DNA tests help Harris County catch thieves while crimes in Houston go unsolved
KHOU Houston—December 10th, 2009
So far this year in Houston, 47,000 people have called police to report that burglars had ripped them off by breaking into their cars or homes. That’s bad enough, but what’s worse? The crooks will probably never be caught.
“The rate of solving burglaries is abysmal,” said Pat Lykos, the Harris County District Attorney.
Crime statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice and HPD show the majority of burglaries in Houston — some 92 percent — do not result in arrests. That’s worse than the national average of 88 percent. With so few burglars getting caught, it’s one crime that — in Houston, at least — seems to pay.
“It’s more than frustrating, it’s disheartening. Why does government exist? It exists to protect people, and we’re not protecting people, “said Lykos.
A big part of the problem is the nature of the crime. Very often, there are no witnesses. And the sheer volume of burglaries makes it tough for HPD detectives to devote much time to any one of them.
But there may be a way to fight back, and it’s right out of any episode of “CSI”: using DNA tests, the same sophisticated molecular tests more often associated with solving murders and rapes.
“Property crime tests? We’re doing about a thousand of these per year,” said Roger Kahn, head of the DNA lab at the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office.”It’s extraordinarily successful.”
Unlike the City of Houston’s overwhelmed and troubled crime lab, Harris County operates its own crime lab at the Medical Examiner’s office in the Texas Medical Center.
It runs DNA tests for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office — now hundreds of them a year. And when those tests are for property crimes, including burglaries, the lab gets a match in well over half the cases, giving sheriff’s detectives a big break in identifying the burglars. Kahn explains that burglars are often career criminals who’ve already been arrested and had DNA taken and filed in a database.
For Harris County detectives, it’s allowing them to solve at least 10 percent more burglaries, according to Lt. Jeff Stauber. Asked if they are catching more burglars than in past years, Stauber replied, “Absolutely.”
One recent case involved a burglar who detectives said went into a home in north Harris County by breaking a bathroom window. In the process, the burglar apparently suffered a cut. Deputies were able to gather blood evidence left behind.
The deputies then got a tip about man at a nearby pawn shop selling the guitars believed to be stolen from the house.
“They got the guitar amp on the counter there,” said Cory Friedrich, a deputy investigator who’s working the case, as he watched video from a security camera at the pawn shop.
In the video, the man can be seen replacing a bandage tied around his hand. Deputies tracked him down and persuaded him to allow them to take a swab of the inside of his cheek, the standard method for gathering a sample of DNA.
Deputies said when the county’s lab ran the swab sample, it matched the DNA in the blood found at the crime scene. Lt. Stauber said it clinched the case.
“Absolutely. That put him inside the house,” Stauber said.
Harris County isn’t the only police agency using DNA for property crimes. Denver police have used it to increase burglary prosecutions there by 800 percent.
Will Houston police follow suit? Not anytime soon. Consider that in the past year, HPD used DNA tests for burglaries a mere 25 times.
“The City of Houston simply doesn’t have the capability, their crime lab is so overwhelmed,” said Lykos. She’s pushing for federal funds to greatly expand the county’s DNA lab so it can start doing testing for departments in the region.
“It’s an absolutely incredible crime-fighting tool,” said Lykos.
And if it were used in the City of Houston, maybe more burglars might actually get caught.