SEATTTLE — This story was originally published on MyNorthwest.com
Crime scene DNA test results in minutes rather than weeks or months. It’s a new technology now in the hands of investigators at the King County Sheriff’s Office. It’s called the Rapid DNA machine.
“It allows officers to place DNA into a machine and instead of waiting weeks or months, you get results on whether that DNA is a single source of human DNA in 90 minutes,” King County Sheriff’s Captain Chris Leyba said. “Right now, every sample we collect at a scene. Let’s say we collect 14 blood samples at a scene, we have to send 14 samples off to the WSP Crime Lab. Whereas, with this machine, we can run 14 samples at 90 minutes each and determine, say, eight of them belong to the victim. So now instead of sending 14 to the Crime Lab, we’re only sending six because we don’t need all 14 analyzed anymore.”
King County first in state to get new DNA tech
Leyba said the technology has been around for about a decade, mostly on the East Coast, but is quickly spreading west, and King County is the first in Washington to have it in-house.
The cost: $230,000 per machine.
“We were fortunate enough to work with a local congresswoman to get a Department of Defense earmarked grant to be able to buy the machine, and we actually have enough that we’ve requested to use some of the funds to buy a second machine for north King County, so we have spread out resources,” Leyba said.
The machine determines a presumptive match or no match. Think of a field test on drug evidence, they can determine if cocaine is cocaine, or if meth is actually meth via drug analysis. But the sample still has to be sent to the state crime lab for formal confirmation.
Machine won’t replace formal DNA analysis
“It’s not going to replace formal DNA analysis. So, for example, if I do a DNA test in this machine and I get a positive result, I still have to send that sample to the state crime lab for formal analysis, because that is what’s going to be the ultimate evidence in court,” Leyba explained. “So, yes, it will speed up the process of getting probable cause, but we are still going to be doing the formal DNA analysis for the foreseeable future for court.”
“Long-term, it can also be used for elimination cases. So, if we have 100 sexual assault kits with possible suspect evidence and we analyze them in the machine and we only get viable DNA out of 20 of the kits, now those 20 victims are getting justice faster because they’re sitting in a queue of twenty instead of a queue of 100,” he continued.
The future is here. Leyba said the King County Sheriff’s Office expects to begin using the Rapid DNA machine for low-level felony cases by the end of this month.
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