The suspect in a 17-year-old murder was just arrested in Montenegro. There’s a New York Post article about it [link no longer active] here. It was an incredible investigation. Detective Sgt. Dennis Singleton just kept on it, took it as far as he could, (which involved tracking the guy as he went to other countries and possibly dismembered women wherever he lived) and when Singleton couldn’t go any farther, he refused to let it just go dormant. Instead, he handed it off to Detective James Osorio in the Cold Case Squad’s Bronx unit.

Good work, Detective James Osorio and Detective Sgt. Dennis Singleton.

The investigation looks like a textbook example of what can be accomplished with a little cooperation. It involved different units within the NYPD, law enforcement around the world, the FBI and Interpol and probably many others.

Good work everyone.

(The picture of the arrest is from Gothamist.)

Because of recent legislation allowing for the expansion of DNA collecting, I thought I would compare how much bigger New York’s DNA database has grown since I wrote my book.

As of August 2004, there were 139,344 DNA profiles in the New York State collection, and the number of hits they got from them was 1,529. As of February 2007 they have 179,965 profiles, with 3,772 hits. Most of those hits are for sex crimes, by the way. When I wrote my book 7% of the hits were murder cases and 72% were for sex crimes.

Looking at those current totals now, I’d have to go back to my notes to see if the total I used in my book was the total number of profiles or the total number of samples they had in their possession, which would include both samples not yet analyzed and profiles. Because the grand total now would be 229,203 and that figure seems to make more sense in terms of tracking growth. Otherwise the database has grown about 40,000 samples in two years. Which actually makes sense. Analyzing 20,000 DNA profiles a years sounds like a lot. So maybe the figure I used was the total number of profiles and not the grand total of samples. (I’m sure everyone’s eyes are blurring over by now.)

At the national level, there were 1,945,163 profiles when I wrote my book, and as of Decenber 2006, there were 4,138,015.

There’s a ton of statistics about DNA collection online. I started to look around and frankly, got overwhelmed. But if you wanted to do a study of just how many DNA profiles were out there, and how many crimes and what kind were being solved, you could do a good job of it.

You could start with CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). But from there, it seems almost every law enforcement agency, attorney general, ie, here’s California’s, and on and on, has facts about what they are collecting (it’s great!).

The NYPD’s Cold Case Squad finally has a commanding officer, Capt. Sean Crawley (I’m not sure if I’m spelling his name correctly). I don’t know a lot about him, except that he worked in the Manhattan DA’s office, and is an accountant. But it’s great that the squad has a commanding officer at long last, they’ve been without one for so long.

Good luck, Capt. Crawley. I look forward to seeing what you do with the squad!

Tom McCarthy, who maintains the website for the NY Correction History Society (NYCHS) asked for help with a presentation he is preparing. From his email:

“It would mark the 50th anniversary of the Feb. 1, 1957 airplane crash on Rikers Island. Thanks to the bravery and team work of staffers and inmates, more than 60 of the 90 or so persons aboard Northeast Airlines Flight 823 were rescued from the burning wreckage that snowy, freezing night.

By any chance, do you happen know of any former NYC DOC staffer who was on the job back in 1957, or know someone who might know of a former NYC DOC staffer from that Commissioner Anna M. Kross era? Depending on their age at the time, any such former staffers would be in their 70s, 80s or 90s.

The first-hand recollections of those who were around then would be helpful in preparing the presentation. Any clippings, photos and other artifacts related to it that they may have saved might also enhance the 50th anniversary presentation that I am preparing for the web site.”

You can email Tom at: nychs@nyc.rr.com.

(Pictures of the 1957 crash were found at: http://www.planecrashinfo.com/.)