Solving Cold Cases With DNA

Ventura County Sheriff's Office (VCSO) proposes to re-establish an investigative team to review and investigate cold homicide and other cold violent crimes within its jurisdiction. The Sheriff's Office will hire two part-time investigators solely devoted to cold violent crime cases. As part of this effort, the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) will designate a lead forensic scientist from its DNA section to assist the investigators in the assessment of the biological evidence and to assure its analysis. Hired through the grant, a DNA forensic lab technician will analyze the current cold case caseload and the caseload generated as a result of the renewed investigation of cold cases. By means of grant funding, the laboratory will also purchase equipment and supplies to analyze the cold case workload. This team approach will enable local law enforcement to refocus on solving the backlog of 83 violent cold cases using the most recent advances in forensic DNA analysis.

ca/ncf