DNA Facts???

[Britt]

Multiple donors to a DNA sample does not cause the scientist to throw it away as useless. If a sample is compared and an inclusion/match is found, a sound method for calculating likelihood may be applied.

But the question remains: if a "mixed" sample (or multiple samples) are deposited at the same time, why and how can one part of them be identifiable/complete/nondegraded, as JonBenet's was here, while another part remains unidentifiable/inconclusive/incomplete/degraded? How can supposedly contemporaneous samples be in such different conditions?

For an absurd example: what if there were an intruder who didn't deposit his own DNA, but via secondary transfer managed to deposit some old DNA HE picked up somewhere, unrelated to the crime?

In other words, again, how can this incomplete sample be connected to the time of the crime? It doesn't matter who it belongs to if it can't logically, scientifically be connected to the crime.

 

[Jayelles]

The daughter of our closest friends is taking a degree in Forensic Science at university and we met up at New Year. I was astonished when she told me that they can extract DNA from a fingerprint nowadays.

 

[Britt]

Obviously, JBR's own DNA from the bleeding would be fresh. If there were other, older, DNA mixed in, the picture would be quite confused.

It's possible that DNA technology has advanced since ST and Schiller wrote their books. Maybe now the different DNA sources can be distinguished.

To belabor my questions.... JB's own identifiable DNA was deposited at, and connected to, the time of the crime. Why is the additional DNA material not in the same condition as JB's? Aren't degrading forces equal opportunity degraders?

Yes, DNA technology has improved so that now a "DNA profile can be worked up," to use Lin Wood's words... but that uses a replication process, does it not? It is not as if all of a sudden the partial DNA sample has become complete like JB's sample was initially. So the fact remains: that sample can't be shown to have been deposited contemporaneously with JB's sample and therefore cannot identify the perp even if the "profile" can ever be identified.

I'm just trying to understand this. If someone can answer these questions and prove the existence of this third party, I'll be the first to adjust my theory accordingly, maybe start paying more attention to BlueCrab's theory

 

[Toth]

Often, yes. Minute amounts of oils leave a print and even more minute portions can be tested for dna.

Cryptic dna: dna from sources not usually seen as being possible dna evidence. If only they had tested the garotte itself I'm sure the guy would have left his own epithelial cells on the ligature when handing the material, even if on the night of the crime he may have worn latex gloves.

 

[K777angel]

Often, yes. Minute amounts of oils leave a print and even more minute portions can be tested for dna.

Cryptic dna: dna from sources not usually seen as being possible dna evidence. If only they had tested the garotte itself I'm sure the guy would have left his own epithelial cells on the ligature when handing the material, even if on the night of the crime he may have worn latex gloves.

Well explain then Toth how Patsy Ramseys fibers from her jacket found themselves intertwined in the ligature??

 

[Nehemiah]

The daughter of our closest friends is taking a degree in Forensic Science at university and we met up at New Year. I was astonished when she told me that they can extract DNA from a fingerprint nowadays.

Can you interest her in this case so that perhaps she would take the Ramsey case on as a case study?

 

[Jayelles]

That's a thought! Could do. I didn't get a chance to speak with her for as long as I would have liked at New Year. We had been visiting her parents for several hours when she arrived home with a student lawyer friend. They had been out for the evening when her friend got her purse snatched at the train station. She had £300 in her purse and was understandably very upset. The conversation naturally revolved around that it wasn't until we were getting ready to leave that I remembered I was going to ask her about some forensic stuff.

Another thing is - my niece is soon to graduate with a nursing degree and she is hoping to take a post-graduate course in forensic science next year. Forensic nurses work with the police and do jobs such as swabbing rape victims etc. My niece is very interested in the Ramsey case and she reads the forums (not sure if she posts!). I am certain that she would be keen to do it as a case study not least of all because of the resources she could get from her aunt!

 

[MIBRO]

In other words, again, how can this incomplete sample be connected to the time of the crime?

How can it be assumed it is not connected to the crime? It was found on the victim, mingled with her own DNA, in blood, freshly spilled during the course of the crime.

JonBenét's DNA profile is complete due to the fact that there was plenty of tissue to extract it from at autopsy. In the mixed DNA samples, her DNA "markers" can be identified by the "markers" from her full profile.

Regarding the "fingerprint DNA", I recall seeing this at least 6 months ago on another forum. I believe it was connected to a crime news report (going by memory). If I can find it, I will post it.

 

[Toltec]

Excellent thread....although DNA is way over my head!

