EP 16: Sketching Suspects with DNA
Are we catching up to pop-fiction's futuristic portrayal of DNA in crimesolving? How about a technology that can sketch up an image of a suspect based solely on a sample of his or her DNA? The Fayetteville, North Carolina, Police Department is one of just a few local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. openly using such a tool. Applying it to a decade-old, unsolved local case of a serial rapist, the FPD is catching new tips after releasing facial renderings based on analysis of the perpetrator's DNA -- a potentially important development, as victims didn't get a clear look at his face and could only give authorities limited descriptions. FPD says it's using this innovation cautiously but wants to show the public that the department is willing to try cutting-edge techniques to bring about justice. Hear how it works on this episode. Show notes: Complete details about the 'Ramsey Street Rapist' suspect - https://nextdoor.com/agency-post/nc/fayetteville/fayetteville-police-department/fayetteville-police-department-media-release-38457122/ Report leads on the case to FPD at 910-483-8477 or 910-433-1855 Fayetteville Observer story about 'Ramsey Street Rapist,' with composite images of suspect - http://www.fayobserver.com/news/local/fayetteville-police-closer-to-catching-ramsey-street-rapist/article_1509b1c0-6bac-5384-8c09-958a510467eb.html Police release DNA-based photos of 'Ramsey Street Rapist' - http://wncn.com/2016/12/14/fayetteville-police-release-dna-based-photos-of-ramsey-street-rapist/ More details - http://abc11.com/news/fayetteville-pd-hopes-new-technology-helps-catch-rapist/1657206/ NBC News from 2014 on "dying art" of police sketches - http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/dying-art-forensic-sketch-artists-face-digital-future-n41421 AP story on oldschool police sketch artistry - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3512027/Sketchy-work-Police-artists-nab-bad-guys-pencil-paper.html BBC coverage of Alec Jeffreys and DNA - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8245312.stm More - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5405470.stm
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. Now we do have a, a certified sketch artist on staff here. He was actually went to the FBI course on, forensic sketch artists, and he does a great job for us. Just that was the problem with these cases is that none of the victims really got a good look at the guy. They all happened at night. Drawing sketches of unknown suspects, not with pencils, but with DNA. My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities,
episode 16. So quick heads up, only because on this podcast, we typically don't get into subject matter as sensitive as heinous crimes, like rape and murder. But we don't get too graphic or anything. It's nothing that isn't already on prime time TV, and we actually end up talking about an open case that hopefully you can help authorities to close. This will all be in discussion of the application of DNA in crime solving. One day in November, in Leicester, England, a county in the English Midlands, a 15 year old girl named Linda Mann disappeared. She was on her way to a friend's house, but she never came back. No one saw her until the next morning, when her body was found. She had been raped and strangled. The police gathered what evidence they could, but there was nothing immediately conclusive in the way of leads to go on. Three years later, in the same area, another 15 year old girl named Dawn Ashworth went missing. It was two days after that that her body was found in a wooded site. The circumstances were similar to the case from three years earlier, a rape and a strangulation of a 15 year old girl. It looked like an MO, and there was a blood type found at the scene that matched the blood type of samples collected in that earlier case. The police arrived at a suspect, a 17 year old named Richard Buckland, and there was actually a confession for that second murder from Buckland while he was under questioning. But he said he wasn't involved in that first case from three years earlier. The police weren't buying that. They were holding him to both crimes. So to be sure and get the proof, they called in a scientist from the local university. His name was doctor Alec Jeffreys, and he, along with a doctor Peter Gill, examined the biological evidence gathered from both scenes to see if he could match them up, get a DNA match that would tell for sure whether Buckland was involved in not one, but both of the rapes and murders he was suspected of. They analyzed the samples and indeed found a match, but not related to Buckland. The confession from Buckland, who reportedly had learning disabilities, was false, a false confession. He didn't do it. The DNA evidence showed that. And that meant the person they were looking for was still out there. The subsequent investigation, which involved collecting and running DNA samples of thousands of men from around the area, eventually led to a name, Colin Pitchfork, a local baker who had paid one of his friends to provide a DNA sample in his place so so Pitchfork would stay off the radar. Once police learned about this, they tracked him down at his home, made the arrest, and linked him to both crimes through his DNA. He pleaded guilty to the two rapes and murders along with another crime and was sentenced to life. So besides the awful nature of these crimes and the fact that DNA was used to clear an innocent prime suspect, the story might not jump out at you as anything extremely notable in the context of investigations or crime solving. We've sadly heard too often of similar crimes. And in many of them, the application of DNA analysis has led to leads or a conviction. But there was something about this Collin Pitchfork case that was really notable, something that really stood out. The first crime was in 1983. The second, in 1986. The conviction came in 1988, and that was the very first time that DNA evidence was used to catch and convict a criminal. Decades later, we are intimately familiar with DNA. Right? At least in pop culture. We're still advancing DNA technology and procedure in criminal justice, but it's basically a genre at this point. Entire TV dramas depend on it, even if they're a little bit exaggerated in how the science actually works. But who knows, one day, maybe, we will be able to take a DNA sample, feed it into some kind of analyzer, and watch it sketch up an image of what the person actually looks like.
