Anatomy of a Serial Killer

In 1989, molecular biologist Arthur Eisenberg began using DNA to settle questions of identity in cases ranging from paternity to homicide. For the next decade, Eisenberg developed many of the procedures and standards used in DNA testing today. Around 2000, he began to focus on missing persons, and in 2001, he and his staff built a state DNA database. Since then, the center’s capacity has grown to handle cases from across the country.

The victim specimens that arrive at the center range from well-preserved femurs (thigh bones) to broken slivers of bone that have been sitting inside police warehouses for decades. It’s far easier to extract DNA from recent samples, and the center prioritizes easy identifications. Well-preserved or relatively fresh remains for which a family connection is already suspected take precedence over colder cases with no leads. The center has been able to solve one in every four of its cases.

Still, it’s the difficult cases—the shots in the dark—that tantalize, says the center’s project manager, Rhonda Roby. She speaks from experience, having spent her career developing methods for extracting DNA from severely degraded remains. In 1991 Roby began working in the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, where she helped develop methods for identifying the skeletal remains of American soldiers from Vietnam, Korea and World War II. In 2001 she flew to New York City to help set up protocols for the unimaginable task of identifying more than 20,000 pieces of human tissue retrieved from the ruins of the World Trade Center. She has also helped identify victims of Chile’s Pinochet regime and, in a curious aside, the remains of Nicholas II and the Romanov family of tsarist Russia.

In 2004, shortly before Roby’s arrival, the center achieved its first successful DNA extraction in an extremely cold case. The remains—a slender, yellowing femur—had arrived by FedEx. Forensic analyst Lisa Sansom cataloged the bone in the center’s database as F2775.1EC and carried it into the lab’s bone room, behind a door flagged “Forensic Low-Copy Area. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.” The amount of genetic material retrieved from old bone tends to be so small as to be easily overwhelmed by the ambient DNA of a floating skin flake or a saliva droplet. Inside the Low-Copy Room, analysts don full gowns, face masks and surgical gloves. A positive-pressure system keeps “dirty” outside air from flowing in, and analysts have their genetic profile entered into the center’s DNA database so that those will be excluded from target sequences.