Carla Walker was just 17 years old at the time of her death in 1974. Now, proposed bipartisan legislation named in her honor will provide federal funding to law enforcement to help utilize the technology that was instrumental in solving her murder.
www.insideedition.com
By
SAL BONO A
ugust 10, 2024
''Othram was founded by Kristen and David Mittelmen and was the first lab in the world that was built to use the most advanced genomics techniques to identify victims and perpetrators from crime scenes.'
“That's all we do. We identify DNA that was found at a crime scene, whether it belongs to the perpetrator or the victim,” Dr. Kristen Mittelmen, co-founder of Othram, tells Inside Edition Digital. “So our mission was to be able to make every case tractable. We truly don't believe it's justice unless every case can come to resolution and get an answer.”
In the past, Othram had been able to solve cases with even less samples than Carla's, as well as samples that dated back to the 1800s.
Even the most seasoned crime fighters like Holes said he too was skeptical about what Othram could uncover from a DNA sample off a bra strap.
“I was skeptical and quite frankly, I did not stay on top of the technology as I should have,” Holes says.
“This case tore me up and I so related to Jim Walker. It was like, the empathy was just absolutely there and I just wanted to see something done on this case,” he says.''
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www.websleuths.com