Up and Vanished - Case Evidence 05.01.17

Episode Date: May 2, 2017

Take a deeper look at the evidence as experts discuss new developments in the case.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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In today's episode, we'll be talking about some of the biggest factors in this case right now. One of which is the infamous latex glove. For months now, we've discussed that latex glove found in Tara's front yard countless times. And we know that years ago, the GBI was able to obtain male DNA from the glove. But is it reliable? Does it belong to Ryan Duke? And what kind of advancements over the past 10 years could change things? And with Tara's case moving relatively fast in the legal system, what should we expect in a trial? Could Ryan turn on Bo in his defense and claim that he committed

the murder? And if he does, how would that affect the state's case and their star witness who may be given immunity? Today, we'll attempt to answer these tough questions. This is Case Evidence. Before we get started today, we have some important updates to bring you. And to fill you in on what's happening this week, here's Philip Holloway. When we think about an arraignment and a defendant entering a not guilty plea at arraignment, it's important to understand that that does not mean that there will be a trial in the case. A plea of not guilty can always be changed. If and when

the parties believe that some negotiated plea deal is appropriate, it's a very easy thing to do to change a plea from not guilty to guilty. When an attorney on behalf of a defendant enters a not guilty plea at arraignment, that simply preserves all of their rights, including their right to a trial. It does not necessarily mean that there will be a trial. It just means that for now, they're not ready to complete the case. So let's stay tuned and watch what happens very closely, not just at arraignment, but as the process moves forward through the court process at every stage. Our first guest today is Mehul Angeria, a forensic DNA expert who's here to bring us all some clarity about this latex glove

and also any other potential DNA evidence in this case. My name is Mehul Angeria, and I am a forensic DNA consultant in Los Angeles. My firm is MBA DNA Consulting LLC. I work with attorneys and inmates who have complicated DNA evidence in their case. I help them to understand it. I help them to identify the strengths and weaknesses. I review the case files of other laboratories. I testify as an expert witness, and I help attorneys and inmates with their trial preparation. DNA is a substance that's found in all living things, and it's essentially the instruction manual for life. So it has all the information for a living thing to exist. manual for life. So it has all the information for a living thing to exist. As humans, it tells us that we're going to have one head, two arms, two legs, and essentially codes for all the

information we need to exist. It's also the genetic material. So we get half of our DNA from our mother and half of our DNA from our father. DNA makes copies of itself so that essentially every cell in our body has the same genetic information. DNA is found within cells in the body. So some obvious ones would be in blood. It's in the white blood cells. In semen, it's in the sperm cells.

But we have trillions of cells in our body and we're shedding them constantly. So even skin cells, perspiration, urine, feces, anything that comes out of the body essentially may have some level of DNA in it. And as the testing has become more sensitive, we can now get DNA from some of the less obvious samples. So just from touching an item, you know, from urine, from perspiration, all of these things have detectable amounts of DNA in them. In Tara Grinstead's case, the only known DNA that was found was on a single latex glove found in her front yard. In your experience, how difficult is it to retrieve DNA off a material like that? In general, a latex glove is a pretty good source of DNA, if it's been worn, because the hand is probably perspiring in

the latex because it can't breathe very well. And there's a lot of contact with the skin and rubbing off of skin cells. So in my experience, you have pretty good luck with latex gloves. What is the process in getting the DNA off of that glove? Well, one of the tricks of latex gloves is trying to figure out what's the inside and what's the outside. And can you determine which way the glove was worn? So typically what you have to do is, I mean, you're going to sample it with a swab.

So you're going to moisten a swab that is essentially like a sterile Q-tip and you're just going to rub the surface of the glove and you're going to do the inside and the out. And at that point, you're going to take that swab through all of your processes, see if you have enough DNA to analyze, and then go ahead and develop a DNA type that you can hopefully compare to victims and suspects in the case. What if you're trying to get a fingerprint sample and a DNA sample off of

something? Does that complicate things when you're trying to get both off of the same thing? You know, there's a specific order that you should handle the evidence. Once you start swabbing something that could have fingerprints on it, you will disturb any pattern evidence that is there by the physical swabbing. So what you want to do is, in general, you process an item for fingerprints first, because the fingerprint processing, for the most part, does not preclude you from getting DNA. Although you need to be careful because there have been instances where police departments have used fingerprint brushes at multiple crime scenes, and you could essentially contaminate a fingerprint brush with DNA from one crime scene and bring it to another if you're not careful. So once they have the DNA sample, what do they do next with it?

