2015 Montgomery County, MD FY 2015 DNA Backlog Reduction Program

The Montgomery County Police Crime Laboratory, Forensic Biology Unit (MCPCL FBU) is responsible for analyzing evidential material associated with criminal investigations handled by the Montgomery County Police Department. As a courtesy, the MCPCL FBU performs the same analyses on evidential material for the following other agencies in Montgomery County: Takoma Park Police Department, Gaithersburg City Police Department, Rockville City Police Department, Montgomery County Park Police Department and Metro Transit Police Department. The MCPCL FBU consists of 4 full-time analysts, one full-time analyst currently in training and one full-time analyst only doing serological testing, a Technical Leader and one forensic specialist.

The Federal funding from this award will be used for the following goal:

1. Increase the capacity of the Unit to process more DNA samples and thereby help reduce the backlog.

The purchase of the TrueAllele software will greatly enhance the FBU's ability to solve complex mixtures that are currently reported as too complex for interpretation. In addition, the software will perform the mixture deduction so that will reduce the current time each analyst spends on mixture deconvolution. Overall, the Unit will utilize a larger portion of the DNA profiles obtained from items of evidence while cutting down on the time an analyst actually spends on mixture interpretation.

nca/ncf.