A DNA expert will be available to answer your questions!

[andreww]

Anti-K,

So maybe events went like this: JonBenet's stager opened up the pack of size-12's transferring foreign dna onto their hands, from there onto the sides of longjohns, which then fell by gravity into JonBenet's underwear?

The foreign dna might be coincidental artifact originating from the person who either packed the size-12's or delivered them to the R's house?

Thats a neat innocent explanation which also offers a reason for an absence of the same dna elsewhere at the crime-scene, which an IDI scenario does not!

I've yet to see a reference to the saliva test.

I have really seen no detailed information about the supposed saliva either. I've only seen vague references to the effect of "the technician thought it flashed blue, indicating that it might be saliva".

I'm not saying what it is or isn't, but I certainly would like a bit more conclusive information rather than second hand speculation. I've always wondered if it were simply TDNA that might have flashed due to it being mixed with JBs vaginal secretion.


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[OliviaG1996]

What exactly did JB wear to the White's? Dress or pants? I am wondering because if she wore a dress or skirt, and she wore the size 12s, I have a hard time believing they would have stayed on. Especially if the kids we amped up and running and playing as kids do. Could she have actually taken them off? Maybe they were in a pocket or a purse?


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According to PR (and maybe Steve Thomas?) JBR wore black velvet pants to the Whites'. It's too bad we don't have access to the photos taken at the Whites' that day so we can confirm.

If JBR was wearing the size 12s the entire day, where did she get them from? No size 12s were found in her underwear drawer although PR said they were stored there. We also know that no intruder took the size 12s with them. This leads me to believe JBR wasn't wearing them until she was redressed during staging.

 

[Anti-K]

At least it would be the only coincidence.



Yes I think paintbrush was in both gloves hands because it was broken in half - you need both hands to snap it. I'm not sure the saliva test is accurate and it has been shown to give false positives. Also that enzyme is found in blood and urine. Because both blood and urine were present, it could have more easily given a false positive.




Okay




erm, agree to disagree then. The loose binds, the unnecessary duct tape... that's staging.



Yes the sexual assault was real. In my opinion it was part of staging.



Yes, that's right. I must have mistyped, thanks.



That's what I heard, too, which is why I went with this as my theory.

Ellie9, I think your contribution to discussion has been brilliant, and you’ve made some good points. I’ve enjoyed talking with you. I’d like to ask you to read something. It is not jbr related. It is about coincidences and how to think about them. The article is here: http://tinyurl.com/2u7jwrh

If you don’t care to read it, or simply don’t have the time – that’s fine. But, it should help you to decide whether your objection or rejection due to coincidence is a reasonable or sound objection (or, rejection).
.

Aussiesheila explained why the sample is probably saliva here: http://tinyurl.com/h98tyt8 (this is a different aussiesheila post than the one I linked to in my reply to UK Guy), she addresses your concerns re: blood/urine. In addition, other characteristics such as the degradation, being a minor component (DNA in saliva is low per volume) support the conclusion of probably saliva. Occam’s razor, my friend.
.

“the loose binds, the unnecessary duct tape... That's staging.” I agree (see! Not just ba contrarian! Ha!). However, the sexual aspect was NOT staging, it was real AND it was covered up. In other words (WARNING, here comes another IDI theory, of which many say i have none. Lol), this could have been a sexually motivated crime staged to appear as a kidnapping.

“We know that offenders are more reluctant to admit sexual motives than other types of motives (e.g., profit, revenge, anger, power). Some offenders may not even realize their true motivation. An offender may eventually request a ridiculously small ransom for a child he had abducted to molest in an apparent attempt to convince others, but primarily himself, that he is not a sex offender”

Child Molesters Who Abduct: Summary of the Case in Point Series” Edited by Kenneth V. Lanning and Ann Wolbert Burgess http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/NC70.pdf

I didn’t check to see if this link still works, but this is something worth reading. Like the article above, this one is not about jbr, but it is relatable and imo essential reading for anyone interested in this case. Lanning “specialized in the study of the sexual victimization of children after being transferred to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, in 1981. He was assigned to the Behavioral Science Unit from 1981 to 1996, Missing and Exploited Children’s Task Force from 1996 to 1998, and National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) from 1998 to 2000.”

Lanning is one of many in LE who is IDI.
…

AK

 

[UKGuy]

According to PR (and maybe Steve Thomas?) JBR wore black velvet pants to the Whites'. It's too bad we don't have access to the photos taken at the Whites' that day so we can confirm.