Well You know, as we look at embracing technology in areas that are our core functions of business, I think you'll see no other city in the state does it any better in in the way that we do it. This is Nat Robertson. He's the mayor of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Grabbed the call from chief Kelly because I saw another new piece of technology that we're using that will actually take, in the police department, a suspect's DNA and be able to create a profile from that DNA. So, this week we released images for a suspect based on a DNA sample that we had received. Wow. So we have the complete profile of what the guy looks like, the color of his hair.
Yeah. I mean, it's just it's remarkable. It's amazing. Yeah. So, yeah. It's real. And the Fayetteville Police Department is one of just a few across The US openly using it to close in on suspects. That was explained to me just before the holidays when mayor Robertson invited me to the city's offices to show how the local government is intentionally fighting the perception that government is a late adopter with technology. The city of Fayetteville is doing a lot of cool things, and I plan to focus on more of that in future episodes. But the DNA thing stands out because of its rarity. If you search the web, you will find other departments using this DNA imaging approach, like Fayetteville is, with all apologies to traditional sketch artists. But it's still uncommon at this point. And because it feels so new, the Fayetteville Police Department is approaching it carefully. Comparisons from the DNA that was given or A couple detectives sat down with me to explain it all, and they ended up talking about a suspect they're looking for from a series of rapes that occurred in town between 2006 and 2008.
It's commonly referred to as the case of the Ramsey Street rapist. One thing about the Ramsey Street civil rapist is we never really had a definitive view of him. Supposedly, there's a few composites that our sketch artist is looking for that They've got DNA, though. So guess what? There's three case that are connected by DNA. Each DNA has, individual markers. They took the markers. They put it into their their machine, and it pops out characteristics,
and everything comes out The detectives handed me a computer generated composite facial image based on that DNA. It's actually a series of images portraying this unknown suspect with different hairstyles or facial hair, and they've aged him to what he might look like today. And the guy in the pictures is actually pretty specific looking, a man of some European descent, fair skin. The DNA snapshot finds that there's a ninety five percent chance that he does not have blue or green eyes. To talk in more detail, they referred me to lieutenant John Sommerndyke of the Fayetteville Police Department's major crimes division. Hey, lieutenant Sommerndyke. He was actually really cool to talk to. He walked me through how the Fayetteville PD first learned about this technology and got interested in applying it. He said he first heard about it through a national news story. Near the end of,
2015, I I caught wind of a story that Kate Snow with NBC News did on this. It's a pretty new technology. I thought it was a pretty cool story. It actually kinda motivated me to to look into it. You know, this Snapshot DNA is kinda like AncestryDNA on steroids, if you will. Mhmm. You know, I think most most of your listeners are are probably familiar with that. You know, you can send in your DNA to Ancestry, and they can figure out, you know, basically where where you came from and and whatnot. But, this this snapshot DNA kinda ramps it up, but not, you know, not only predicts your ancestry, but it predicts your eye color, hair color, skin color, freckling, and, your your face shape, you know, based on a I think it's a a twenty five BMI, you know, is is a body mass index is what they use. Okay. Obviously, it doesn't take into account, injuries if you're, you know, overweight, underweight, tattoos or things of of that nature that might be on your face. But, you know, gives a pretty fair representation of what the, DNA says you you should look at look like. So, you know, not many agencies had really used it, and I didn't really see where there's any success stories with it yet. It seemed like it it was that new of a technology where maybe only a handful of agencies nationwide actually use this technology. You know, luckily, I I I had a chain of command that, supported what I was doing here with our cold case sexual assault unit, had a chief of police who was all for doing new things, trying new things out. If it doesn't work, we'll go on to the next new thing. So I I had complete support from, from the minute I brought it up to my chain of command, and I I got approval to to go ahead and try it out.
