Frog … I do not know whether DNAPrint’s test has been used in the JonBenet case. However, I am nearly certain that as recently as last summer it had not.
I do know that by early 2004, investigators from the DA’s office, who had taken over the case from the Boulder PD in 2000, were aware of DNAPrint’s technology. However, (and I know this from someone who is very close to the case) the DA’s office had decided against using DNAPrint’s test because they felt that inferring a suspect’s race from DNA was not “politically correct”.
An occasional poster on this board had a friend who knew the Ramseys personally, I believe through John Ramsey’s political campaign in MI. When this poster learned that the DA office was not going to use DNAPrint's test because they deemed it not to be “politically correct”, he contacted his friend. His friend subsequently had a face-to-face meeting with the Ramseys and told them about the test. (All this happened just before the stockholder’s meeting last summer.) I didn't hear much about what happened after the meeting with the Ramseys, other than that the Ramseys were quite interested in having the test performed. It sounds like that may have finally happened.
You say "it should be a wake-up call to realize that it is not always very useful".
You are completely off base here -- it is extremely useful and important to know that the DNA in JonBenet's underwear belonged to a "white male" who is not a member of the Ramsey family. Remember, DNA evidence can also be used to exonerate the innocent. Had the results of the test been know earlier, it may have changed the course of the investigation.
The Boulder PD, who royally screwed up the case by focusing almost exclusively on the Ramseys, tried to explain away any piece of evidence that did not fit their neat little theory that the Ramseys did it. They even tried to explain the male DNA in JonBenet's panties, by saying that it could have come from a sneeze from an Asian factory worker where the panties were made.
Perhaps if the test had been available at the time of JonBenet's murder, and been used during the initial investigation, the Boulder PD would not have wasted valuable time and resources looking in the wrong places. JonBenet's family might now have justice instead of the He11 they have been through since the vicious murder of their beautiful little girl.
