Fox Lake Shooting: Coroner Deepens the Mystery "Can"t rule out Suicide"!
FOX LAKE Police investigating the shooting death of Fox Lake Police Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz have hopes that DNA evidence recovered at the scene will bring them closer to the suspects after several surveillance videos failed to do so.
As the investigation proceeds, DNA and the science behind it might be the only hope investigators have of catching the suspects without video, a dashboard camera recording or eyewitness accounts of the attack, some experts contend.
If there are no witnesses, DNA will make or break the case, said Richard Kling, a clinical professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Theres nobody saying, I saw this person. Theres no video or surveillance footage.
Lake County Major Crime Task Force Cmdr. George Filenko said Tuesday investigators recovered DNA that was not Gliniewiczs at the crime scene. The announcement came after he revealed the three men captured on video near the crime scene were not involved in the shooting.
Filenko, as well as Lake County Sheriffs Department Detective Chris Covelli, wouldnt elaborate on where specifically the DNA was found or what the source was blood, saliva, sweat but they said the DNA had made contact with something relevant to Gliniewicz.
Any time an unknown donors DNA is found at the crime scene, its significant, Covelli said.
Covelli said investigators hope to receive results from the Northeastern Illinois Crime Laboratory, the Illinois State Police and a federal lab soon, although he couldnt provide a more exact time frame as of Friday.
Police have been investigating the case for almost two weeks. Gliniewicz, 52, was shot and killed about 8 a.m. Sept. 1 after he radioed he was in a foot pursuit with two white men and one black man. Police have yet to add any details to the vague description of the suspects.
DNA is a powerful tool, Kling said. Its cleared people when they have been erroneously convicted, but its also helped police catch suspects years after the crime occurred. He pointed to the Browns Chicken massacre in Palatine, in which investigators found DNA on a chicken leg left at the scene that matched one of the killers and led to convictions years later.
But the sample could bring disappointing results initially, said Karl Reich, the chief scientific officer at Lombard-based Independent Forensic. Police wont be able to glean anything from the DNA unless it has a match, Reich said.
The DNA profile is literally a set of numbers and it does not tell you anything about that person, Reich said.
Police will compare it the millions of samples compiled from across the country in the FBIs Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS. Lake County investigators also will compare the sample to more than 50 DNA samples taken from people interviewed in the case. Those samples come from people who might have had contact with Gliniewicz.
The laws dictating when a DNA sample is collected vary by state. In some states, police take DNA after an arrest depending on the severity of the crime. Meanwhile, other states collect DNA only after someone has been convicted of a specific set of crimes.
In Illinois, state law requires all convicted felons and registered s*x offenders submit a DNA sample, Illinois State Police spokesman Sgt. Matthew Boerwinkle said in an email. People arrested for first degree murder, home invasion, predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated criminal sexual assault or criminal sexual assault have to submit a DNA sample after they have been indicted by a grand jury, the code reads.
Illinois had nearly 527,680 DNA samples as of June 30, Boerwinkle said.
DNA is used in just about all of the felony cases, and most of the new cases, in Lake County, States Attorney Michael Nerheim said. He said its a change from the past, when more DNA was needed to create a usable sample. With the change has come a need to scrutinize why the DNA is at a scene.
One of the things we have to keep in mind is there are a lot of reasons someone could touch something, Nerheim said.
Nerheim said theres often a misconception about the prevalence of DNA. Prosecutors and others refer to it as the CSI effect, a side-effect from crime dramas that leads people to believe all crime scenes are teeming with DNA evidence. But thats not the case in many crimes, such as in Fox Lake, where officials have said they are testing one sample.
The general public thinks DNA is everywhere and, if someone touches something, it will be there forever, Nerheim said. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isnt. Sometimes its found and sometimes its not.
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