So now you've got your swab. And in the case of a glove, assuming it's not bloody, you can't see anything. You just have a white swab. So you don't know if you have any DNA until you run it through your processes. First step is something that's known as an extraction. run it through your processes. First step is something that's known as an extraction. And that is basically you want to get all the cellular material off of the swab, break apart those cells, isolate the DNA and purify it. So what you're left with is a very small test tube with clear liquid that has essentially purified DNA that you can now work with. Then the next step is to determine how much DNA is present. Do you have enough human DNA to even proceed? How much of it is male versus female? And then using

instrumentation, you will develop a profile, which is essentially a series of numbers that you have obtained for victims or suspects that you want to compare to the evidence profile. So if you have sufficient DNA information from a crime scene sample, you can then enter it into the CODIS database, the Combined DNA Index System. And that is going to search, these days in the national database, there's maybe 14 million profiles in there. That's going to be DNA samples from convicted offenders, arrestees, other crime scenes, and there's some other indices as well, such as missing persons. And that search will be conducted relatively quickly within probably a matter of weeks at the national level. Once it's entered into the system,

if there is a match, how do you find out about it? What happens is the law enforcement agency will get a notification of a match, typically from the state database manager. And at that time, that letter is going to say, hey, we've got a match to this person, but it's only an investigative lead. You should now go get another sample from this person and test it to your evidence just to confirm that match. So the CODIS hit in and of itself is just an investigative lead. So does CODIS automatically ping when there's a match in the system, or does it have to be checked manually over the years? It'll automatically ping, as you say. So as more profiles are added, as more convicted offenders and arrestees go in there, there's a constant search algorithm going on.

From a good DNA profile, what can you tell about the person without being able to test it against something else? Classically, like in a forensic laboratory, you're not determining any real traits from that DNA profile other than is it a male or is it a female? You're just developing a set of numbers that you can compare to other people to see if there's any association. There is such a thing now called forensic genotyping, where let's say that you had a sample of DNA, a nice amount, you got a good profile. You didn't match it to any victims or suspects. You ran it in the database and you got no matches. Theoretically, you're at a dead end. But if you do forensic phenotyping, you can actually determine some of the physical traits of the person who left that DNA behind. So for example,

hair color, eye color, skin tone, ethnic heritage, facial structure, and you can almost build essentially a genetic mugshot of the person who left the DNA behind. Through the years as we've studied the human genome, they've identified where these genes for these traits reside, and they've developed these tests that will give you this type of information. So you can put that all together, and you can come up with a generalized version of how this person might look. And it might just help you eliminate somebody, say, based on race. But if you put that together with a forensic artist who can compensate for aging or your metabolism or facial hair,

you can start getting a pretty nice picture of what this person might look like. It is a really, really cool development that's just being used more and more in the last few years. So back to the latex glove, in your experience, is it possible that DNA found on something like this could be from somebody who made it in the factory or something? Yeah, it could. I mean, because even in some of the materials that are used in DNA laboratories, they have traced contamination back to the manufacturer. And in a latex glove, you're not necessarily manufacturing that in an environment where you're trying to be DNA-free unless it's a sterile glove. I think one key factor in that is the amount of DNA present. If it's contamination during manufacturing, it could be a lot of DNA, but it's most likely a small amount.

