Latest news with #STRmix
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Yahoo
Fingerprints found on a cigarette pack helped solve a 50-year-old cold case in California
An Ohio man has been charged in the decades-old murder of a California woman after authorities linked him to fingerprints found on a cigarette pack in the victim's Volkswagen Beetle, officials said. The prints belonged to Willie Eugene Sims, 69, and it was discovered in the car of Jeanette Ralston, 24, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker said Tuesday in a news release. Ralston appeared to have been strangled and sexually assaulted when her body was found wedged into the VW's back seat on Feb. 1, 1977, near a bar in San Jose, Baker said. Jeanette Ralston. (County of Santa Clara) DNA found on Ralston's fingernails and on the alleged murder weapon — a shirt used to strangle her — was later found to match Sims, Baker said. Sims is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in San Jose on one count of murder, Baker said in an email. It was not immediately clear if he has a lawyer to speak on his behalf. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years to life in prison. Baker said investigators had previously sought to identify the prints through an FBI database. But those efforts had proved futile, he said. Then, last year, Baker said his office "threw a Hail Mary" and ran the prints again after the FBI updated the search algorithm in the fingerprint database. The effort was successful, he said, and produced a "hit" for Sims, who was living in Ashtabula County, northeast of Cleveland. The cigarette pack that helped solve the case is circled in red. (County of Santa Clara) Baker told NBC Bay Area that Ralston's son, who was 6 when his mother was killed, told him that he was thankful for Sims' arrest. "His birthday is coming up," Baker said. "He said this was such a great birthday present." Ralston was found dead after her friends told authorities she left the bar with an unknown man just before midnight on Jan. 31, 1977, Baker said. Her VW was found the next day in the carport area of an apartment complex near the bar. Her killer had tried to burn the vehicle but failed, Baker said. At the time, Sims was a private assigned to what was then an Army base in Monterey County, south of San Francisco, Baker said. In 1978, he was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder and robbery in a Monterey County, California, case that involved another woman, court documents show. Sims was sentenced to four years in prison. Sims left California long before DNA became an essential forensic tool for law enforcement, Baker said, and although his prints were in the FBI's database, it was not until last August when Baker was notified of Sims' identity. 'Forensic genealogy gets all the attention these days,' Baker said. 'But a retired cold case prosecutor from the San Diego DA's Office told me years ago to never underestimate latent print search since the FBI upgraded the algorithm.' Baker also said they relied on a powerful new forensic tool known as STRmix to help develop DNA profiles from crime scene evidence. The tool uses statistical modeling to analyze tiny and complex mixtures of genetic material that likely would have been considered unusable a decade ago. This article was originally published on
NBC News
08-05-2025
- NBC News
A fingerprint found on a cigarette pack helped solve a 50-year-old cold case in California
An Ohio man has been charged in the decades-old murder of a California woman after authorities linked him to a fingerprint found on a cigarette pack in the victim's Volkswagen Beetle, officials said. The print belonged to Willie Eugene Sims, 69, and it was discovered in the car of Jeanette Ralston, 24, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker said Tuesday in a news release. Ralston appeared to have been strangled and sexually assaulted when her body was found wedged into the VW's back seat on Feb. 1, 1977, near a bar in San Jose, Baker said. DNA found on Ralston's fingernails and on the alleged murder weapon — a shirt used to strangle her — was later found to match Sims, Baker said. Sims is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in San Jose on one count of murder, Baker said in an email. It was not immediately clear if he has a lawyer to speak on his behalf. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years to life in prison. Baker said investigators had previously sought to identify the print through an FBI database. But those efforts had proved futile, he said. Then, last year, Baker said his office "threw a Hail Mary" and ran the print again after the FBI updated the search algorithm in the fingerprint database. The effort was successful, he said, and produced a "hit" for Sims, who was living in Ashtabula County, northeast of Cleveland. Baker told NBC Bay Area that Ralston's son, who was 6 when his mother was killed, told him that he was thankful for Sims' arrest. "His birthday is coming up," Baker said. "He said this was such a great birthday present." Ralston was found dead after her friends told authorities she left the bar with an unknown man just before midnight on Jan. 31, 1977, Baker said. Her VW was found the next day in the carport area of an apartment complex near the bar. Her killer had tried to burn the vehicle but failed, Baker said. At the time, Sims was a private assigned to what was then an Army base in Monterey County, south of San Francisco, Baker said. In 1978, he was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder and robbery in a Monterey County, California, case that involved another woman, court documents show. Sims was sentenced to four years in prison. Sims left California long before DNA became an essential forensic tool for law enforcement, Baker said, and although his prints were in the FBI's database, it was not until last August when Baker was notified of Sims' identity. ' Forensic genealogy gets all the attention these days,' Baker said. 'But a retired cold case prosecutor from the San Diego DA's Office told me years ago to never underestimate latent print search since the FBI upgraded the algorithm.' Baker also said they relied on a powerful new forensic tool known as STRmix to help develop DNA profiles from crime scene evidence.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Yahoo
