DNAprint Genomics (DNAG)

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Then there's the Rocky Mountain News

http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2591842,00.html

Boulder murder revisited
DNA test may reveal clues in 1997 case

By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
January 21, 2004

BOULDER - Police are re-examining the 1997 Susannah Chase murder with the help of a DNA test that reveals a suspect's ethnicity.

The method, available for less than a year, points to a Hispanic or American Indian as the suspect in a case that shocked the city, Sgt. Kerry Yamaguchi said Tuesday.

Police will go back and talk to some people interviewed previously and reconsider old tips, Yamaguchi said.

The 23-year-old University of Colorado student was beaten in downtown Boulder early on Dec. 21, 1997, possibly with a baseball bat found nearby.

She died the next day without regaining consciousness.

The new tests were performed on DNA taken from sperm found during the initial investigation. Police received the test results last week.

The test is more than 90 percent accurate, said Richard Gabriel, the president of DNAPrint Genomics, of Sarasota, Fla., the company that did the lab work. It is based on 172 genetic markers, he said.

The test has been on the market since February 2003.

Gabriel said the test provides a "fuzzy photograph." But it's enough to point police toward certain leads.

Baton Rouge, La., police used the test in an investigation that led to the arrest of a suspected serial killer last May, according to that city's daily newspaper, The Advocate.

Boulder police have never established a motive in the Chase murder, although sexual assault is a "strong possibility," Yamaguchi said. The semen that was recovered did not belong to Chase's boyfriend or anyone else police have identified, Yamaguchi said.

Police are not close to identifying a suspect, but they have not given up, Yamaguchi said.

"We've never stopped (investigating)," Yamaguchi said. Tips are still coming in, with the latest coming in last month."