So let's say that you swap what you believe is the inside of the glove and you got a pretty nice amount of DNA and a pretty clear profile. It's more likely not the manufacturer. There's certainly been cases where different laboratories were sort of getting the same profile. They thought, oh, man, we've got a serial killer or a serial perpetrator. And then you start looking into that and for whatever reason, you can figure out that this can't be. And they were able to trace it down to the manufacturer of some DNA testing equipment. Does the DNA stay on something forever? I mean, if they pull evidence out, is it still going to be there? Not know, not forever, but DNA is very durable. And obviously, you know, we're solving cold cases that are 30, 40, 50 years old. We're investigating ancient DNA

from thousands of years ago. So if DNA hasn't been physically removed, say by bleaching, or if the DNA hasn't been in super harsh conditions like being wet or out in the desert, it can last for a long time. And this is one of the problems when we interpret DNA evidence is we can't put a timestamp as to when that DNA was deposited. So sometimes it's hard to tell if a DNA profile is even relevant to the crime that's being investigated. Last month, the GBI was searching for Tara's remains on this pecan orchard, and it was rumored that she had been burned. I was curious, is there still a way to retrieve DNA from any remains that they may have found to verify that it is in fact Tara Grinstead?

There may be. If a body is full-on cremated, usually you're out of luck. But if it was more of an informal burn, there's probably a good chance that there's a tooth or a part of a bone or something that could be tested. And again, as our technology has evolved, we can get those little minute traces of DNA, even if it's in bad shape, you know, if it was really sort of beat up in the burning. Even if you look at some of the military investigations of looking at some of the war dead and finding bones from Korean War or something like that. You know, they could still get profiles. You might not get as much information as you'd like, but you can almost always get something. Like I say, unless the body's absolutely cremated,

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Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone else close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. 531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. This past week, I stumbled upon an old article from the Macon Telegraph from October 17th, 2015. And something caught my eye.

The article discussed the latex glove as potential evidence. Then goes on to say, quote, potential evidence was collected in 2005, apparently from Grinstead's house, that may in the end prove vital to finding out what became of her. GBI Special Agent J.T. Ricketson declined to go into detail, but he mentioned, quote, scientific leaps and bounds have been made regarding DNA in the past decade. He then goes on to state that DNA labs are now able to separate DNA that may have been meshed. So what exactly was he talking about? And what is meshed DNA? I asked Mayhole about this and sent him the same article. I wasn't clear in the media report I saw if they were talking about the glove

or if they were talking about some other evidence actually from her residence. There's a good chance that in addition to the glove, I wouldn't be surprised if they swabbed some items in her residence. Because even in 2005, people were starting to get hip to touch DNA. So anything that a perpetrator might have handled, you would swab trying to get their DNA. The problem is, is it could be low level, it could be mixed with her DNA, and it could be the kind of scenario where you get these results, but you can't really say much about it. Now, in 2017, we have better technology to where you can get information from some of these trickier samples. So I wouldn't be surprised if they might have some DNA results that they're going to go back with different software and look at, or if they've got additional DNA, run some better tests that are more informative. So sometimes if you can only get a little bit of information from a sample, you might not get that profile that you can put in

the database. But if you have a known suspect, now you can compare even that partial information to that known suspect and see if there's any agreement or an exclusion. So there may be items, her personal items or items in her house that, of course, are going to have a lot of her DNA. And so if somebody touches it briefly, they may deposit a little bit. So it could be that, for example, you had a very small amount of male DNA, not enough that you could pull out and make a profile with, mixed in with a ton of female DNA. So one example of new technology or newer technology is male-specific DNA testing called YSTRs. So if you've got that needle in a haystack, in other words, a little bit of male with a lot of female, the male-specific will essentially subtract out all the female so you have a nice, clear profile of the male DNA. Believe it or not, I mean, in some regards, 2005 is, I don't want to say the dark

ages of DNA, but we've moved quite a bit in the last 12 years. The sensitivity, the number of markers, and just the ability to interpret the evidence really has come a long way. You know, think about it. DNA and forensics isn't really that old of a science. It really came into vogue in the mid-1980s. The reason I thought maybe that wasn't the glove is, at least it's my understanding in reading some media reports, that they're saying, hey, we got a profile from the glove, but we just couldn't match it to anybody. Like, they tried. So I don't think that meshing then would refer to the glove. I think that has to be something else that they sampled. Our next guest today is renowned forensic psychologist Louis Schlesinger. I've spoke to him before a few times in the past, but not since after the arrest. With so much happening

