Forensic DNA ethics_PhaseI

Sandra Yi

Earlier this month, Sorenson Forensics was certified to use a new test that determines a person's ethnicity based on their DNA, said South Salt Lake police detective Gary Keller.

Detectives would like to use that new technology in the Sherry Black investigation.

The Sorenson DNA test investigators want to run on the evidence was originally designed as an ancestry test. By analyzing the blood, detectives may get an idea what the alleged attacker looks like.

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Alex Cabrero

Inside an ordinary beige brick building off West Temple and about 2500 South, technology is being developed that could help police departments across the country crack "cold cases."

This building is home to Sorenson Forensics, where an ancestry DNA test has been created to help police investigators better identify, or eliminate, possible suspects.

"This really is brand new stuff," said Lars Mouritsen, chief scientific officer for Sorenson Forensics. "There are some other tests that have been developed that are similar in some respects, but none of those really are focused for the forensics industry."

It's a test that has been in the works for the past few years.

Using genetic samples, Mouritsen's team can get a better idea of what someone may look like.

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Martin Enserink

A year after a 16-year-old girl was brutally raped and murdered in the Netherlands in 1999, forensic geneticist Peter de Knijff broke the law himself. At the police's request, he set out to determine the geographic ancestry of the murderer from DNA in his semen. That was, he later admitted, “completely illegal” under Dutch law, which at the time allowed using DNA for traditional DNA identification but not for determining race, looks, or disease risk. De Knijff has no remorse. The police were unable to solve the case, and tensions were escalating in the rural community where the girl lived. Many pointed fingers at a nearby hostel for Kurdish, Iraqi, and Afghan asylum seekers. De Knijff's analysis showed that the killer was most likely from northwest Europe, which helped cooler heads prevail.

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The murder was heinous, there were no witnesses, and the police had few clues—except for some skin found under the fingernails of the victim that might belong to the killer. And that was all it took. From a few nanograms of DNA in the skin cells, a police lab determined that the murderer was a man of European origin with brown eyes and straight, dark-brown hair, approximately 45 years old and balding, and likely 1.90 meters in height. Within a few more hours, a police computer spewed out a sketch of the man's face seen from three different angles, which was all over the evening news. Soon, calls started pouring in from people who recognized the suspect.

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