If JBR was wearing the size 12s the entire day, where did she get them from? No size 12s were found in her underwear drawer although PR said they were stored there. We also know that no intruder took the size 12s with them. This leads me to believe JBR wasn't wearing them until she was redressed during staging.

OliviaG1996,
JonBenet wore black velvet pants to the White's. Patsy confirmed this in one of her interviews, probably the same one where she does not know what underwear JonBenet wore to the White's, since she did not assist JonBenet in bathing or dressing, except to argue over the white gap top. Patsy and JonbBenet were supposed to wear matching outfit.

Here is the black velvet pants on the spare bed in JonBenet's bedroom.


http://www.acandyrose.com/005jonbenetbed.jpg





.

 

[DeeDee249]

OliviaG1996,
JonBenet wore black velvet pants to the White's. Patsy confirmed this in one of her interviews, probably the same one where she does not know what underwear JonBenet wore to the White's, since she did not assist JonBenet in bathing or dressing, except to argue over the white gap top. Patsy and JonbBenet were supposed to wear matching outfit.

Here is the black velvet pants on the spare bed in JonBenet's bedroom.


http://www.acandyrose.com/005jonbenetbed.jpg




.

It was also confirmed by police, who had photographs that were taken at the White's. They know what every R was wearing that day.

 

[BBB167893]

SuperDave,
That was neatly outlined, its mostly what I think too. Also I reckon the days of dna as a magic bullet are over since people now recognize how easy it is to transfer dna from person to person.

An example is the Max Planck Institute where they arrived at erroneous statistics for particular genes in the human genome, until they realized that palaeontologists excavating ancient sites had simply transferred human dna, by various means, e.g. touching, coughing, etc thereby inflating particular gene counts.

Even after telling the palaeontologists to wear surgical gloves and place artifacts, i.e. bone etc into sterile plastic containers, the Max Planck Institute whilst operating in clean room conditions still found modern genes making their way into the test samples!

The scientists at the Max Planck Institute, even while clothed in the white cotton boiler-suits, plastic masks, and wearing surgical gloves still transferred dna onto ancient specimens!

.

And the more sensitive these DNA testing methods get, the more irrelevant DNA will be found at crime scenes.

No amount of technology will ever replace good, old-fashioned police work.

 

[BBB167893]

two matching samples were found on the leggings.

the degradation was probably caused by environment: minor component, saliva, urine, between legs, under layers of clothing and blanket. wet samples degrade more readily than dry samples. jbr’s sample – the major component – may or may not have been degraded, the sample may have been of sufficient size to overcome any degradation. this is an unknown (to us).
.

if people want to argue that the tDNA found on the ligatures was from innocent transfer – i’ll go along with that. that makes sense, to me. under the fingernails? sure; maybe (i am skeptical about Kolar’s DNA description). but, these three matching samples? that’s a hard sell. three locations, two articles of clothing, one on the inside commingle din victims blood, two on the outside where her leggings would have been grabbed to pull down, one probably saliva, two probably skin cells. a hard sell, indeed. keep trying.
…

AK

Look who's talking about a hard sell. All you've got is a lot of "maybe."

 

[BBB167893]

Oh. A cpl things you got wrong: the sexual assault occurred at or near point of death, not after death.
And, it was not staged. It was real.

That's garbage, Anti-K. There was nothing real about it, except maybe the need to use an object because they couldn't bear to touch the body. Lot of that went on, here.

The sexual aspect of this crime, which occurred at or near point of death, and was very, very real, was covered up.

Oh, there WAS a sexual aspect to this crime, all right. And there WAS an attempt to cover it up. Other than that...

 

[BoldBear]

SuperDave,
That was neatly outlined, its mostly what I think too. Also I reckon the days of dna as a magic bullet are over since people now recognize how easy it is to transfer dna from person to person.[Snip]

I worked in a clean room for a few years. This is where you walk across sticky mats, through vacuums, put on pants and smocks, special shoes, gloves, face masks. You then walk over double stick tape and through another vacuum. We used lasers to track dust particle contamination. If you touched your glove to your face, your oils would transfer and then contaminate any surface you touch. If you touched someone's hand or a pen they were handling, you'd have to put on a new pair of gloves. You start to transfer 'contamination' from one place to another quickly. You also start to think about things you touch and come into contact with in different ways.

I tried to explain how crazy fast this stuff can get transferred a while ago and was told I didn't know what I was talking about. This isn't the DNA side of the discussion but the way tDNA can be transferred from one surface to another. I also believe that the person who dismissed my argument was fainting a lack of understanding to deny the argument.

