By Shelley Smith
ssmith@salisburypost.com
Beginning in February, law enforcement officers will be able to collect DNA from people charged with certain misdemeanor and felony arrests.
The DNA, taken with swab inside the cheek, will be entered into state and national DNA databases for law enforcement agencies to use in attempting to solve murders, rapes and other crimes, including cold cases.
If the person arrested is not convicted, or the case is dismissed, the DNA will be deleted from the system.
By Oct. 31 last year, law enforcement agenices matched 379 cases to samples in the database maintained by the N.C. SBI.
Some Rowan County agencies have added to that number and hope to solve more crimes through the use of the DNA technology.
The Salisbury Police Department went through sexual assault kits several years ago, and the DNA from those have been entered into the database.
Two cases have been solved by entering DNA from an old crime into the system.
This year, police found blood at a break-in. DNA from the blood showed up in the database, and an arrest was made.
The Rowan County Sheriffís Office said the DNA technology and database has changed its investigative procedures at crime scenes. Now DNA swabs must be taken before investigators begin to look for fingerprints.
ěDNA, itís tremendous,î Sheriffís Detective Chad Moose said. ěFingerprints are kind of a medium ó it depends on climate, conditions, the surface a person touched, thereís a lot of factors.
ěFinding a fingerprint at a crime scene is actually pretty hard.î
DNA, coming from skin cells or blood, is ěmore intimate than just a fingerprint on a door knob,î Moose said.
Since the DNA database became an option for local law enforcement, the Sheriffís Office has been able to go through evidence from cases years ago, and several cold cases that happened before DNA was discovered have been reopened.
ěThe problem with cold cases is that a lot of the time theyíre cold for a reason,î Moose said. ěThere are several cases weíve gotten and sent stuff to the (SBI) lab, and are waiting on the results. Several others we have leads on and are following up when time allows.î
The cases, Moose said, span from the 1980s through 2000.
Fingerprints are also becoming high-tech, as the Salisbury Police Department is installing its own database to maintain fingerprints in felony and misdemeanor cases, and the department has extended the invitation for surrounding agencies to use its system.
The new system will allow agencies to take latent prints found at crime scenes from cold cases and place them into the system. Old ink cards will also be converted to digital form for the database.
ěIf you get a latent lift and you donít have a suspect, it would take someone years to go through those 15,000 cards,î police Sgt. Brian Stallings said. ěIt cuts down and helps us develop suspects.î
So far, six fingerprint matches have come back to the Police Department.
The sheriffís office is also adding a new fingerprint machine that will be located in the magistrateís office and will compare fingerprints taken from people arrested locally to those in databases maintained by the SBI, FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The new machine is part of the Secure Communities Program and will check all databases and process new prints in less than 30 minutes, Rowan County Sheriff Kevin Auten said.
ěIt opens up a whole new set of fingerprints,î Auten said. ěI donít know how many millions of fingerprints that brings online.î
Anyone released on a written promise to appear in court, or someone arrested for a worthless check, will now be processed at the magistrateís office and wonít ever enter the doors to the Rowan County jail, Auten said.
ěIt will help with time and resources,î he said, ěand keep from cluttering the detention center with people who donít need to be there.î
Auten said the machine is being paid for with money from drug forfeitures.
He hopes the machine will be working by Feb. 1.
Contact reporter Shelley Smith at 704-797-4246.