N.J. judge allows use of powerful DNA tool in quadruple murder trial
A New Jersey judge ruled that prosecutors can use evidence from a powerful and increasingly common DNA tool in the upcoming trial of a man charged in the 2018 murder of four relatives. Monmouth County Judge Marc Lemieux agreed with prosecutors that STRmix, which allows forensic analysts to test tiny, complex DNA samples that likely would have been considered unusable a decade ago, had withstood repeated testing and been found reliable. 'STRmix works, and it appears to work very well,' he wrote in a 212-page ruling last week. Defense lawyers for Paul Caneiro, who is awaiting trial in the murder of his brother and his brother's family, had urged the judge during a weekslong hearing last year to block evidence gathered using STRmix because they said it had not been properly vetted for use in criminal cases. Caneiro, who was 51 at the time of the killings, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder in the slaying of Keith Caneiro, 50; Jennifer Caneiro, 45; and their two children, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8. They were found in their home on Nov. 20, 2018, in Colts Neck, 47 miles south of New York City. Prosecutors have alleged that Caneiro fatally shot his brother, stabbed his niece and nephew, and shot and stabbed his sister-in-law before he set their home ablaze. He then set his own house on fire in an effort to cover up the crime, authorities have alleged. Jury selection is expected to start in May. Prosecutors introduced more than a dozen DNA samples in the case using STRmix, which was developed by scientists in New Zealand and Australia and introduced in the United States roughly a decade ago. Experts have said the software — which uses statistical modeling to analyze complex samples obtained from something as small as a few cells left on a doorknob — has revolutionized how DNA is analyzed and is now likely used by a majority of forensic labs in the United States. In one instance in the Caneiro case, DNA analysts were unable to obtain results using traditional methods when analyzing a pair of bloodstained jeans discovered in Paul Caneiro's basement. But after the lab started using STRmix, the software showed that DNA from the stain was 2.7 septillion times more likely to have come from Paul Caneiro's nephew than someone else, a forensic analyst said during the hearing. Paul Caneiro's defense lawyers had challenged the software, saying it hadn't been proved reliable in the same way that 'safety-critical' systems used in cars and airplanes are. STRmix, they said in a brief, can produce false results that could help wrongfully convict someone. This article was originally published on
NBC News
11-03-2025
- NBC News
N.J. judge allows use of powerful DNA tool in quadruple murder trial
A New Jersey judge ruled that prosecutors can use evidence from a powerful and increasingly common DNA tool in the upcoming trial of a man charged in the 2018 murder of four relatives. Monmouth County Judge Marc Lemieux agreed with prosecutors that STRmix, which allows forensic analysts to test tiny, complex DNA samples that likely would have been considered unusable a decade ago, had withstood repeated testing and been found reliable. 'STRmix works, and it appears to work very well,' he wrote in a 212-page ruling last week. Defense lawyers for Paul Caneiro, who is awaiting trial in the murder of his brother and his brother's family, had urged the judge during a weekslong hearing last year to block evidence gathered using STRmix because they said it had not been properly vetted for use in criminal cases. Caneiro, who was 51 at the time of the killings, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder in the slaying of Keith Caneiro, 50; Jennifer Caneiro, 45; and their two children, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8. They were found in their home on Nov. 20, 2018, in Colts Neck, 47 miles south of New York City. Prosecutors have alleged that Caneiro fatally shot his brother, stabbed his niece and nephew, and shot and stabbed his sister-in-law before he set their home ablaze. He then set his own house on fire in an effort to cover up the crime, authorities have alleged. Jury selection is expected to start in May. Prosecutors introduced more than a dozen DNA samples in the case using STRmix, which was developed by scientists in New Zealand and Australia and introduced in the United States roughly a decade ago. Experts have said the software — which uses statistical modeling to analyze complex samples obtained from something as small as a few cells left on a doorknob — has revolutionized how DNA is analyzed and is now likely used by a majority of forensic labs in the United States. In one instance in the Caneiro case, DNA analysts were unable to obtain results using traditional methods when analyzing a pair of bloodstained jeans discovered in Paul Caneiro's basement. But after the lab started using STRmix, the software showed that DNA from the stain was 2.7 septillion times more likely to have come from Paul Caneiro's nephew than someone else, a forensic analyst said during the hearing. Paul Canerio's defense lawyers had challenged the software, saying it hadn't been proved reliable in the same way that 'safety-critical' systems used in cars and airplanes are. STRmix, they said in a brief, can produce false results that could help wrongfully convict someone.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Yahoo
