Advancing Connecticut’s Forensic Science Capabilities for Enhanced Investigations
Join Cheryl Carreiro, and Sevasti Papakanakis, Assistant Directors, Connecticut Division of Scientific Services, as they share an overview of the Connecticut Division of Scientific Services Rapid DNA program. Obtaining leads in the initial hours of an investigation can be critical. During this session, Cheryl and Sevasti will discuss how they implemented a rapid DNA program with their law enforcement partners to transform the investigative process.
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- Hi, welcome to HIDS 2022.
My name is Cheryl Carrero.
I'm the Assistant Director here
at the Connecticut Division of Scientific Services.
- And I'm Sabi Papakanakis,
the Assistant Director of Forensic Biology and DNA in Connecticut.
- And we're here to show you our rapid DNA program
that we set up here.
We have about 100 employees here,
some of sworn, some civilian,
Forensic Biology and DNA is the biggest section
in our laboratory.
We started the rapid DNA program
because we do have backlog cases.
And our Director, Dr. Guy Valaro,
wanted to do something to help the turnaround time
to our agencies, our stakeholders.
So in 2013, he was coming up with different types
of technology to try to screen
and give investigative leads to quickly.
And when rapid DNA came out recently,
we're not in a rusty state.
So he decided, oh, let's try it with crime scene samples.
And Thermo Fisher has the Intel cartridges
for the rapid DNA system.
And we started the program here
and it's been such a success and so exciting.
- Yeah, I think it's also really important to remember
that we are the only forensic crime lab
in the entire state.
So all of our law enforcement agencies depend on us.
So that's why it's really critical
to get them timely information
for these really big important cases.
- Yeah, we serve over 100 agencies, local, state and federal.
And so the lab gets a lot of cases.
And we started making protocols.
We started the validation of the instrument.
It was hard to get buy-in from our laboratory staff
just because it's new and it was outside of our accreditation.
The program, so it was kind of a different,
a huge change for people.
And you know, people don't like change.
- Yeah, it's definitely a different mindset.
You have to think about it as,
yes, we're trying to do this
and trying to make it as scientific as possible
and follow the validations and follow the standards
and stay in line with that forensic mindset.
But you also have to have that creative mindset
of doing things a little bit differently
than what you normally do.
- Right, and it's stepping out of that comfort zone.
And I think Sebi and I were willing to do that.
And it's led us to, you know,
great leads for our agencies very quickly.
- So the program development didn't really happen overnight.
It was a long process of setting up meetings
with state's attorneys' offices
and make sure everything was done legally
and in line with, you know, Connecticut statutes.
It dealt with a big validation.
We had to have the hurdle of lab buy-in
and just the logistics of how to coordinate everything.
Cheryl does a huge portion of training
all the law enforcement agencies.
- The writing of the SOP is making sure
that we had documents for Q-seeing the reagents.
You know, having access 24/7 to the kiosk.
You know, getting that copy of the Connecticut
convicted offenders to go into our small pond database
and making sure that it's updated every month.
There's all these policies that we had to write
if it's not written, it doesn't happen.
So there was a lot of work done on SOPs
on training proficiency tests for law enforcement officers
that are trained.
We want to make sure that they stay up with the program
and know what they're doing.
Chain of custody and all those things
that you normally would do in a forensic lab
under accreditation, we took those ideas
and we moved them into a rapid program
that is not under their accreditation.
But it has the same type of rules and policies
that we would use.
So we have a kiosk here in Connecticut
and the kiosk contains three different types of technology
that officers can actually be trained and used.
One of them is Niven, one of them is AFIS
and then we have the rapid DNA program.
The officers go to a scene, for instance, a homicide
and they find blood at the point of entry
breaking into the house or something.
They collect samples for the lab typically,
but we train them to take an extra swab
for the rapid DNA.
So they'll go ahead and package the evidence
and get everything ready to submit to our forensic lab,
which is the normal process.
Then they take one swab and they bring it to the kiosk
and they run it on the rapid DNA machine.
If they get a full genetic profile, DNA profile,
it will go to a small pond, which is a database
that we use that contains a copy
of the Connecticut Convicted Offenders.
It's outside of CODIS, it's our state convicted offenders.
Once they get that profile searching, there could be a hit.
And once the hit happens, Sevi and I will go ahead
and help them find who this person is
that hit to this piece of evidence
and they can use it as an investigative lead.
- Yeah, I think it's also important to remember
that our program is set up as a modified rapid DNA program
where we are hands-on with the profiles.
We are doing the review, we are analyzing
and making sure that it's a sufficient profile to be searched.
- Right, so we're very involved.
We have oversight being DNA analysts.
We can be able to possibly look at those yellow check marks
in which I'll explain later, but at our maybe partial profiles
and we're able to manually put them into search.
So we're getting a lot of investigative leads from that.
I take about five, six officers at a time to train
and I go through explaining what the program is
and that they will be operators.
It's their tool to use for their investigations.
I'm just here to help in oversight.
We go through a PowerPoint presentation
and I explain the whole process
and how they collect crime scene samples suspected
to be single source profiles.
