I ask again: Why has the MSP not put the OCCK case at the forefront of the recent use of solid investigative techniques and evolving modern scientific DNA developments? Why do the Oakland County prosecutor, the Michigan attorney general and the FBI refuse to pick up the phone and demand that the MSP provide all DNA results they have obtained over the years and arrange for or demand the involvement of a third-party DNA lab with genetic genealogy capabilities? Not one agency has acknowledged that the fox is guarding the henhouse here and that until the MSP is pulled from this cold case or gets over their aversion to solving this cold case, it will sit in limbo for another 45 years.
Forensic DNA analysis and a careful review of evidence helped New Bedford, MA prosecutors identify David Reed, 53 as the prime suspect in the 20-year-old homicide of his half-sibling, Rose Marie Moniz. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/04/conch-shell-cold-case/. The Bristol County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement that its cold-case unit is reviewing “every item of evidence from every homicide over the last 45 years” to determine whether new leads can be developed from employing new DNA methods. A DA’s office. Every single cold case from the last 45 years. Every item of evidence. Pick up the phone, make the MSP provide this data, retain a third-party lab. Little work, possible big returns.
And how about this recent case, where retired NYPD Detective Malcolm Reiman continued to push for further DNA testing in the 22-year-old homicide and sexual assault of 13-year-old Minerliz Soriano:
Reiman pushed for familial DNA to be used to try to identify the killer. DNA matching the father of the man charged in this case was found and detectives then worked their way to the killer.
“”When familial DNA search was introduced, familial DNA searching is a deliberate search using specialized software for a relative. So we searched this particular DNA profile, and as a result, we had a forensic familial DNA search hit to the father of the defendant,’ said Emanuel Katranakis, commanding officer of the NYPD Forensic Investigative Unit.
This is the first time the technique has led to an arrest in New York City. Reiman says its success is a game changer.
‘This is something that’s going to change the way that homicides are looked at,’ he said.”
Apparently not in the OCCK case. As a reader pointed out, current private forensic science labs outside of MI, can probably answer many unresolved OCCK questions. Putting their heads in the sand is not going to stop the advancement of forensic science in solving cold cases.
The only conclusion I can come to is that resistance to using advanced DNA testing and familial DNA searches in this case is because the state police do not want this case solved. The shell game, instituted early on in this decades-old heinous cold case, continues.
If we can’t even get an accurate assessment or any type of concrete record trace on a previous conducted polygraph tests with all kinds of red flags raised by it, seems like any other type of advanced investigation would be totally out of the question. They simply don’t want to find anything as no answer is the best answer. Leave it all blanks for indefinite!
Who are they still protecting? What does anyone hope to accomplish with this stonewalling?
Here’s what it looks like: Protecting the late L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson, the prosecutor and chief deputy in 1977. Every prosecutor (and one chief deputy) since then has carried the baton to make sure to prevent criminal charges (against them) and civil suits (thereby ensuring more ass-covering because the successors are now complicit). That is a recipe for the most hardcore of stonewalling.