Over the years I’ve read and heard many stories of people complaining that the cops took their details and filed a report but didn’t even bother dusting for prints after their house was robbed, so I was astounded that the police believe they have identified my brother’s burglar through DNA testing. There was a cigarette butt on the floor of his shed that had to have been left by the person who committed the robbery. The police took it, ran a DNA test on it and matched it to a man with prior convictions for burglaries, who is known to frequent a drug dealer in my brother’s neighborhood that the police have had under surveillance, and who exactly matches the description of the man seen in my brother’s driveway by his neighbor on the day of the robbery.
I’m impressed that they went to these lengths to solve the crime, but can hardly believe a break-in that netted a laptop, a couple of cameras and some random gadgets was considered worth the cost of DNA testing to solve. I only hope they somehow manage to recover the laptop (my brother had no backups of his photos, and lost every photo he ever took of his youngest son because they were all on that machine. Harsh lesson: learned).
Maybe the cops have a grant for DNA testing. Ir it’s a really slow crime week. Or they’re in the middle of an anti-smoking campaign. I agree it’s surprising they went to any effort at all.
Does he live in a very small town with almost no crime?
He lives on the outskirts of Melbourne, in a rural part of one of the outermost suburbs, but I think he said the relevant police department was one that’s further into the city.
The police did raid the druggies up the road after the break in and found tons of stolen goods, but nothing that belonged to my brother. Perhaps they’re just really keen to get those guys and hoped the DNA would link them. Has anyone else had experience with the police using DNA testing to solve petty crimes?
That’s my guess, that they really wanted some hard evidence to tie these guys in, and figured this was a great chance to make some charges stick. I can’t believe that might happen otherwise.
I see them inside all the time, generally used for specific operations, like going after and organised group, but often other detritus scum gets swept up.
Sometimes there is a need to deal with a certain type of offence that has the hallmark of just a few individuals, perhaps very prolific offenders. The main problem is that DNA samples take rather longer to process than you might imagine, it can takes weeks and months before results are returned.
Its not unusual for anything not to come up, until perhaps a speeder or a non-fine payer is picked up and suddenly a match arises.
Criminals are dumb, they don’t just carry out one type of offence and behave in a way that keeps the off the radar, they tend to infirnge many laws, minor and major, and its often the silly little things that hang them for their more serious offences.