They then, after that presentation, they then go
and we do a practical test, which they actually do a cigarette
butt because there needs to be some pre-prepping
of a cigarette butt to be used in the rapid instrument.
So they do that, then they come back
and we take a written test and they have to get above an 80%
to pass and after they pass the exam, they get a certificate
that says that they are now operators
of the Connecticut rapid DNA program.
- So Cheryl's been doing a great job.
She's actually trained every single law enforcement officer
in the state at this point, which is,
we're up to about 160 law enforcement agents.
- With a lot more coming.
- Yes, it's very busy.
There's a lot of interest in the state for it.
- Yes.
- It calls every day, it calls every day
about the rapid program, local PDs, the state police,
even the FBI, I'm trained to people in the Connecticut FBI,
you know, unit.
It's been really great and everybody is, you know,
asking questions, it's very interactive
and actually I feel like we're helping them also
be able to think about the type of samples
that they're taking from crime scenes.
- Yeah.
- I think we do see that a lot, that they're learning more
about how to collect evidence properly
and how to handle evidence, not that they didn't know
beforehand, but it's just a little extra direction
that they're getting.
- Yeah, yeah, it's really cool.
The officers I train are super excited to get a result
in two and a half hours.
Usually it takes like a week or two
for the lab to get the result.
It's the same technology that we use in the lab,
except, you know, two hours and you get a result,
that's pretty good and the enthusiasm that I see
and the officers that I train is outstanding.
Like it's very exciting, even, I get excited
about it for them.
This is a great program, a great tool
and, you know, doing rapid DNA, I think is gonna be
spread across the United States.
- We've had so much excitement about the program
that we're really looking to expand across the state.
Right now we have one instrument at the lab,
another instrument at the Waterbury Police Department
and we're trying to really spread it out geographically
to make it accessible to everyone in the state.
- We're looking into trying to fit the rapid instrument
into a mobile van, so it's going to be a mobile
rapid DNA and, you know, spread instruments
because Saby and I can log into,
remote into any instrument in the state.
We wanna put them, like she said, geographically,
you know, so agencies have a quick way
to get their results.
- Law enforcement has been so excited about this program.
I think one of the major differences for them
is that now they're very hands-on
and they get to make the decisions about what to test
and how to test it.
- With us just being there to help them if they need it
but they're the operators.
It's their test that they're doing.
- Yeah.
- I think they feel more involved in the forensic aspect
and the science of it and I've gotten such positive,
you know, vibes from them.
- They're very excited, even during training
and learning about the biology of things
and how everything works.
- Yeah, 'cause we do go over in the training,
a quick overview of DNA and what it is
and how the conventional testing works
and how similar it is to the rapid DNA instrument
and they're just interested.
I don't think anyone's taught them that stuff before
or they learned it back in high school
and they don't remember it.
And so bringing it back up in the training,
you could just see the energy and I love it.
I love the energy I get from all our agencies
and, you know, calling me and saying,
"Hey, I have this, what do you think about this sample?
"I could bring it down."
You know, I feel like we're on a team,
a teamwork with the agencies.
It's really cool.
- It's totally a different relationship
than what we're used to.
- You do, yeah.
- And just being in the lab and not seeing
that other aspect of things.
Because now we see the end result
and we see that excitement that they have
when they have the results.
- Yep, and they're very, very grateful.
Always thank you so much for helping.
Even if they don't get an investigative lead,
they're always grateful about us helping
and having this program for them.
- Yeah.
I remember one of the first investigative leads
that we got where we were able to link
one crime scene to another and we,
that wasn't even on our radar.
We had no idea that we'd be doing this.
- Right.
- And we didn't realize how important linking
the suspect's house to the crime scene
and all these things or to the investigation.
So early on, like, yeah, you can give that information
from the lab perspective,
but for the PDs to have that within a few hours,
you know. - It's great, yeah.
Recently we had, they didn't know,
there was a homicide diet at the hospital
and didn't know where the crime scene was.
And so officers doing investigative work
came upon different sites in the city
and took some swabs.
Turned out we found the victim's blood.
And in two hours they were able to say,
okay, this is the crime scene.
Now let's set up the crime scene
and like look for evidence to see who did this.
And so it's not about just the copy of CODIS in the state.
- Offender hits, it's more than that.
And that's what's really cool.
I mean, we've had a body ID,
we've gotten the parents of a body
and we were able to say yes,
this person is indeed the child of these two people.
- There was no other way of identifying this body.
There were no dental records, no nothing.
And we were able to give a result within two hours.
- And so the family of the victim was able to know
that indeed, unfortunately, their child passed away.
It's usually not great fun stuff that we do,
but we know we're making a difference
and we're helping victims
and we're helping the criminal justice system.
And so that's why we do what we do.
That's why we're in forensics overall.
Probably the biggest challenge that we had to deal with
would be about the whole CODIS
and copying the state database into a small pond.
We had to make sure that it was okay,
that we weren't like stepping on the toes of NDIS
or anything to do with that.
And we found out we're okay.
We were able to copy it.
