The first DNA crime test didn’t catch the killer. It freed an innocent man.
The events leading to the first forensic DNA case began in 1983. Lynda Mann was only 15 years old when, returning home from babysitting one evening in the Leicestershire village of Narborough, she was raped and murdered as she took a shortcut along a footpath known by villagers as the Black Pad. It was a path that would be unlikely to be known by anyone who wasn’t local, suggesting the killer was…
In 1983, the brutal murder of Lynda Mann, a 15-year-old girl from Narborough, occurred when she was raped and killed along the Black Pad footpath. The killer was likely someone from the area due to the specific location of the crime. Forensic science at the time was still in its early stages, but investigators were able to determine that the perpetrator was blood type A and a "secretor," which is true for about 70% of the population.
They also conducted phosphoglucomutase (PGM) enzyme testing, finding that the killer was type PGM1+, a trait shared by around 40% of people with European ancestry in England. This combination of factors occurred in around 10% of all men, making it insufficient to identify the killer. However, this information would later prove useful.
In 1986, another young girl, Dawn Ashworth, was raped and murdered near Narborough in Enderby. The killer's modus operandi, combined with the similarities in both crimes, led the police to believe they were dealing with a serial killer from the area. Richard Buckland, a 17-year-old kitchen porter with learning difficulties, was seen on a motorbike in the vicinity around the time of Dawn's disappearance.
He also appeared to know where Dawn might be found. Richard was subsequently arrested, confessed to Dawn's murder, but claimed he was innocent of Lynda's murder. With Richard in custody, the police faced a dilemma. They were confident they had a suspect for both crimes but needed new evidence to link Richard to Lynda's murder and confirm his guilt.
Detective Chief Superintendent David Baker, who had read about Alec Jeffreys' work on DNA fingerprinting, had an idea. Baker believed that this new technique could help narrow down the suspect pool from around 10% of the population to a single individual. The police and Alec Jeffreys' team began refining the DNA fingerprinting process, focusing on genetic markers with variable repeat sequences to create a more straightforward and precise test.
This breakthrough in DNA profiling would eventually lead to the conviction of the serial killer and the exoneration of an innocent man.
Written by urgent.news from Big Think's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
