DNA expert links man to Schenectady murder

Schenectady

The latest forensic science has not been working in John Wakefield's favor.

The inventor of a new computer-assisted DNA technology testified on Tuesday that DNA matching that of Wakefield, the defendant in a murder case, was found on the amplifier cord used to fatally choke 41-year-old Brett Wentworth as well as on the victim's forearm and shirt collar.

Mark Perlin, the creator of Cybergenetics True Allele Casework and the prosecution's star witness against Wakefield, 48, talked jurors through a PowerPoint slide presentation detailing the astronomical odds against the DNA he analyzed belonging to anyone other than Wakefield.

Schenectady County prosecutors say Wakefield killed Wentworth in the victim's home on Wendell Avenue in April 2010, using the amplifier cord.

Perlin compared the DNA found on the amplifier cord to Wakefield using his technology, which he developed over 10 years and with 25 different versions.

It uses mathematical formulas to pinpoint individual human DNA on an item that may have been touched by many people.

Perlin's estimates, which covered Caucasians, blacks and Hispanics, said the odds of the DNA belonging to someone else were all but impossible.

Perlin said a match between Wakefield and the DNA was 300 million times more probable than a coincidental match to an unrelated Caucasian; 2.25 billion times more probable than a coincidental match to an unrelated Hispanic person; and 5.88 billion more probable than a coincidental match to an unrelated black person.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Frederick Rench said that lengthy parts of the cord did not contain his client's DNA.

Read the original post:
DNA expert links man to Schenectady murder