right now, I decided to reach back out to him. When you try to understand a murder case, and you're trying to come up with what was the motive, what were the dynamics, what really went on. There is a complex motive that you can attribute to it, a complicated motive, an extraordinary motive. You know, someone's in disguises and someone abducted her and obsessed with her and all this, or there's a more simple motive. It's almost always a simple reason. The complex, extraordinary sorts of explanations are really quite rare. In this case, the explanation, at least from what we know right now, is very straightforward. It was a break and entry, a burglary, an attempt to get money. She was evidently there, which led to a murder, which led to a cover-up. It seems, at least on the surface at this point, quite straightforward. This is rather commonplace. We don't know what he knew. I mean, nobody wakes up in the middle

of the night and says, go think I'll rob a house of a teacher of mine from a number of years ago. Someone may have told him something. He may have heard something from someone about her conduct and behavior, where she was. She may not have been home if she had money there. So it wasn't the case that he just woke up in the middle of the night and did this. But we're going to have to wait to find out exactly what the motives and all of the levels of motivation and dynamics were. With one suspect pretty much turning on the other, how do we know who to believe? How do we know the roles aren't switched? You can't believe either of these guys unless you have corroborating evidence or support in terms of facts of what anyone's saying.

If I've learned anything in 41 years of practice as a forensic psychologist, I learned that lying is very, very commonplace. So you can't believe either what either person says. Ryan Duke has a clear motive to lie because he was caught with wrongdoing and is facing life in prison. Bo Dukes also has a motive to lie as well because he's involved in this. So you're going to have to corroborate everything with facts and evidence. Otherwise, you can't rely on anything they say. Their roles very well could be reversed. That's what I'm saying. You can't rely on anything these guys tell you. It has to be supported or corroborated by facts or evidence. Otherwise, they're just

talking. So we're just going to have to be patient and wait and see what the police have. They may have evidence. Bo Dukes may have given specifics about what happened, what Ryan told him happened, the types of things that were taken from Tara's home. It's hard to know from a distance exactly what the police have, but they obviously had enough to get an indictment, and we'll just have to see what the trial brings. Also, it's important for a lot of your listeners to understand that only a little bit more than 60% of all murders are cleared by law enforcement, meaning that there was an arrest made. So almost 40% of all murders in the United States, there's no arrest made. So you have thousands and thousands of people walking around keeping

a secret that they killed somebody. You know, most people don't know that, but it's not at all unusual. There's 20,000 murders approximately a year in the United States, and the clearance rate is about 64, 65 percent depending upon the year. So you have thousands and thousands of people that have killed somebody and just keep it in. Have you seen any other cases like this where there's two main suspects? One of them was the person who did the act of murdering and the other person helped cover it up and the roles have been switched to reverse? Numerous times, numerous times, numerous times. You get a case of murder where there's multiple offenders and they get caught, they all say the other one did it.

I didn't do it. He did it. And it's very hard for a prosecutor to say who actually pulled the trigger, who had the gun, who had the weapon. I was there. I didn't know he had a gun. I didn't know this guy had a gun. And it happens all the time. The court deals with this on a daily basis. There is really nothing unusual about that. It happens all the time. Barring any DNA evidence or something directly linking Ryan to the crime other than Bo Duke's testimony, do you think that if you just flip the script and said, hey, you know what? Bo Duke's did it. The roles are reversed, that they would have a tough time convicting him? Sure. I mean, if you brought it up, I'm sure Ryan

Duke's attorney is going to say, my guy didn't do it. Bo Dukes did it. The state's prize witness did it. And the reason he did it, look at the deal he got. He was involved in all this and you gave him two years. You see what I'm saying? That happens all the time in murder cases. Nothing unusual about that at all. And the court is very familiar in dealing with this. They deal with this all the time. The prosecutors know what's coming and the defense attorneys know what's coming. So lots of twists and turns happen in murder trials, as you know. You know, it'll certainly keep everybody's interest. It's an interesting case. Crypto is like the financial system, but different. It doesn't care where you come from, what you look