Since this was a new application for the city's investigations, they didn't wanna go all out with it. They wanna pick up one case and see how it went with the DNA snapshot. We wound up choosing the Ramsey Street rapes, which are a series of six rapes that happened between 2006
and February. We chose that mainly. The kind of the tie breaker for that was that, it was a little unclear with one of the victims whether the suspect was white or Hispanic. She could, no nobody really got a good look at the suspect. We didn't have a composite. We we kinda had a general description, of the suspect, but but nobody would recognize him if they are in the same room with him again. And, one of the victims even it was unsure what race he was, if he was Hispanic or white. So we kinda that's kind of the tiebreaker for us to choose these series of rapes. This would, you know, this would determine for sure what race the guy was at least. Okay. So we went ahead and, had it done. You know, we we put it out there. It's just generated, quite a few calls. You know, the the lead we did it about a month ago. We put it out about a month ago, and the, you know, the leads are still trickling in. And, you know, we're following up on on each and every one of them. You know, so far, we're pleased with the results. Obviously, we've gotten leads that we wouldn't have gotten before. And, you know, we're we're trying we're trying something new with this, and and, you know, hopefully, it'll get us where we wanna be and solve these. So, you know, obviously, the concept of
of of taking down bad guys with their own DNA is nothing new, but, I mean, this I'm sure you had a lot of questions when you first heard about it. You know, was there any skepticism? Was there kinda kinda what were the the early questions that you had?
Yeah. The the main thing yeah. I mean, it was pretty unproven and untested. So, really, we we kinda just took a chance with it. You know, and I even said during our press conference, I think one of the last questions asked and that the way I answered it, you know, I not really even sure I care if this is an exact representation of the guy or even if it looks anything like the guy. At the very least, we're showing that we're willing to try new things. I think that, survivors of rape need need to know that we're gonna take each and every case serious, that we're gonna do everything we can to solve each and every case. And regardless of whether this looks like the guy or not, I mean, it's unproven. It's untested. And that that was our main question. You know? What what proof do you have it works? Well, really, there is none. So we're kinda taking a leap of faith with this, but it it's generating interest in the cases again. Anybody that was in Fayetteville ten years ago and especially in North Fayetteville remembers these cases, you know, pretty you know, they you've people are still talking about them up in in North Fayetteville. People here are here ten years ago. So these, were pretty significant cases that happened back then. And, and we're generating more interest, and we're generating leads. We're generating phone calls that we didn't have before. We weren't we were getting nothing before we did this. So, yeah, I guess, to answer your question, we we we just kinda took a leap of faith with it. And it but it the result so far has been it's generated interest. It's generated the leads that we're following up on, and hopefully, it'll get us there.
In a much more broad sense, it seems like it might throw additional shadow on the already diminishing field of pencil and paper sketch artistry in police houses. With so many video recording devices all around us, we, more than we used to, have digital imagery to go on. There are also other kinds of programs that create composites based on witness input. NBC News in 2014 did a story on pencil sketch artists, quoting one professional as saying it's been called a dying art for years. But she did say with some hope that law enforcement agencies that use human sketch artists can keep them as long as they want. They don't have to worry about computer updates or software licenses. Less than a year ago, the Associated Press did a story about police sketch artists, explaining that the law enforcement community still highly values their work despite all the cameras rolling around us because these cameras aren't everywhere. Sometimes you just have witnesses. In the Ramsey Street cases, there are witnesses, but DNA is really being used to fill the gap. But in the context of technology in general, the pencil art has definitely declined. According to the AP, the Philadelphia Police Department used to put out 150 sketches a year when looking for suspects. Now they do about 10. While sketch artistry wouldn't get very far in the Ramsey Street case, I asked Sommer and Dike in general about the changes over the years in Fayetteville.
Yeah. Over the years, we've tried a few different things, with with composite, photographs. I mean, there's, some where we've had victim look at, victims look at eyes, nose, ears, and we put together something that probably wasn't even remotely close to what the suspect actually looked like. Now we do have a, a certified sketch artist on staff here who does very good work. He was actually went to the FBI course on forensic sketch artists, and, and he does a great job for us. Just that was the problem with these cases is that none of the victims really got a good look at the guy. They all happened at night. He he attacked with such, violence and and so quick that they never had a chance to see it coming, that he he, you know, he overpowered him quick. He wouldn't let them look at his face. So with what we had on hand, we it really wasn't applicable because nobody got a good look at the guy. Now we did have the guy's DNA, obviously, and that that's good. We have his DNA uploaded to the national database, but we've gotten zero hits in the past ten years. So this is just something new to, you know, get something out there. You know, you know, it's not and I don't I don't think Parabon That's the company that does the snapshot DNA. Represents it as an exact likeness of the guy's face, but we're we're hoping that some of the features will be close enough that'll make somebody go, oh, hey. Yeah. That kinda looks like Joe. Let let me let me give the Fayetteville police a call. So Sure. Yeah. I mean, we're hoping they'll get us that call that'll that'll get us there.