Judge OKs use of controversial DNA evidence in Paul Caneiro quadruple murder trial
FREEHOLD -- Monmouth County's top judge has rejected Paul Caneiro's bid to keep critical evidence out of his quadruple murder trial, ruling late last week that DNA evidence generated by cutting-edge but controversial computer software can be introduced to a jury deciding the case. Superior Court Judge Marc C. Lemieux, in a decision Thursday and made public Monday, denied the 58-year-old Ocean Township man's motion to exclude DNA evidence analyzed with a computer software program known as STRmix at his upcoming trial in the 2018 murders in Colts Neck of his brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. Attorneys from the state Public Defender's Office challenged the results generated from the software at a weeks-long hearing late last year. Defense attorneys argued the technology — which utilizes a method of analysis known as probabilistic genotyping — did not undergo adequate, independent testing in the scientific community to prove its reliability for use in criminal trials. Lemieux, Monmouth County's assignment judge, rejected that argument in a 212-page ruling that is likely to have statewide implications for the STRmix software, which had never before been subject to a court challenge in New Jersey. More on the case: Caneiro's quadruple murder trial pushed back to May as new attorney joins his defense "STRmix has been tested,'' Lemieux wrote in his decision. "It has been tested over 9 billion times. Its performance across a vast range of samples has been extensively charted. "The numerous articles, the discussion and spirited debate between forensic experts as to (probabilistic genotyping's) role in their industry, and the thoughtful and thorough judicial opinions from other jurisdictions all lead to the same conclusion: probabilistic genotyping is reliable. STRmix implements it reliably. STRmix works, and it appears to work very well.'' While the DNA evidence generated by STRmix will be admissible at Caneiro's trial, the defendant can raise issues about what impact related contributors to DNA mixtures have on the results, whether laboratories processing the results adhered to standard operating procedures and general criticisms of probabilistic genotyping and the STRmix software, Lemieux ruled. STRmix and other probabilistic genotyping programs are used to analyze small amounts and complicated mixtures of DNA that often can't be analyzed by the traditional method of DNA analysis in use for decades. The traditional method, know as random match probability, generates a statistic on the probability a match to a DNA profile can be found in the general population. Probabilistic genotyping generates a "likelihood ratio" that a person of interest can either be included or excluded as a contributor to a DNA mixture. Jury selection for Caneiro's trial is scheduled to begin May 19. He is charged with the murders of his brother, Keith, 50; sister-in-law Jennifer, 45; niece Sophia, 8; and nephew Jesse, 11, as well as other crimes that speak to the motive for the killings and attempts to cover them up. Emergency workers responding to a slow-burning fire at Keith Caneiro's mansion on Willow Brook Road in Colts Neck discovered the bodies of the victims on Nov. 21, 2018. Caneiro family murders: Upcoming trial to spotlight alleged web of betrayal and greed Keith Caneiro had been shot four times in the head and once in the back. Jennifer Caneiro and the two children were repeatedly stabbed and badly burned. Jennifer Caneiro also was shot in the head. Prosecutors allege Paul Caneiro committed the murders after his brother found out he was stealing from businesses they co-owned. They allege the defendant then set fire to the mansion before setting his Ocean Township home ablaze to make it look like the entire family was being targeted by violent thugs. DNA that the STRmix program determined to be a mixture from Paul and Sophia Caneiro, and another mixture to which Jesse was deemed to be a contributor, was later found on clothing recovered from the defendant's basement. Prosecutors have said they also have additional DNA evidence analyzed by the traditional method that implicates Paul Caneiro in the crimes. The Public Defender's Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lemiuex's ruling on the STRmix DNA evidence. "While we certainly appreciate and respect the exhaustive analysis conducted by the Court in this matter, given the close proximity to the anticipated start of the trial, we must respectfully decline further comment,'' Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said. Both sides have indicated in the past that the ruling would most likely be subject to an appeal. Lemeiux also will be tasked with ruling on a defense motion to move Caneiro's trial out of Monmouth County due to pretrial publicity. He has scheduled a hearing on that motion for April 2. Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@ This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Caneiro Colts Neck murder trial: Judge rules DNA evidence can be used