This isn't rocket science. It's looking at how very small portions of what we used to call 'contamination' can be transferred from one surface to another. Outside the clean room and in the 'real world' we don't think about how much of this we transfer every day. If you go to a bar, there's a record that you were there. If someone else has touched the surface, you pick-up someone's cells from someone you probably didn't know.

We're just drawing conclusions about the tDNA before we've actually found the person it belongs to. That is simply wrong.

 

[Anti-K]

I worked in a clean room for a few years. This is where you walk across sticky mats, through vacuums, put on pants and smocks, special shoes, gloves, face masks. You then walk over double stick tape and through another vacuum. We used lasers to track dust particle contamination. If you touched your glove to your face, your oils would transfer and then contaminate any surface you touch. If you touched someone's hand or a pen they were handling, you'd have to put on a new pair of gloves. You start to transfer 'contamination' from one place to another quickly. You also start to think about things you touch and come into contact with in different ways.

I tried to explain how crazy fast this stuff can get transferred a while ago and was told I didn't know what I was talking about. This isn't the DNA side of the discussion but the way tDNA can be transferred from one surface to another. I also believe that the person who dismissed my argument was fainting a lack of understanding to deny the argument.

This isn't rocket science. It's looking at how very small portions of what we used to call 'contamination' can be transferred from one surface to another. Outside the clean room and in the 'real world' we don't think about how much of this we transfer every day. If you go to a bar, there's a record that you were there. If someone else has touched the surface, you pick-up someone's cells from someone you probably didn't know.

We're just drawing conclusions about the tDNA before we've actually found the person it belongs to. That is simply wrong.

“We're just drawing conclusions about the tDNA before we've actually found the person it belongs to. That is simply wrong.”

Yes. To say this tDNA has an innocent explanation before we've actually found the person it belongs to is simply wrong. Yes. To say this tDNA is the killer’s DNA before we've actually found the person it belongs to is simply wrong.

And this is the reason why the person it actually belongs to must be identified.
…

AK

 

[BoldBear]

“We're just drawing conclusions about the tDNA before we've actually found the person it belongs to. That is simply wrong.”[Snip]

And so the story changes.... That is exactly what I've been saying all along. "I just felt a great disturbance in the force."

I'm going to mark that quote of yours and use it in the future. Thank you.

 

[Anti-K]

And so the story changes.... That is exactly what I've been saying all along. "I just felt a great disturbance in the force."

I'm going to mark that quote of yours and use it in the future. Thank you.

Yes, and then you can go back and read my past posts and you’ll see that this is what I’ve been saying all along. Please, point out where you think I was saying something different and I’ll show you that I wasn’t.
…

AK

 

[Fides]

I worked in a clean room for a few years. This is where you walk across sticky mats, through vacuums, put on pants and smocks, special shoes, gloves, face masks. You then walk over double stick tape and through another vacuum. We used lasers to track dust particle contamination. If you touched your glove to your face, your oils would transfer and then contaminate any surface you touch. If you touched someone's hand or a pen they were handling, you'd have to put on a new pair of gloves. You start to transfer 'contamination' from one place to another quickly. You also start to think about things you touch and come into contact with in different ways.

I tried to explain how crazy fast this stuff can get transferred a while ago and was told I didn't know what I was talking about. This isn't the DNA side of the discussion but the way tDNA can be transferred from one surface to another. I also believe that the person who dismissed my argument was fainting a lack of understanding to deny the argument.

This isn't rocket science. It's looking at how very small portions of what we used to call 'contamination' can be transferred from one surface to another. Outside the clean room and in the 'real world' we don't think about how much of this we transfer every day. If you go to a bar, there's a record that you were there. If someone else has touched the surface, you pick-up someone's cells from someone you probably didn't know.

We're just drawing conclusions about the tDNA before we've actually found the person it belongs to. That is simply wrong.

Great post. I've often wondered how exhaustive that list of tested people was. For example, how many parents of how many minors agreed to have their children swabbed? Was every boy tested who held video game controls at the Ramsey home or the White home? I doubt it, but confess I don't know the answer. If JB came along and used the sweaty controls then toileted herself in the night (pulled her leggings down, wiped herself), voila, possible DNA transfer to her genitals, underpants, and/or to the sides of her leggings. Far more likely than an intruder who wandered about and left zero trace EXCEPT a few cells on the outside of the leggings and crotch of the underpants. Young children playing for hours in close quarters with no bathing or washing up by the victim? DNA transfer seems like a given.

