Alumni Association Home > Minnesota Magazine > Past Issues > 2008 > January-February 2008

A Florida man is arrested 30 years after murdering a 7-year-old girl when his DNA matches that taken from a cigarette butt at the crime scene. A U.S. Congressman proposes that aliens applying for visas based on a biological relationship to someone in the United States submit to DNA testing. A DNA sample from a baby is used to find her mother’s rapist. Across the United States, DNA evidence exonerates more than 200 convicts, prompting lawmakers to adopt new criminal justice procedures.

DNA analysis makes the front page of a major U.S. newspaper nearly every day, and Kirsten Noppinger (B.A. ’80) is in the thick of it. She is president of DNA Labs International in Deerfield Beach, Florida, a private lab she runs with her husband, Kevin, who is a criminalist with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and somewhat of a visionary in the use of DNA testing. In the late 1980s, when DNA was not yet used as evidence in the United States, he persuaded the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to purchase equipment to begin exploring DNA analysis.

Most DNA laboratories are run by law enforcement agencies. The private ones, like DNA Labs International, number fewer than 20 in the United States. Noppinger took time between cases to discuss the field of DNA analysis—the emerging uses as well as some of its ethical considerations—for Minnesota magazine.

Briefly describe your business. Our business is primarily forensic DNA testing for casework. Our clients are typically prosecution, law enforcement agencies, and some defense attorneys. We do international work also. Our south Florida location makes for easy access for the Caribbean island countries. We work cases and testify for the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, and the Virgin Islands.

Why are private labs necessary? Because the backlog at public labs is overwhelming. When we started this business three years ago, most public labs were six months to two years behind. We turn our cases around in two weeks. We always use the example of our two daughters. If they got raped here in Broward County, it would have been six months to two years before anyone even looked at their cases. That’s a long time for someone to go free. Statistically, [the perpetrator is] going to commit something like six other crimes in that two-year time period, typically sexual assaults on other people. