KING COUNTY, Wash. — What used to take weeks or months can now take minutes thanks to rapid DNA testing technology.
In the next few weeks, the King County Sheriff’s Office will officially launch its rapid testing program on real cases.
The department will be the first in Western Washington to officially roll out the program.
The machine can process DNA in about 90 minutes. The presumptive-positive matches that are identified will still be sent to the state crime lab for full forensic analysis. That will ensure any findings will hold up in court.
Still, the machine can drastically reduce the number of samples that the department has to send for testing.
“Instead of creating this large backlog at the state and testing everything, we can eliminate those that maybe aren’t viable,” said Captain Chris Leyba with the King County Sheriff’s Office. “So the ones that truly are viable, we can get them done quicker and bring justice for those people faster.”
The department got the machine in November and has been piloting it with mock samples. Once the pilot program is complete, the department will begin using the machine for felony property crimes, “out of an abundance of caution for the new technology.”
Leyba said the machine’s presumptive positive matches are “99.9%” likely to be a correct match.
Ultimately, it could speed up investigations, victim identifications and help solve cold cases nationwide.
The upfront cost for the full kit is $230,000. King County secured its first one using a federal grant.
The department is working to acquire a second one right now.
Jim Fuda, director of Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound, expects it will dramatically improve efficiency in investigations.
“I think it could bring a lot of closure and solve a lot of crimes as well,” Fuda said.
Fuda also sees potential for the technology to help curb human trafficking.
“Let’s say you got a guy walking across the border holding two kids’ hands and you swab their mouth, and in 90 minutes, you know if those kids belong to them or not,” he said.
Once King County officially begins using the machine for cases, it will be the first of its kind to be up-and-running in Western Washington.
“There’s a team of agencies around the state working on this,” Leyba said. “Obviously, we want to make sure we do it right because we want to be responsible with the technology and with people’s individual liberties. But long term, this is huge.”
The department aims to begin using the machine for real cases in early February.