If I were a parent at the time, I would not allow my child to be tested without a warrant. It seems irresponsible to do otherwise, and these were educated, upper middle class parents in the Ramsey neighborhood and social circle. Because of their ages, we can also suppose that the neighborhood children and party children were highly protected by the law.

Unless there is a comprehensive list of children who played at both houses ruled out through DNA testing (i.e. such a list attested to by someone in authority - which I have not found), I give the DNA evidence little credence.

 

[UKGuy]

Great post. I've often wondered how exhaustive that list of tested people was. For example, how many parents of how many minors agreed to have their children swabbed? Was every boy tested who held video game controls at the Ramsey home or the White home? I doubt it, but confess I don't know the answer. If JB came along and used the sweaty controls then toileted herself in the night (pulled her leggings down, wiped herself), voila, possible DNA transfer to her genitals, underpants, and/or to the sides of her leggings. Far more likely than an intruder who wandered about and left zero trace EXCEPT a few cells on the outside of the leggings and crotch of the underpants. Young children playing for hours in close quarters with no bathing or washing up by the victim? DNA transfer seems like a given.

If I were a parent at the time, I would not allow my child to be tested without a warrant. It seems irresponsible to do otherwise, and these were educated, upper middle class parents in the Ramsey neighborhood and social circle. Because of their ages, we can also suppose that the neighborhood children and party children were highly protected by the law.

Unless there is a comprehensive list of children who played at both houses ruled out through DNA testing (i.e. such a list attested to by someone in authority - which I have not found), I give the DNA evidence little credence.

Fides,

I reckon the dna would only become relevant if someone was arrested and matched via CODIS. Otherwise with the ease of dna transfer its possibly just junk dna?

Another aspect to consider is whether the size-12's were clean on JonBenet after she was killed and/or assaulted, since a positive might rule out JonBenet transferring the dna herself, so as a point of future contention with any IDI, they are sure to say JonBenet wore the size-12's to the White's party.

IMO the longjohns and size-12's were clean on JonBenet after she was killed, so the touch-dna surely arrived via secondary transfer?

.

 

[lawstudent]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but how do police distinguish traces of DNA that must be all over most people from significant DNA, unless it is really obvious (a pool of blood, semen, etc.)?

I know that we pick up countless traces of other people all the time, but DNA would be useless if we were regularly getting false positives due to a victim having sat on a bus, for example, where he or she would seemingly pick up a lot of tDNA from others. In a highly populated area there is a fair chance that one of those traces would be from someone in a DNA database due to a prior arrest. I know the sample or at least one of the samples in this case was unusually small and incomplete, but if our methods are so sensitive to contamination, it seems like we'd have a lot more issues with DNA reliability than we currently do. I'm not disputing that we have other people's DNA all over us because I know we do, but it seems like the tests aren't regularly revealing hundreds of profiles. Clearly the tests distinguish between these traces and more relevant DNA in most cases - is it base on size? While police definitely don't always tell the truth, when they have an unknown DNA sample and claim it belongs to the perpetrator, the typical response is not "well it is junk because they didn't clear every person the victim may have easily come into contact with the skin cells of." Usually, when a match comes through, it is to someone with an actual connection. If police pick up on it, it seems like the majority of the time it is significant, belonging to someone they had an interaction with even if that person turns out not to be the actual perpetrator.

 

[Fides]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but how do police distinguish traces of DNA that must be all over most people from significant DNA, unless it is really obvious (a pool of blood, semen, etc.)?

I know that we pick up countless traces of other people all the time, but DNA would be useless if we were regularly getting false positives due to a victim having sat on a bus, for example, where he or she would seemingly pick up a lot of tDNA from others. In a highly populated area there is a fair chance that one of those traces would be from someone in a DNA database due to a prior arrest. I know the sample or at least one of the samples in this case was unusually small and incomplete, but if our methods are so sensitive to contamination, it seems like we'd have a lot more issues with DNA reliability than we currently do. I'm not disputing that we have other people's DNA all over us because I know we do, but it seems like the tests aren't regularly revealing hundreds of profiles. Clearly the tests distinguish between these traces and more relevant DNA in most cases - is it base on size? While police definitely don't always tell the truth, when they have an unknown DNA sample and claim it belongs to the perpetrator, the typical response is not "well it is junk because they didn't clear every person the victim may have easily come into contact with the skin cells of." Usually, when a match comes through, it is to someone with an actual connection. If police pick up on it, it seems like the majority of the time it is significant, belonging to someone they had an interaction with even if that person turns out not to be the actual perpetrator.

