Authors: Tim Junkin
In 1878 a Scottish physician and missionary in Japan, Dr. Henry Fauld, discovered fingerprints on ancient pottery. Dr. Fauld was inspired to begin a study of “skin-furrows” and is credited as being the first European to suggest using fingerprints to assist crime investigators with identifications. Fauld began trying to classify fingerprints and contacted the noted British biologist, Sir Charles Darwin about his findings. Darwin passed along Fauld's research to his cousin, Sir Francis Galton, considered to be one of the great scientists of his century.
Galton was already a famous anthropologist, statistician, and
explorer in the 1880s when he began studying fingerprint patterns. In 1892 he published a book that established for the first time that no two human being's fingerprints are exactly alike. Galton's goal at the time was the study of intelligence, heredity, and race, but he learned that none of these traits could be determined from a person's fingerprints. His research did prove that fingerprints could be used as a means of identification, and he developed a classification system based on pattern types that is still used today. Galton determined that the odds of one person's fingerprints matching those of another were one in sixty-four billion.
In the United States the use of fingerprints to make criminal identifications surged in the early 1900s, and by 1946 the FBI had over one hundred million fingerprints on file. This number had grown to two hundred million by 1971. No other method of personal identification matched the impact of fingerprints until scientific advances in the 1980s opened the door to genetic profiling through DNA analysis.
The modern story of DNA began in 1953 when an American scientist, James Watson, and an English scientist, Francis Crick, working together at Cambridge University, discovered the “double helix” structure of the chain of repeating molecules known as deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. Advances in understanding genetics and the workings of DNA would accelerate through the rest of the century. DNA is the molecular blueprint of heredity found in most living organisms. Almost every cell in the human body contains DNA. DNA molecules are found in hair, blood, saliva, skin, and even tears. The molecules are shaped like two strands twisted around each other to form a spiraling ladder, a double helix. The strands are made up of only four chemical “bases” that repeat millions of times in certain sequences. These bases pair up to form bridges between each strand, making up the rungs of the ladder. Just like the binary code used in computer language consists of zeros and ones
in various positions and sequences to represent data, the four chemical bases pair up in specific sequences along the DNA ladder. These sequences constitute the genetic code.
Almost 100 percent (99.9 percent) of the genetic code is identical in all humans. The code carries the instructions that make us look and function alike. We all have two eyes, two ears, arms, and legs. We walk, talk, and breathe using the same physiological mechanisms. It's the remaining one-tenth of 1 percent, or about three million of the three billion rungs on each person's DNA ladder that varies from one person to the next. Along the DNA ladder, sequences of base pairs that make up genes are interrupted by fragments of noncoding DNA that represent breaks in the genetic code. These fragments, called repetitive sequences, are different for each person in their length and number, creating a pattern unique to that individual.
An English geneticist working at Leicester University in England first developed the concept of a DNA fingerprint. Alec Jeffreys began studying molecular genetics in 1975 at the University of Amsterdam as a postdoctoral student. In 1977 he moved to Leicester Univeristy and changed the direction of his work. He started exploring the variations in genes and the evolution of gene families. In the early 1980s geneticists had begun working with a technique dubbed RFLP, for restriction fragment length polymorphism, which enabled them to analyze the regions of DNA that differed from one person to the next. The technique used a chemical probe to find the DNA sequences to be analyzed. In 1984 Alec Jeffreys took this a step further and discovered a new method of locating these regions along the structure of DNA, enabling him to isolate many specific fragments of DNA at one time. Using X-ray film, Jeffreys developed images showing the length of these fragments in repetitive patterns that looked like the bar codes used on retail packages. He realized that these patterns, which represent the
patterns of the base pairs along the DNA ladder, were distinct for each individual.
Alec Jeffrey's findings were published in the science journal
Nature
in 1985, the year of Kirk's first trial. Two years after his discovery, Jeffrey's new science was used to help solve the mystery of the two murdered teens in Narborough, England, recorded in Wambaugh's
The Blooding
.