The fact that the "intruder/killer" left degraded DNA is something that makes absolutely no sense. WHY was JonBenet's DNA intact but not the killers? Did JB's DNA struggle with the killers DNA and somehow managed to knock it's block off???

JonBenet could have used the restroom at the Kostanzics home Christmas Eve or managed to come into contact with DNA while playing the kitty game with her little friend...what about the dinner at Pasta Jays...could she have contacted DNA while sitting at the booth or if she used the restroom? What about Christmas day...we know she did not bathe that day...could she have contacted DNA from playmates...or the new bicycle she rode. How many people handled the bicycle? Who put it together? Did the DNA come from the bike factory? Did the DNA come from the panty factory?

The DNA is useless IMO. Even if it came from a Ramsey it could be explained away.

 

[Ivy]

MIBRO: "How can it be assumed it is not connected to the crime?"

Me: By the fact that the DNA was degraded, whereas JonBenet's DNA was not. This strongly suggests that the mystery DNA was deposited before the crime took place and before spots of JonBenet's dripped into her panties--or else that the mystery DNA was secondary transfer, also deposited beforehand.

 

[Britt]

Toltec... Ivy... exactly! I'm no DNA scientist (obviously), so I hope my questions make sense:

How can it be assumed it is not connected to the crime?

Because we can compare the condition of the unidentified DNA to JB's DNA. We know for a fact that JB's DNA is connected to the crime, and it is logical to assume that any other DNA deposited at the same time would be in the same condition - that is, the same state of being intact or degraded - as JB's DNA.

How can part of the DNA material (JB's) be intact and part of it (the unidentified part) be degraded/partial/incomplete. DNA doesn't drop out of the body in a degraded state. You can't deposit a part of a cell with partial DNA (unless you're a genetic scientist, I guess). Something has to make it degrade. So, why did only the unidentified part become degraded? IOW, why is it that JB's was identifiable as an intact sample and the other not?

Why_nutt's example up above there is an excellent one, near as I can tell, and answers the question. But for those of you who disagree, please explain how this apparent scientific impossibility can happen - that DNA deposited in the same place at the same time under the same conditions can degrade (for lack of a better term) in different ways at different rates.

It was found on the victim, mingled with her own DNA, in blood, freshly spilled during the course of the crime.

That doesn't change the incomplete state of the unidentified DNA. Why was JB's part complete and the other not? See above questions.

JonBenét's DNA profile is complete due to the fact that there was plenty of tissue to extract it from at autopsy. In the mixed DNA samples, her DNA "markers" can be identified by the "markers" from her full profile.

And yet there weren't enough markers in the unidentified samples to even have a profile until they were able to "work up" a profile using newer replication(?) techniques. Even if they didn't have a perp for comparison, if the foreign DNA had been deposited at the crime scene it should have been full, intact, all-markers accounted for, samples, not partial samples. Right?

 

[Shylock]

Shylock,I was adding my two cents to the "spaghetti/wine" scenario,and I believe I am correct.
Your,taking a sample and mixing it together,may very well be an "old method" used by the original investigators,let's hope not.

Your spaghetti/wine scenario was not at all correct. Your totally missing the point here. It has NOTHING to do with "the original investigators" as you suggest. It has to do with what is done to the submitted sample once it gets to the DNA lab--to CellMark Inc.. Get it?. The DNA extraction process in the lab mixes the sample. So if JB's DNA was "comingled" with some "foreign DNA" it got that way during the lab process. ALL DNA tests get mixed in the lab--that's just the way the process works--look it up!

 

[MIBRO]

Britt, Ivy, Toltec - who is saying JonBenét's DNA in the mixed samples is in a condition that differs from the other donor/s?

A complete JonBenét DNA profile could be obtained from taking tissue or blood at autopsy, but the condition of her DNA in the mixed sample is not known (at least not to me).

 

[Britt]

Britt, Ivy, Toltec - who is saying JonBenét's DNA in the mixed samples is in a condition that differs from the other donor/s?

A complete JonBenét DNA profile could be obtained from taking tissue or blood at autopsy, but the condition of her DNA in the mixed sample is not known (at least not to me).

If JB's DNA from the crime scene was incomplete/degraded, how could it have been matched and identified as hers? If it were just a partial/degraded sample, then ALL of the crime scene DNA would be nothing but a collection of unidentified DNA markers. But that is not the case. Some of it was ID'd as JB's.

