Did lab’s wait time allow boy 2nd rape?
By Associated Press
Pioneer Press (MN)
March 4, 2007
ST. PAUL – The state crime lab already had a DNA sample on file that could have linked a rape suspect to an earlier attack before he committed another assault on New Year’s Day.
The 16-year-old suspect was charged in each case Friday with criminal sexual conduct. Prosecutors may seek to move his case to adult court.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s crime lab had DNA samples from both the alleged assailant and the victim of the September attack.
They were awaiting processing when the same assailant allegedly raped a 57-year-old woman on New Year’s Day in the city’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood, one of two attacks in a week that terrorized the area.
“We would have saved a lot of time and anguish on the East Side,” St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Tim O’Malley, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the backlog has been created with the increased use of DNA in criminal cases. About 80 percent of the more than 2,200 cases took over a month to process last year, he said.
“That’s not acceptable, and we need to improve on that,” O’Malley said. He said that Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s 2008-09 budget proposal includes money for 20 new scientists at the crime lab.
He said the processing on the September assault “probably (took) longer than average, but I don’t know without digging into it.”
Harrington said the delay is a good example of why the St. Paul Police Department wants to start doing DNA testing in its own lab. The department plans to ask the federal government for $2.24 million this year to make it happen.
“The BCA does remarkable work,” Police Spokesman Tom Walsh said. “But they’re simply overwhelmed with the volume of cases presented to them.”