Meanwhile in California, in 1983, a scientist named Kary Mullis was working on another problem associated with DNA analysis. His discovery, combined with Alec Jeffreys's work, produced the technology that would help save Kirk Bloodsworth.
Mullis was working on the problem of trying to analyze DNA when only a very small sample was available. He came up with the procedure, utilizing the enzyme that copies DNA inside a cell during DNA replication, for creating chain reaction reproductions inside a test tube, that became known as PCR. His technique enabled scientists to take a tiny section of DNA and replicate it very quickly so that there was a sufficient amount to test. Whereas the RFLP methodology required a biological specimen consisting of approximately ten thousand intact sperm cells to conduct a test, using the PCR technology an analysis could be conducted on a specimen consisting of as few as fifty to one hundred sperm. Mullis published his work in 1986.
In forensic identification, two samples of DNA, taken from different sources, can be compared by looking for matches in the repetitive patterns. The statistical certainty of an identification grows as DNA analysis is conducted on multiple genetic locations. The more locations that match, the more likely it becomes that the two DNA samples are from the same person. On the other hand, if two DNA samples are compared and there is no match at any single correlating genetic location, then the samples cannot have come
from the same person. Therefore, it is easier to rule someone out than to identify positively a match.
Initially, PCR-based tests were not as definitive as RFLP because they did not detect as many matches at as many locations on the DNA ladder. But they were quicker and cost the same. By the early 1990s scientific advances improved the statistical significance of PCR-based tests to the point where they were as practical as RFLP. In 1993 Mullis won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of the PCR technique.
In 1989, when Bob Morin first contacted Cellmark Diagnostics to inquire about a possible DNA analysis for Kirk, Cellmark was using only the RFLP technique, which required a substantial sample of fluid or other genetic material to conduct a test. In 1992, when Morin revisited the question of whether a DNA test could be performed on any trace of foreign blood or semen that might have been overlooked by the FBI, he turned to the scientist in the United States with the most experience in performing the advanced technology known as PCR. Kary Mullis had been an employee of the Cetus Corporation at the time of his PCR discovery. Cetus owned the rights to his technique even though Mullis's name was on the patent. Cetus initially authorized Dr. Edward Blake, exclusively, to employ its PCR technology.
At that time, there were many unanswered questions about the amount, age, and condition of a DNA sample that was necessary to conduct a valid test. It's been discovered since that DNA has survived from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand years ago in the remains of a woolly mammoth preserved in Siberian permafrost. DNA has been extracted from a bone of a Neanderthal human dating from forty thousand to fifty thousand years ago. Scientists know that DNA can be degraded or destroyed by environmental contaminants such as sunlight and detergent. Light, heat, moisture,
and pressure may break down a DNA sample such that no DNA fingerprint data or only a partial fingerprint can be obtained. However, environmental contaminants will not alter the DNA to the extent that an analysis will yield an incorrect result.
Bob Morin, of course, didn't think he had any semen to examine. The FBI had so determined. A DNA test was probably a futile exercise. But Morin needed to know that he had done anything and everything to save this young man.
T
HE YEARS HAD
been passing inexorably for Kirk Bloodsworth. Through half his twenties and now into his thirties he'd been buried alive. He'd miraculously survived two prison riots. Seven, eight, nine terrible years entombed. The world around him was changing. George Herbert Walker Bush had been elected president. The Berlin Wall had fallen. The United States had invaded and defeated Panama. Iraq had overrun Kuwait, and the United States had stormed into the Persian Gulf. The Soviet Union had collapsed. Bill Clinton defeated George Bush in the election and was waiting to be sworn in. All this while Kirk wasted away behind bars.
Meanwhile, the State of Maryland temporarily closed down parts of the old penitentiary for repairs. Most of the inmates in Kirk's building were moved to nearby Jessup to a newly constructed prison. The conditions were better. Kirk wrote his letters every day, kept the library organized, and lifted weights. Half was there, and Bozo. Kimberly Ruffner had shown his face a few times, and Kirk had spotted weights with him once, though Ruffner didn't say much.
Kirk thought he'd arrived at some kind of equilibrium, though he still cursed his existence, still hated what the state had made him.
