Re: Follow-up on cat hair analysis
According to an article in the November 7, 1999 New Haven Register entitled "Cat hair could be key: Investigators test feline DNA in Jovin murder case": "Suzanne Jovin's clothes were sent to state Public Safety Commissioner Henry C. Lee in mid-December 1998, and the animal hairs were found in late January." According to Thursday's Associated Press article referenced by this post, almost as a passing thought, "The hairs were returned to investigators in December." Say what? Why the five month delay?!
The following are quotes taken from an e-mail I sent to the person who performed the cat hair testing, Stephen J. O'Brien, the director of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Institutes of Health:
Q. I read the AP report with interest today about the lack of DNA found in cat hairs taken from the coat of murder victim Suzanne Jovin. I also note that the hairs were sent to you in November of 1999 and returned in December. What I was wondering was why the five month delay in reporting the results? Was this at the request of the New Haven Police, because no one thought to ask you until recently, or perhaps you just thought now the time was right?
A. We sent our report in last December to the New Haven District Attorney's Office. Questions of timing of release to the public should be addressed to them as I do not know.
Q. A November 7, 1999 New Haven Register article reported "If the cat hairs on Jovin's coat match pet hairs found earlier in the investigation, authorities may be able to link a specific person with her homicide." Am I to infer you analyzed other pet hairs that were not found on Jovin's coat? Were they also cat hairs? Can you shed any light at all on this statement?
A. The hairs we analyzed were from a potential suspect and did not yield enough DNA to be diagnostic or useful.
Q. This may sound naive, but if you have two sets of cat hairs, can you see if they match even without extracting DNA?
A. The answer to your last question is not with any certainty based on appearance alone.
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I guess I always assumed the New Haven Police would release the results the moment they got them. The "no comment" by New Haven Police Capt. Brian Sullivan confirms that the report didn't come from his office. I assumed the local media would have known better. If so, why didn't they pursue this one-time front page story? Now that the police have admitted they have absolutely no evidence whatsoever --zilch, none, nada -- why isn't the local media demanding answers from the police about why not only did they rush to judgment, but have been scrambling to cover it up ever since?
I think there should be an immediate state investigation of the New Haven Police.
- Jeff |
