Missouri State Highway Patrol uses DNA to catch criminals.

The samples will be kept in a database until they are matched.

By Nicole Thompson

Published Oct. 16, 2009

A recent extension of DNA profiling laws has helped the Missouri State Highway Patrol to catch more criminals.

On Aug. 28, a law went into effect requiring anyone 17 years or older arrested for felonies or particular offenses to surrender DNA samples upon arrest. Previously, the law only required samples from those who were convicted, not arrested.

The extension of the law yielded its first criminal charge earlier this month. The patrol's Springfield crime laboratory matched a DNA sample to a previously unsolved burglary case in Jasper County, a Highway Patrol news release stated.

"For the longest time it was just convicted offenders, now the trend is to put arrestees (in the database), people who aren't necessarily convicted, but arrested for certain crimes," DNA Criminalist Supervisor Jason Wyckoff said.

There are two sides to DNA profiling. One is the casework side, which involves analyzing DNA found at crime scenes. This is Wyckoff's job in the Springfield Crime Lab, where the first DNA match was made.

Wyckoff said whenever an obtained sample can be put into the database, all people who have already given their DNA by state law requirement are searched.

"If the DNA sample hits with someone in the database, it generates an investigative lead for the police," he said.

The other side of DNA profiling involves criminals giving a DNA sample via a cheek swab upon arrest. These samples are then stored in a database in Jefferson City.

Columbia Police Department spokeswoman Jessie Haden said CPD officers are trained in collecting DNA samples. Officers are also trained to deal with prisoners who resist giving DNA.

"There are kits that the officers now have available to them," Haden said. "It's all kind of prepackaged to streamline the process."

The casework side of DNA profiling can be expensive due to the time and supplies involved, Wyckoff said.

"If you have a T-shirt that has several bloody stains, it takes a lot of work to go through and find the best stains and take it to DNA and profile it," Wyckoff said.

Haden said CPD is collecting samples at a more cost-efficient rate because it used to be more expensive.

DNA can take months to more than a year to process and yield a result. In less critical situations, DNA might not be processed at all.

DNA profiling and the use of Combined DNA Index System is used nationwide as a means to investigate crime. Missouri is the 21st state to institute arrestee legislation, state CODIS administrator Susanne Brenneke said. The offender index in CODIS holds 188,048 DNA samples in its database.

Once DNA from a crime scene is entered into the database, it can be searched against offenders from every state, Wyckoff said.

"You can see what a powerful tool this can be due to the fact that people are extremely mobile and will go all over the U.S.," he said