenner's 75-minute lecture in room 520 of MacQuarrie Hall featured numerous slides showing mathematical probabilities and pictures of DNA strands that would help link people to the crime through family members.
Brandon Adams, a freshmen majoring in health science was "overwhelmed" by the lecture.
"It was a lot to take in," Adams said. "It is interesting to see how exactly how much goes into solving a crime. The precious information that goes into one lead that may lead to taking down one of those criminals."
Brenner said that once DNA in taken from a scene and is inputted into the computer it becomes a matter of knocking on the doors of those that match the closest with the sample and asking "Have any of your relatives committed a crime lately?"
Once the matches are entered into the computer, the very difficult process becomes less difficult.
Associate professor Steven Lee of the justice studies department gave an example of how the system works. "If you are trying to find a person with the same birthday, you do not need to have 366 people because everybody is not trying to match up with everybody - it is only one match you are trying to find," Lee said. "In a room of just over 20 people, chances are that two people will have the same birthday. When searching for DNA matches, it works the same way."
The chances of finding a match when searching for criminals increases with lifestyle as well. Brenner said that organized crime families, gangs and dysfunctional family units all have more records on file which means a greater chance to match DNA samples at a crime.
Around 4 percent of the United States population is criminal database.
Brenner said that some people are for the idea of just putting 100 percentage of the population in the DNA database.
"I am against that idea," Brenner said. "We need to have some privacy."
Dr. Charles Brenner, a forensic mathematician, who also provides consulting to both paternity and forensic DNA testing laboratories, spoke with nearly 25 students about the links between family members that can lead investigators to a criminal.
"The DNA taken from the latest sweep of her apartment was very similar to that of the 14-year-old boy," Brenner said. "Authorities went to the father of the 14-year-old boy and tested his sample with the one taken from the crime scene, it was negative. Then they tested Jeffrey Gafoor, the boy's biological uncle. It was positive and Gafoor admitted to killing her."
Brenner's 75-minute lecture in room 520 of MacQuarrie Hall featured numerous slides showing mathematical probabilities and pictures of DNA strands that would help link people to the crime through family members.
Brandon Adams, a freshmen majoring in health science was "overwhelmed" by the lecture.
"It was a lot to take in," Adams said. "It is interesting to see how exactly how much goes into solving a crime. The precious information that goes into one lead that may lead to taking down one of those criminals."
Brenner said that once DNA in taken from a scene and is inputted into the computer it becomes a matter of knocking on the doors of those that match the closest with the sample and asking "Have any of your relatives committed a crime lately?"
Once the matches are entered into the computer, the very difficult process becomes less difficult.
Associate professor Steven Lee of the justice studies department gave an example of how the system works. "If you are trying to find a person with the same birthday, you do not need to have 366 people because everybody is not trying to match up with everybody - it is only one match you are trying to find," Lee said. "In a room of just over 20 people, chances are that two people will have the same birthday. When searching for DNA matches, it works the same way."
The chances of finding a match when searching for criminals increases with lifestyle as well. Brenner said that organized crime families, gangs and dysfunctional family units all have more records on file which means a greater chance to match DNA samples at a crime.
Around 4 percent of the United States population is criminal database.
Brenner said that some people are for the idea of just putting 100 percentage of the population in the DNA database.
"I am against that idea," Brenner said. "We need to have some privacy."
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Charles Brenner
posted 4/16/07 @ 8:00 AM PST
Thanks for the story of my lecture. It was a pleasure to meet the students, and I'm glad some of them were intrigued.
Please allow one correction though: I did not say I'm against (or for) a universal database. (Continued…)
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