The
FBI Laboratory today lauded state and local laboratories
unprecedented success in linking serial violent crimes
by registering more than 80 matches against the FBI’s
National DNA Index System (NDIS) last month. Additionally,
the FBI’s federal convicted offender program
recorded its first NDIS match during the final week
in August. The federal match was between the federal
convicted offender database and a DNA profile from
a case involving a sexual assault of a juvenile in
Tampa, Florida contributed by the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement. Two weeks later, as a result of
this match, an arrest was made in this case.
The final week of August was one of the most successful
weeks ever in the four years that NDIS has been operational.
During that week, 33 matches were made, 17 by Oklahoma
in that state’s first upload of DNA profiles
into NDIS. To illustrate the power and reach of NDIS,
Oklahoma’s DNA matches were made with cases in
the FBI Laboratory, Kansas, Colorado, Missouri, Texas,
California, Arizona, and Maine. Examples of other
matches included the FBI Laboratory matching a profile
from New York; and Virginia posting matches with Washington
state and Oregon.
Of the 33 matches made in the last week of August,
24 matched convicted offender DNA profiles already
contained in the national database with DNA profiles
from unknown individuals obtained at crime scenes
or from rape kits, thus solving these previously unsolved
cases. Two of these matches resulted in the arrest
in Pennsylvania of the perpetrator of two rapes. The
other nine matches involved connecting together previously
unrelated crime scenes.
The FBI implemented NDIS in October, 1998 to allow
state laboratories the ability to electronically compare
and exchange DNA profiles with one another in an effort
to link serial violent offenses. Today 44 states,
the FBI and U.S. Army Lab participate in the NDIS
program. NDIS contains nearly 1.4 million offender
DNA samples and 47,000 DNA profiles developed from
crime scenes and rape kits. In the four years of NDIS,
there have been approximately 5,000 DNA profile matches
across 36 states and the District of Columbia. In
December, 2000 legislation was passed which authorized
collection and inclusion of DNA samples of certain
federal offenders into NDIS. Full implementation of
the federal convicted offender program began in July,
2002. In only the second upload of federal data, the
first federal match was made.
