The Last Meal by Dennis Shere

Author:Dennis Shere
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Midpoint Trade Books
Published: 2010-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

The Gold Standard

The most important circumstantial evidence against Luna, by far, was the alleged match of his DNA to two chicken bones pulled from a trash receptacle at the restaurant after the murders. These were Bone C, also known as 29A1, and Bone D, also known as 29A2.

There was also the partial palm print on a napkin found with the chicken bones. The palm print alone was not nearly enough, most trial observers believed, to convict Luna. Critics argue that fingerprint matches, while important evidence, are not foolproof. Technicians have made mistakes in identifying suspects based on prints, and indeed that occurred in the Brown’s Chicken case. Early on, police thought they had the killer when finger print experts identified a suspect based on a print found on a window at the crime scene. However, two days later, when a second finger print team examined the evidence, it actually did not match.

Then, too, defense attorneys wondered why neither Luna’s nor Degorski’s prints matched a fingerprint discovered on the green plastic customer tray found on top of the trash receptacle, the tray investigators believed the killer used to carry “the last meal” to a booth. That print became one of the “top ten” prints that investigators believed someone who committed the murders might have left behind. Investigators never identified any of the “top ten” prints, except for the partial palm print.

The alleged DNA match, on the other hand, was virtually foolproof— “the gold standard” of circumstantial evidence—and the prosecution intended to show that Luna’s DNA was on the chicken bones. The public is accustomed to reading news accounts of cases solved because a suspect left traces of his DNA at a crime scene. We marvel when inmates win release from prison after DNA tests determined that someone else committed the crime. DNA testing can include or exclude someone from a crime where the circumstantial evidence involves blood, semen, skin, or saliva. That is because of DNA’s unique quality. Every cell in the human body contains a complete DNA print, and the DNA in each cell is identical. While every human being inherits the DNA codes of his father and mother, the mixture of these codes is, most scientists believe, one of a kind. It is widely believed that there are no two individuals on the planet whose DNA codes are identical, an extraordinary claim.

Some considered the DNA match in the Brown’s Chicken case even stronger evidence of Luna’s guilt than his videotaped confession. The defense could claim that investigators coerced, threatened, and even fed incriminating information to Luna so he would validate what authorities knew about the crime scene. The DNA on the chicken bones told a story that was difficult, if not impossible, to refute.

It took many years for investigators to obtain a readable DNA sample from the chicken bones. The source—be it saliva that remained after someone ate the chicken or skin cells sloughed off a hand or fingers as someone gripped the bones—could not be determined. The prosecution

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