So how does it work in practice? Is there a machine at the Fayetteville Police Department that processes the DNA, or do you mail it off to the company that offers the service? Or explain, how you go from having the DNA to getting a reliable image of the person you're looking for.
Yeah. Now first, we had to, now we we, obviously, we have the suspect's DNA on hand here. We had to coordinate with the North Carolina State crime lab to verify that one of our three sent we we had the suspect's DNA recovered from three of our crime scenes. We had to coordinate first with this North Carolina State crime lab to verify that what we had was viable was was good enough to send off to Parabon. The the state prime lab CODIS administrator did, determine that what we had was good enough, that we had enough, left to to send off. So then we had to get a private lab involved to kinda dilute the sample, to get a sufficient amount. And I I I don't wanna get too techie because I don't really, really understand it that much myself, but we kinda had to send, our suspect DNA to a private lab to dilute it a little bit, if you will, to get a sufficient amount to send to Parabon so they could, you know, conduct their testing. And, Parabon did the testing. Yeah. We mailed it off basically to our private lab, and the private lab got it to Parabon, and, they did the testing there on on-site there in Virginia.
So tell me more about what you get back in terms of composites. I mean, you you get multiple versions of the same person, but what's the starting point with that is and and what are the the factors in coming up with composites that are all different looking but meant to represent the same person? Yeah. Now what we requested on that that was one of the issues we were dealing with with the, suspect
descriptions we had for from the victims is that they varied from age 20 to age 40 or mid thirties. So we're dealing with about a fifteen year time gap based on the victim descriptions of what they did see and what they did hear. So we requested, a composite a snapshot composite be done at the age of 25. It's kinda, you know, about the middle of the range of, what we are dealing with with the different suspect descriptions. And they do, the body mass index of twenty two, which is about average billed, which is about what our suspect was. So, they did one photograph, at age 25 with a, you know, average bill, basically. You know, we are pleased with what we got, so we requested them to do another composite at age 25 with a goatee. I think, four of the six victims mentioned they they thought he had a goatee. And then we age progressed it to what he might look like today at approximately age 40 years old, both with and without a goatee. So we had four total composites that that we put out there for the public, two from the time period he committed the rapes and two, indicating what he may look like today.
And and so you did get a response from the public when this when these, the series of images was put out?
Yeah. Absolutely. And that was the mess message I really wanted to get out there that I I mentioned at the press conference and on a subsequent radio interview is that, you know, we I'm pretty certain this guy was out there among us, living among us, you know, working among us. You know, had friends, family, girlfriends, you know, wife, whatever here here in town that he dealt with on a a daily basis. And that I'm sure there was somebody back then who maybe kinda suspected this guy but didn't come forward for whatever reason. And that was what I really hope is that, hey. This person is now ten years older. They're ten years wiser. They have this information that might help, and maybe they'll come forward and and say something to us. And we have like I said, the the leads are still trickling in. We're we're getting them pretty regular, or we're following up on all of them.
And so just so I know a little bit more about the the case in particular that we're talking about, I know it's still an open case and you can't, get too detailed because it's an investigation. But could could you, again, kinda give me the the narrative of the the Ramsey Street cases, the time period.
Yeah. No. No no problem at all. So, basically, our break was struck first in March 2006. He, he broke into an apartment, of a 23 year old lady, and, you know, she was in the shower when he broke in. And when she came out, he, he sexually assaulted her. So, basically, five of the six that happened between March '6 and January '8 were in that North Fayetteville area off of Ramsey Street in apartment complexes, where he basically broke in and, and raped the the women who were inside. One of them happened to be a, a female who was out on her morning run-in that same area, and he attacked her and raped her. But she also lived in an apartment in in that area that he operated in, so we suspect he was probably, doing some, prior, peeping or or stalking of her and then knew that she ran every morning, you know, at 5AM, and that was how he decided to attack her. We strongly suspect he was doing some sort of a recon or or peeping activities in the days or even weeks leading up to each rape because he knew that all of these women, they're either home alone or, I think one lived with her two small children and one had a female roommate. So he knew that all of these women either lived alone or they there was no men in the house. So from three of these cases, like I said, we got DNA from the crime scene uploaded into the National DNA database. But interesting enough, we got a link to a 2004 peeping tom case that happened in Harnett County probably about, fifteen minutes from the area where these rapes were were happening. So we know the guy has ties to North Fayetteville and or, you know, South Harnett County, you know, based on on on DNA. You know, we pretty much hit we hit the areas hard out there, after we realized there was a, you know, pattern with these rapes, and never seemed to to quite be able to to catch the guy. We and that was another reason we strongly suspect he was very familiar with the area. Probably was on foot, the entire time, lived in the area, knew the area probably better than we did because he always eluded us. We, you know, we always had special operations going on out there to try to catch him and always seemed like he eluded us. And when we scaled it down a bit, he would he would strike again.
