The new software that I use for this blog has a nice feature.  It shows me what search terms people used that led them to this site.

I learned that a lot of people are looking for homicide totals for New York.  So I made of pdf of a chart from my book which shows all the murders in New York from 1900 - 2007, and also indicates how many were solved each year.

If you look on the left it’s under the section called Information.

The picture was taken at one of the Property Clerk warehouses. The barrels contain homicide evidence.

The graphic is from an August 6th article by Kevin Johnson in USA Today called, DNA not kept in half of states.  From the piece:  ”Half the states lack requirements to preserve DNA evidence, despite a series of dramatic exonerations based on the critical biological material.”  (After my book I became very interested in the subject of evidence preservation.)

I’ve been setting aside interesting articles and I have a backlog.  Jason Felch and Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times did a great series about DNA identification. From a July 20 piece called The verdict is out on DNA profiles:  ”…DNA “matches” are not always what they appear to be. Although a person’s genetic makeup is unique, his genetic profile – just a tiny sliver of the full genome – may not be. Siblings often share genetic markers at several locations, and even unrelated people can share some by coincidence.

“No one knows precisely how rare DNA profiles are. The odds presented in court are the FBI’s best estimates.

“The Arizona search [the subject of the article] was, in effect, the first test of those estimates in a large state database, and the results were surprising, even to some experts …”  

And from an earlier piece (June 17) by Felch and Dolan, California Supreme Court ruling allows ‘rarity’ statistic in DNA cases: ”Ruling in a “cold hit” murder case, the California Supreme Court decided Monday that prosecutors may tell juries in all cases of the rarity of finding a defendant’s DNA “match” in the general population even when a database search has increased the likelihood.

“The decision, written by Justice Ming W. Chin, was largely a victory for prosecutors, who favor using the rarity statistic because it often suggests a staggeringly small chance that crime scene evidence would fit a defendant’s genetic profile at random.

“But the state high court also opened the door for the defense to win admission of a second, more conservative calculation in cold hit cases, when a suspect is first identified through a database search …”

I couldn’t decide how to categorize this post so I added a new category called Crime Science.

I saw that the block where Jean Sanseverino was murdered (I wrote about her in The Restless Sleep) was once again voted one of “The Greenest Blocks in Brooklyn,” by The Brooklyn Botanic Garden (it was tied for second place this year). The picture is from their website.

Jean’s block was State Street, between Hoyt and Bond. She was killed there on March 8, 1951, when she was 26. From the book:

“From a horticultural and aesthetic perspective, that block is one of the most beautiful blocks in New York, not just Brooklyn,” says Ellen Kirby, from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. One block west, purple and blue hydrangeas grow in front of suspect Bill Miller’s place. One block east, the building where suspect Joe Moore had a room is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. To rent a studio apartment anywhere on this stretch of State Street would run you $1,000 a month now [God knows what it would be now!]. But State Street was likely always lovely, even in the worst times. The neighborhood looks elegant in the crime scene photographs taken outside Jean’s building. A Native American reminiscing about State Street, which used to have a large Mohawk population, called it the most beautiful place in the world. There is something almost magical about the block where Jean once lived.

All the State Street bars are private residences now, but there’s both a Phoenix House and a Daytop within walking distance—remnants of a troubled past. The Oxford Theatre where Bill Miller said Jean walked off and left him before going home to die is now a parking lot. The Sheridan Bar & Grill where she ate her last meal is now the Brawta Caribbean Cafe. There were only two murders in the 84 precinct last year. Crime has been down for years.

 I noticed that the website for the Baltimore County Police Department’s Homicide Unit, Unsolved Case Squad has cases going back to the 1970’s. The picture is of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, a victim from 1970.  Perhaps her case is, realistically, still a long shot, but I like that her picture is up there and that the detectives are still trying what they can.

To go to their website, click here.