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Imaginary. Now playing only in theaters. Imaginary, now playing only in theaters. This past week, I got my hands on a very interesting set of documents pertaining to Bo Dukes. We know that just a few years ago, Bo was charged and convicted with stealing nearly $150,000 from the U.S. Army. And these particular documents I have contain every single detail. I tagged up with Philip Holloway to help break it all down. So I have this document here and I just wanted you to kind of break down what exactly we're looking at right here. Okay, well this is part of the criminal case, the documents that were filed in the district court, the federal district court in Savannah, basically that

summarizes the case against him. It talks about what he's charged with. It talks about the disposition of the case. It talks about his sentence. There's a long list on this document. We don't have to read it all, but basically, it just itemizes the dates that certain things happened. And it's really just the formal record, if you will, of how things progress through the court system. And it indicates what his sentence is, as a recommendation that he go to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to a location in Pelham, Georgia, and it gives him a date to surrender later. Now, that's not at all uncommon in federal court. In state courts, if you enter a plea that involves a prison sentence, usually you're

mandated into custody immediately. In the federal system, they will typically give a date for which you're supposed to turn yourself in. It gives further directions to the Bureau of Prisons about the type of custody the judge is recommending. Basically, he had to turn himself in, I think, before November the 4th of 2013. And I believe basically the plea was entered on October the 3rd of the same year. So it gave him about a month. So what was he charged with? What were the charges that Bo Dukes got? This case charged him with violation of 18 U.S. Code 371 conspiracy.

Basically, they dismissed a count of theft of government property. So it was part of a plea deal. He pled to one count. They dismissed one count. It was still a felony. And the disposition was that he was committed to the custody of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons for 27 months and then supervised release, which is what the federal government calls probation, for three years. And the special conditions of his probation supervision are that he pay $134,328.38 and an administrative assessment of $100. There's another count of conspiracy where he got a little bit different type of sentence where he was committed to custody, the U.S. Bureau of Prison, for a term of six months

with a supervised release for three years and again the same amount of restitution. That term of imprisonment appears to be concurrent, meaning it runs alongside of the longer prison sentence. Well, there's one thing in here also, Payne, that is really interesting. And if you look at it in the context of someone who's not really good at following rules and instructions and conditions imposed by people in authority, it appears from this document that in August of 2013, there was a bond revocation. Basically, the government accused him of violating, there was a bond revocation. Basically, the government accused him of violating the rules of his pretrial release. The notes indicate that the defendant stipulated and agreed to the allegations that he violated his bond. Remember, we talked about he could stipulate to the factual basis of committing a crime. In this case, he stipulated without going into any detail

that he did, in fact, violate his bond. The court accepted that stipulation, and as punishment, the court will amend the conditions of pretrial release to include, and it says the following, electronic monitoring. That's an ankle monitor imposed a curfew, and it says that the defendant may be away from his residence on days of employment from Saturday at 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., non-employment days 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. So this document contained right here in the middle of the case file indicates someone who has a problem complying with instructions and complying with court orders. The document says that one of the conditions of supervised release is that the defendant shall cooperate in the collection of DNA as directed by the probation officer. It says check if applicable, and it is in fact checked, along with other conditions such as not possessing a firearm or dangerous weapons. And basically standard conditions like don't leave the judicial district without permission, report to probation supervision as directed, and follow the rules that probation sets out.

But it definitely does require him to cooperate with a collection of a DNA sample. him to cooperate with a collection of a DNA sample. He submitted a DNA sample and would have been entered in CODIS and there was no match? Yes, his DNA would have been taken. It would have been entered into the CODIS system. If there were a sample that matched it that came about later on in any other investigation, presumably that CODIS would have hit. These documents also show that going back to December of 2012, they, being the U.S. authorities, you know, they went to the listed address and they couldn't find him. They went to Fort Stewart, met with civil liaison officer Jackson. They found Dukes was on leave until January 7th. This official document from the federal court, which indicates the extent to which they went to try to find him,

they went to Fort Stewart, and a civil liaison officer gave some information about an address in Midway, Georgia, says that he had two vehicles. One was a Ford F-150 white in color, 1997 model, and a second vehicle, a Dodge Ram 1500 black in color, 2005 model. Thanks for listening, guys. Today's episode was mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings If you want to improve the quality of your podcast Or start a podcast of your own Check them out at ResonateRecordings.com Be sure to tune in next Monday, May 8th

For episode 18, You Don't Want to Miss It And if you haven't yet, be sure to follow us on Twitter or Instagram For all the latest updates. You can find us at UpAndVanished. Thanks, guys. I'll see you soon.