We had a lot of work with our IT group
to be able to link the servers together
and make sure that the data that's in CODIS is secure
and the CODIS administrator involved
to make sure that she's doing her duties.
And so, once all those challenges,
we face them and we got over them.
It's working really well.
We're able to update the convicted offenders once a month.
We're working on getting unknown profiles from CODIS
into a small pond so that they can get forensic
to forensic hits sooner.
That hasn't been done, but that's in the works.
- I would say also that Connecticut
has pretty strict rules and statutes
as to who can be in the convicted database.
- Qualifying, yeah.
- Yeah, we have to make sure that that association
or that investigative lead that we're giving
is associated with a person who does have
a qualifying offense according to the law.
- And that qualifying offense would be convicted of a felony.
So, when we have the name and the date of birth
of someone that hits to a rapid evidence profile,
we have to make sure a collect search is done
and that they are confirmed convicted of felon.
At that point, they're able to use that investigative lead
for their investigations.
But if they're not a convicted felon
and that by mistake they're in our database,
they have to be expunged.
And you cannot use that name as an investigative lead
and it's not released for them to use.
- So, I think the concerns from the lab side
because both of us are in the laboratory
is using that data from CODIS and copying it
and using as investigative leads.
And we totally understand that because in the beginning
we were afraid of that too.
What rule are we breaking?
Are we gonna lose our CODIS ability, accreditation
and all that.
And after collaborating with our lab staff,
collaborating with the state's attorneys in our state
and even talking to people in the forensic community
and representatives from the FBI,
we found that we could copy the Connecticut
convicted offenders in the state
and that we could use it for investigative leads
and it wouldn't affect anything.
So once we got the okay from all the different groups
that we asked, it was very settling
and I think that's when people started be like,
okay, we could do this, let's do it.
One of the first investigative leads that we got
was about a car that basically hit police officer.
And they were, the whole agency was very active on this
because he almost died.
They brought in a lot of evidence and we were getting nowhere
and we worked on it for a day or two
and then on the third day they came in
and brought a piece of evidence.
It was a face mask that was left at the scene
and we were able to, from that profile
that was developed and rapid,
we were able to give the investigative lead
that led to the arrest of that individual
that was driving the car that hit the officer.
Everybody was very grateful.
It was a team effort because it was so much investigative
work needed for that but the Rapid DNA system helped
and it really helped solve that crime for them.
And there was a press release and very nice,
the chief thanked us at the division.
It was a good feeling that we actually helped that.
It was a very good moment.
I think what's really important with the Rapid Program
is that because we're getting information out to the police
so quickly, we're preventing other crimes from happening.
We have a homicide happen and we find the investigative lead
for them to arrest somebody.
It could prevent them from going out
and shooting somebody else and killing somebody else
or sexually assaulting someone.
So having that information so quickly
with the Rapid Program, that's how it makes a huge impact
on preventing crime in the state of Connecticut.
- Yeah, and it's also helped with the lab
being able to focus in on certain evidence.
We have a major crime like a homicide.
We all know we're getting dozens and dozens of pieces
of evidence for that.
But if we're able to narrow down with the Rapid
and say, okay, yes, this is going to give us a result.
It's most likely going to give us a CODIS hit,
prioritize that and we don't have to worry
about the rest of it up front.
We've also been able to eliminate certain cases
from even coming into the lab.
- Because they have the--
- Either we either know we're not getting a result at all
or they have enough information and they don't need,
they don't want anything else.
- Exactly, so it helps us too on the laboratory side.
- We have future plans for our Rapid Program
that we're constantly adding to the list of things
we want to do.
One of the things is getting the unknown forensic profiles
from the state into small pond
and just the state estus profiles, the unknown.
So that a forensic to forensic hit can actually hit sooner
and give investigative information much sooner
than the regular conventional testing.
Once that happens, I think there's going to be a lot
of links between different agencies
and we're able to notify the agency
that ran the evidence plus the agency
that it hit to with the unknown.
We also want to look into validations of major profiles
and mixtures so that we can be able to pull out
a major single source profile and search that.
We're looking at things, STR mix.
To see if STR mix would work with the system.
There's a lot of hurdles with that, of course,
and we know that scientifically with the model maker
and whatnot, but it's something that's on our list
that we're excited to just try.
It's been a great experience seeing what works on the system,
what doesn't work on the system,
and training the officers to know the difference.
Yeah, and having that strong DNA background
has really helped us with this
because we're really able to think about,
okay, this is a mixture.
Can we now make a direct comparison to a suspect?
Or can we, I don't want to say push the envelope
a little bit, but we are thinking about new ways
of how to do things.
New ways of having new things, yes.
And it's being from the laboratory,
accredited laboratory coming here.
It was definitely an eye-opening experience,
but in the positive way.
Thank you for listening to us and watching us
on this first session.
We really enjoy talking with you
and spreading the information about our rapid program.
In the next session, we're gonna actually go into our kiosk
and show you how police officers use the kiosk.
And we have some representatives from our agencies
that use our program.
So it should be interesting, so stay tuned.
And we'd love to hear from you.
If you have any questions, let us know.
Yeah, you can Google us or email us.
You'll find us on the website.
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