That Christmas, 1992, Curtis and Jeanette visited him bringing cakes and cookies. In the new horseshoe-shaped prison visiting room, he was able to hold Jeanette's hand while they talked. She had aged since he'd been locked up. He knew the ordeal had ground her down. Her face was more wrinkled. She was frail. Her soft skin was loose. Some of her last words to Kirk were not to worry, that he was going to get out. “I've seen it in a dream, son,” she told him. She patted his hand. “You
will be
a free man . . .”
Kirk was watching President Bill Clinton's inauguration in January when he got a note that Anita Smith and Al Rose were in the visiting room and needed to see him. They told him that his mother had died of a massive heart attack. Kirk sat and sobbed for hours.
The warden allowed prison guards to escort him in chains for a short private viewing of his mother's body. He was driven in a windowless van to a local funeral home in Cambridge. Kirk was shackled, wrists to ankles. He never saw anyone but his mother's corpse. The warden wouldn't allow him to attend her funeral. Kirk spent many days in his bunk grieving.
When Bob Morin called him that April to tell him the news about the DNA, Kirk knew for certain that his mother had a hand in it. He felt her presence. Her felt her smile and touch.
After Kirk had finished running up and down the tier signaling a touchdown and hollering that it was over, that the DNA had cleared him, he had come back to the phone. Morin had then tried to explain that there were still issues to confront. That the test didn't mean he'd walk free tomorrow. Once again, Morin was surprised by Kirk's response. “That's okay,” Kirk answered. “I can wait now. What's important is that it tells the world that it wasn't me. That I didn't do this crime. What matters is that the test finally shows that it wasn't me . . .”
The morning after Morin and Kirk learned about the DNA results, Morin picked up the phone and dialed Ann Brobst. He told her of the test results reached by Dr. Blake's lab. While no testable sperm or DNA was found on the cotton swabs or the smears on the glass slides, the stain of semen on Dawn Hamilton's underpants had yielded enough genetic specimen to successfully employ the PCR technology. The analysis had definitively excluded Kirk Bloodsworth as the donor of the sperm. When Morin told Ann Brobst this, all that came through from the other end of the phone was silence. Finally, he heard a very shaky voice say, “You're kidding me . . . You're kidding me. . .” That's all she could reply.
Later, during a subsequent call, Brobst told Morin that her office would require a confirmatory test. Morin rarely lost his temper, but this made him angry. The agreement they had reached earlier permitted the state to have the methodology and accuracy of the protocols reviewed, not to demand a second test. Morin wasn't even sure if enough sperm sample was left over to conduct a second test. Brobst was adamant. “The FBI needs to do its own test,” she said. Otherwise, we're not agreeing to his release.”
When Kirk heard this, the color drained out of his face. It was another ploy, another way to keep him in prison. The FBI had screwed him the first time. It had failed to detect the sperm that was clearly there. How could he trust the FBI? In the prison visiting room, he screamed at the wall, pounded his hand against the table. Morin tried to calm him.
Morin learned from Dr. Blake that his lab, in anticipation of such a reaction from the prosecution, had designed the test protocol to retain and preserve a sufficient sample of sperm for a confirmatory test. This was a relief. Morin, still concerned though, called Barry Scheck at the Innocence Project in New York. Scheck, a pioneer in the forensic use of DNA, had consulted with Morin about the case previously and knew as much about DNA testing as any defense
lawyer in the country. Scheck agreed to review Blake's results. Afterward, he assured Morin that they were solid and that he shouldn't worry. A confirmatory test was standard procedure. Morin wasn't satisfied. He learned that an FBI agent named Jennifer Lindsay had been involved in developing the DNA protocols at the FBI lab. Morin called her to talk about Kirk's case and the state's insistence that the FBI confirm the test. Lindsay listened and responded sympathetically. She knew Ed Blake. “If Ed Blake did the science,” she told Morin, “then the science is good. You can count on it.” She said that obviously she couldn't promise anything. But she said it was extremely unlikely that Blake was wrong.