DNA taken from criminals: the effectiveness of a bill that could help solve unsolved murders at risk

The effectiveness of a bill that could help solve unsolved murders by forcing almost all convicted criminals to provide their DNA is in jeopardy because of recent changes that strip it of all its teeth, a senator laments.

“The scientific proof exists, it is a flawless technique in terms of identification, why deprive yourself of it?” protests Senator Claude Carignan.

The latter introduced Bill S-231 into the Senate, which aims to expand the National Genetic Data Bank by multiplying the number of genetic profiles that would be stored there.

Currently, the Criminal Code provides that only criminals convicted of the most serious crimes against the person must provide their DNA. The first version of the bill provided that almost all people convicted of a criminal offense submit to a sample.

Bank not fully efficient

Elsewhere in the world, including Britain and the United States, DNA is taken upon arrest.

“Our Bank lacks data, it is not fully effective compared to what is done elsewhere in the world,” laments the Conservative senator. It’s a question of mathematics. The more data you have, the more matches you can make.”

However, last month, a majority of the members of the Senate committee examining S-231 rejected the most biting measures, in particular by refusing to make the automatic taking of a DNA sample mandatory upon conviction for a crime with a maximum penalty of five years or more.

“By maintaining the discretion of the judge, it almost brings back the status quo,” laments the senator.

Another provision which did not pass during the vote concerns the search by family relationship in the Bank. To identify criminals, the police could have analyzed evidence at the crime scene and compared it with the DNA of a biological parent of a suspect in their sights, if that relative is already on file in the Bank.

This research would have been limited to serious crimes punishable by more than 14 years of detention.

If these provisions were removed from the bill, it is to limit the impact on entire families, but also to avoid over-representation of indigenous communities and visible minorities in Canadian prisons.

But Senator Carignan is hopeful of overturning the committee’s report.

Taking dangerous criminals off the streets

Because for him, the objective is major: to get dangerous criminals off the streets.

In Quebec, there are still hundreds of unsolved crime files, most of them murders of women and children or serial rapes for which the police sometimes have the DNA of a suspect, without being able to find it. “identify,” he laments.

With his bill, a murderer or attacker not identified by the police could be caught as soon as he commits another crime, even less violent.

And this expansion of the Bank also risks considerably reducing long legal delays since, confronted with concrete scientific proof, offenders risk negotiating guilty pleas more quickly, believes Claude Carignan.

He is aware that several dissenting voices question respect for privacy with such a measure.

“The DNA identification process only targets certain markers, namely those of identity. Not diseases or genetic predispositions,” he assures, adding that the samples are then identified by barcodes.

It should be noted that the bill does not concern private genetic data banks offered to consumers who wish to know more about their ancestors.

An essential tool for investigators

Expanding the pool of offenders forced to give their DNA would be an essential tool for investigators trying to solve serious crimes, insist police officers interviewed by THE Newspaper.

“Why so much concern about implementing techniques that will improve the rate of resolution of serious investigations?” asks Didier Deramond, general director of the Association of Police Directors of Quebec.

For this retired Montreal police officer, who worked extensively on investigations, expanding the National DNA Data Bank would be an incredible step forward for investigators, especially those dedicated to unsolved crimes.

“We have proof of effectiveness when we look at the United States and elsewhere where the DNA bank is better equipped than ours. We see that their resolution rate is much higher for serious crimes,” he explains.

The advantage of improving the DNA bank would be to provide more comparisons when a piece of genetic evidence is found at a crime scene, adds detective lieutenant Sophie Tougas, who works in the major crimes section of the Service. police department of the agglomeration of Longueuil.

“DNA is an extraordinary tool, practically irrefutable,” she recalls.

She also specifies that the DNA sample that an offender provided to the National Bank is not an element of evidence in itself, but rather a tool which can then guide the investigation.

“We must always corroborate these results with our traditional investigation methods, meeting witnesses or analyzing surveillance cameras, for example. Then, with a prescription, we can obtain the DNA and thus identify the criminal,” specifies the police officer.

The addition of genetic profiles would also allow families to obtain answers to their questions, adds Didier Deramond.

“I understand that we fear overrepresentation [des minorités visibles], but if people are convicted, initially, it is because they committed crimes, he said. Now, can we think of the victims?”

What is the National Gene Data Bank?

• Operated by officials of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• Allows police officers to identify suspects by their genetic fingerprints
• Addition of approximately 17,500 profiles/year, which represents less than 10% of convictions
• Three collection options:

1. a few drops of blood
2. saliva
3. some hair

Resolution and match rates of profiles from a crime scene and a genetic bank:

• In Canada: around 20%
• UNITED STATES: about 60%
• The UK: 68%
• New Zealand: 70%

*Source: documents tabled in the Senate

Here are examples of crimes that could have been solved more quickly if Bill S-231 was in force and forced more criminals to provide a sample of their DNA.

Christine Jessop affair

Guy Paul Morin was wrongly convicted of the murder of 9-year-old Christine Jessop in 1984 in Ontario. He was exonerated a few years after his conviction. It was finally 25 years later that the Toronto police were able to identify the killer, Calvin Hoover, thanks to a family genetic match. The police were able to use these matches to establish family trees. Of note, Mr. Hoover had already been convicted of drunk driving in 2007. Thus, if his genetic profile could then have been added to the National DNA Data Bank, the murder of Christine Jessop could have been solved 13 years earlier . A miscarriage of justice could certainly also have been avoided. Hoover died in 2015, without being able to stand trial.

Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour affair

The murderer of Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour, two women killed in Toronto within months of each other in 1983, could have been traced earlier if family link searches were permitted, reported the Globe and Mail at the beginning of the month.

Joseph George Sutherland was nabbed in November 2022. But he could have been put out of harm’s way much earlier if the police had been allowed to search the National Bank for a family connection. The murderer was not in fact in the register, but his brother was, and had been for ten years. To catch Joseph George Sutherland, investigators ultimately turned to private DNA databases.

Donna Awcock case

The 17-year-old was killed in October 1983 in Ontario. At the time of the tragedy, she was babysitting children near her home when she was asked to go on an errand. She disappeared and her body was found near a dam. She was sexually assaulted and strangled. A DNA profile obtained at the crime scene did not match profiles held in the National DNA Data Bank. Investigators could turn to family tracing at this bank to try to find the perpetrator of this crime if the technique were made available to them, documents filed in the Senate reveal.