How reliable is DNA in identifying suspects?
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Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times; FBI
AT ODDS: San Francisco defense lawyer Bicka Barlow subpoenaed a search of Arizona's database. Thomas Callaghan, head of the FBI's CODIS unit, has opposed Arizona-style searches.
A discovery leads to questions about whether the odds of people sharing genetic profiles are sometimes higher than portrayed. Calling the finding meaningless, the FBI has sought to block such inquiry.
By Jason Felch and Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
8:27 PM PDT, July 19, 2008 » Discuss Article (23 Comments)
State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona's DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles.
The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.
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The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.
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