DNA Technology
and its use in solving crimes
Jacob Janssen's Breadcrumb Trail
1. This brought me to a government website which talked about how DNA was used to solve crimes. This website talked about how DNA can be incredibly accurate in solving a crime, if the biological evidence exists.
http://www.justice.gov/ag/dnapolicybook_solve_crimes.htm
2. I was not really looking for just the process, I was looking for the process and a certain case where the criminal was exonerated for his crime after DNA evidence was applicable, so I changed my search to DNA Technology + Solving Crimes + Exoneration
3. This brought me to another site which was blocked by the school, but had information about how a boxer exonerated through DNA Evidence was the subject of a Bob Dylan song, so I change my keyword search to DNA Evidence + Boxer + Exonerated + Bob Dylan
4. This brought me to the Wikipedia page of Rubin Carter, a boxer who was charged with murder and sent to jail for ten years, until DNA Evidence exonerated him for the crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_Carter
5. I found out that Rubin Carter was freed by DNA Evidence, but I found a "better" case. That case of Raymond Towler. Charged with the rape of an 11 year old girl and served 30 years before being set free.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/05/raymond-towler-convicted-_n_564158.html
I have decided to focus my topic of the exoneration of Raymond Towler.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Raymond_Towler.php
There was a crime with a rape of a 11 year old and an assault of a 12 year old boy.
Raymond towler was charged with these crimes after being identified by the victims and the witnesses there. Even though he had alibi, he was still charged to life for the for girl and 12-40 years for the crime of the boy. There were four rounds of DNA testing. The first two were errors since there was nothing in the envelope. The third round found no dna evidence on the victims clothing. The four round which was on the girls underwear. This was done through Y-STR DNA testing, which is used to isolated males DNA through focusing on the Y chromosome.
The Exoneration:
Raymond Towler was finally exonerated for his crimes on May 5th, 2010 after nearly thirty years in prison. I could not find if he recieved a settlement but the first thing he did after being released from prison was to have a pizza party.