Recent article published on this question:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12894/abstract

Article referencing above study (apologies if this has already been covered in this thread):

http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/10/touch-dna-might-be-contaminating-crime-scene-evidence

 

[Fides]

Fides,

I reckon the dna would only become relevant if someone was arrested and matched via CODIS. Otherwise with the ease of dna transfer its possibly just junk dna?

Another aspect to consider is whether the size-12's were clean on JonBenet after she was killed and/or assaulted, since a positive might rule out JonBenet transferring the dna herself, so as a point of future contention with any IDI, they are sure to say JonBenet wore the size-12's to the White's party.

IMO the longjohns and size-12's were clean on JonBenet after she was killed, so the touch-dna surely arrived via secondary transfer?

.

UK Guy - thank you for your post.

I am not sure I follow all the points above. I agree that until/unless ANY of the the DNA is identified in CODIS and an individual can be linked to the scene it is not relevant. If it is not sperm or blood it can too easily be due to secondary transfer. I think some earlier posts by Anti-K and others asserted that the location of the tDNA on the leggings/underwear was significant, and I disagree for the reasons posted above.

The idea that the leggings were clean and put on after JonBenet was killed is new to me. I have heard such theories about the underwear, and can accept that she might have been dressed in them postmortem. I believe I read that size 12 underwear were available in a gift package in the basement. This notion is not in conflict with the idea of DNA on the crotch of the underwear mingled with her blood. If she had secondary transfer from her hands to her genitals (from wiping or scratching) that would account for the transfer via blood when she was redressed. It would not be the case for the leggings, obviously. That would be an argument against the killer chasing down clean leggings. That and the fact that they were urine stained.

You said: "so as a point of future contention with any IDI, they are sure to say JonBenet wore the size-12's to the White's party." I may be slow, but I simply don't see why that is a problem. But that is perhaps because I don't think the size 12s are important?

 

[Ellie9]

Recent article published on this question:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12894/abstract

Wow. Five times they ran this test, the "perp" DNA wasn't even on the knife but the secondary person's DNA was on it. This is really important to consider! And of course that secondary DNA showed itself 85% of the time.

I think DNA is a really useful tool for crime, but only when taken into consideration with everything else on the scene and also its own drawbacks. I don't have access to that article other than the abstract. I wonder if anyone does have access, did they find other DNA besides the willing participants in the study? Did they find lots of random DNA that could have been picked up from before the test? Or maybe they thoroughly washed their hands or something in preparation for the testing.

 

[Tadpole12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_DNA

Touch DNA analysis only requires seven or eight cells from the outermost layer of human skin.[SUP][2][/SUP] The technique has been criticized for high rates of false positives due to contamination — for example, fingerprint brushes used by crime scene investigators can transfer trace amounts of skin cells from one surface to another, leading to inaccurate results.[SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP] Because of the risk of false positives, it is more often used by the defense to help exclude a suspect rather than the prosecution.[SUP][5][/SUP]

The technique is very similar to Low Copy Number DNA analysis, to the extent that court rulings have sometimes confused the two.[SUP][6][/SUP] In LCN DNA analysis, the DNA goes through additional cycles of PCR amplification.[SUP][6][/SUP]

 

[andreww]

UK Guy - thank you for your post.

I am not sure I follow all the points above. I agree that until/unless ANY of the the DNA is identified in CODIS and an individual can be linked to the scene it is not relevant. If it is not sperm or blood it can too easily be due to secondary transfer. I think some earlier posts by Anti-K and others asserted that the location of the tDNA on the leggings/underwear was significant, and I disagree for the reasons posted above.

The idea that the leggings were clean and put on after JonBenet was killed is new to me. I have heard such theories about the underwear, and can accept that she might have been dressed in them postmortem. I believe I read that size 12 underwear were available in a gift package in the basement. This notion is not in conflict with the idea of DNA on the crotch of the underwear mingled with her blood. If she had secondary transfer from her hands to her genitals (from wiping or scratching) that would account for the transfer via blood when she was redressed. It would not be the case for the leggings, obviously. That would be an argument against the killer chasing down clean leggings. That and the fact that they were urine stained.

You said: "so as a point of future contention with any IDI, they are sure to say JonBenet wore the size-12's to the White's party." I may be slow, but I simply don't see why that is a problem. But that is perhaps because I don't think the size 12s are important?

Let's not forget that JBs groin was wiped down. Whatever was used to do this could also have contained the skin cells found on her body. Imagine how much DNA would be on a hand towel in the guest bathroom of that home.


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