murmur & shout

bradplumer:

In 1993 a woman in Germany was strangled to death and some DNA belonging to the woman, not the victim, was found on a teacup. Eight years later, an antiques dealer in another part of Germany was found strangled and the same DNA, not hers, was recovered from items in her shop and the door handle. Then, in 2007, a German policewoman was shot from behind in her patrol car in Heilbronn and again the same DNA was retrieved. After that the same DNA was recovered from numerous crimes of a great variety.  

By 2009 “Germany’s most dangerous woman” was wanted for at least forty crimes in Germany, Austria, and France. And then she was found, working in an Austrian factory that manufactured the swabs used by the police to collect DNA at crime scenes. 

—Richard Lewontin, “Let the DNA Fit the Crime,” New York Review of Books