So as the case remains unsolved, there haven't been any new crime reports locally that they can link to the Ramsey Street rapist since January 2008. The attacks just all of a sudden stopped. Fayetteville is a military town, and authorities think there's a chance that there might be some tie in there somewhere. That was one of the theories. The maybe military,
maybe used KIA or injured or transferred out of the area or, or maybe just stopped because he saw we were in in the area. You know, we did increase our presence in the area for quite a period of time, you know, after each one occurred. And so since adopting this angle on DNA technology, do do you feel closer to at least knowing who you're actually looking for? Again, we we don't represent it as an exact likeness, but it's just like, you know, when you have a sketch artist do a a sketch of a suspect. When you finally do catch the guy, I mean, it's just not an exact representation, but you're, you're usually, you're kinda like, oh, yeah. Yeah. It kinda looks like the guy. Look. The eyes are kinda beady like that or the ears are kinda like that. So I'm sure that's the case with the picture we have here. It's not an exact representation. But when we do identify them, we'll we'll say, hey. Yeah. Some of the features. Yeah. It kinda I I see I see it. Just, for example, I guess it's a 95% confidence level that he has hazel or brown eyes. And then we have a, a 98.3% confidence level that he has brown or black hair. And that's the one thing we did know. That was the one thing I was consistent among all the victims. They did know he had brown hair. So that kinda verified what we already knew about the guy. Okay. You know, could you also apply this technology to missing persons, for example, someone who's been missing for ten years and probably looks a little different with age if you have DNA of that person somehow. I mean, are there other applications for this kind of technology that you know of? Yeah. Absolutely. I believe in my research, I believe that is what one of the agencies did use it for. I believe they had some, remains, and, yeah, they used DNA to to get an approximation of what this person may look like and the and I hope it will get them that phone call to to ID the person. So, yeah, it definitely could be used for that. Yeah. It looks like most of it was used for, apprehending suspects whose DNA was left at crime scenes. But, yes, certainly, I I could see it being used for something like that to help identify a, some remains of a
unidentified person. So, for anyone who might be listening to this who might be, working at another, municipal or or law enforcement agency who who is interested in adopting a technology like this, is there any advice you would give in terms of approach, questions asked beforehand,
or, anything like that that might help them in the the pursuit? Yeah. Actually, you know, Parabon was, was very helpful with us and very patient with us and and our questions and that we had for them and, you know, explained the process to us and and whatnot. In the scheme of things, it really the the price wasn't that bad. I mean, we probably can spend just as much on a, on the case where we send multiple pieces of evidence off to our private lab for DNA testing. So in the scheme of things, the price really isn't an issue. I heard that this technology was available to some extent years ago, but the the price was at least double. I know, and we we chose not to use it for another case. But, it's it's more affordable now, and I imagine as the technology improves, it'll probably even become more more affordable than it is now. So I don't think, I mean, if if you're already sending items off to a private lab for DNA testing, this is gonna be right in line in that price range pretty much. So I I don't think price is that much of an issue. I guess the issue is if you're gonna do like us and just take a leap of faith and not wait around for somebody to have a success story, but be proactive and and and try to solve your case.
If you have any information about the Ramsey Street rapist, here are two numbers to call. (910) 483-8477, or (910) 433-1855. I'll have the composite images and related material in the show notes with this episode at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. The credit for the research that went into the narrative about Colin Pitchfork goes to the BBC. I want to say one more time, thanks again for such a great 2016. Thanks for your emails, suggestions, and other help, and please keep reaching out. Let me know what you thought of this episode. What technologically advanced stuff is going on in your city government? I'm at bbrown@nclm.org or on Twitter. The handle is at muni equation, @muniequation. Send me suggestions for future episodes. This podcast is made possible by the North Carolina League of Municipalities online at nclm.0rg. My name is Ben Brown, and I'll talk to you soon.