By the way, I wonder what's up with the DNA-X that was found at the crime scene but NOT on JB's body or clothes (per Beckner's deposition)? That is yet another DNA sample, but not the one which is the subject of Lin Wood's latest media tour. What has Keenan done with that sample?

 

[Angie]

Has anyone confirmed that the underpants she had on where even hers? Last I heard they were way too big to be hers. So who's to really know where that stain originated from. Maybe Wood can prove that those where indeed her underwear.

 

[Nehemiah]

Has anyone confirmed that the underpants she had on where even hers? Last I heard they were way too big to be hers. So who's to really know where that stain originated from. Maybe Wood can prove that those where indeed her underwear.

Good point, Angie. And then, to throw this into the mix about the underpants--this article from Geraldo back in '97 which says:

www.thewebsafe.tripod.com/051419...rdongeraldo.htm

Geraldo Rivera - Wednesday, May 14, 1997


CNBC News Transcripts, May 14, 1997

SHOW: RIVERA LIVE (9:00 PM ET)

May 14, 1997, Wednesday 4:29 PM


....Ms. McKINLEY: They had three things: They had a hair on a blanket, they had some fingernail cuttings with perhaps some DNA under the cuttings from JonBenet and they had a pair of her underwear that might have had bloodstains on it. But the bloodstains, my sources tell me, had been washed over and over again in the laundry and they might not have been able to get any DNA from those stains. So it might have been old.

RIVERA: The child's underwear had bloodstains.

Ms. McKINLEY: From what my sources say, yes. I have two very good sources who've told me that. But they might not have gotten anything from the DNA because it might have been an old bloodstain.

RIVERA: I just remind everybody the Enquirer has been reporting, and is standing by the story, that the DNA indicates Dad. Again, our experts have said almost nightly that it might be, as Tom Koby suggests and Carol now repeats and reports, almost, if not irrelevant, not the--the magic bullet that investigators and the rest of us are waiting for. But I am also promised a bombshell on this topic tomorrow.

Nehemiah: Okay, what happened to the story that the panties were new out of the package? Is is this all totally irrelevant now?


__________________

 

[Ivy]

Nehemiah, I've never heard any report contradicting the info that the size 12 day-of-the-week panties JonBenet was wearing came from a newly opened package found in a dresser drawer. JonBenet wore a size 6, so the panties were too large. It seems to me I read that Patsy said she'd originally bought the set of panties to give away as a gift, but that JonBenet wanted them.

 

[Nehemiah]

I agreee, Ivy. The Geraldo program that I referenced was early on....about six months after the murder so I guess lots of things changed from that point.

 

[Nehemiah]

Certainly worth a revisit to this thread in light of the current DNA talk.

 

[kcksum]

I'll say it again: The presence of a minute amount of DNA at a crime scene does NOT necessarily mean that the minute DNA came from the killer!!
It could have come from a completely innocent source that has absolutely nothing to do with the crime.

In every homicide there will be circumstances and/or "evidence" that does not have anything to do with the crime itself. This case is no different.
The intruiging thing is to watch the Ramsey spin team LATCH ON to those
things that have nothing to do with the crime and see them spin it into
getting the public to believe that it does. Ignoring all the evidence that DOES point to them (like Smit has a habit of doing) - the focus on the things
that will never point back to them - or anyone involved in the crime - because in reality it nothing to DO with the crime.

\
I can not for the life of me understand why you think dna found in a drop of blood in the underpants of a victim who was sexully assaulted is not evidence in this crime. The only explanation can be that you just can't bear to see the evidence for what it is.
I can respect that. Some of you people have spent countless hours of your life focusing on the belief that the Ramsey's did this. Now that they have dna with 13 markers that excludes the family found in her blood, in her underwear, you have decided that itisn't a dna case. Tell me this......if a factory workers dna can be deposited so easily in a childs underwear, then the fibers of her parents clothing who held her, lived with her, bathed her and dressed her could very easily be deposited on her clothing and body with no problem. See.......we can twist and interpret the evidence in any way that fits our own assumptions.
If the FBI took the time and money to deposit that dna into codis it was not degraded.And those of you who keep saying that the Ramsey's are still the number one suspects.....WRONG!!!! You need to listen to the current DA, and the current POLICE CHEIF....they believe the evidence points to an intruder. We don't have to listen to the old opinions because their books and movie deals and so forth are over and done and they didn't solve the case. They are bitter, and of course will never believe anyone but the Ramsey's did this......as will many of you on these forums.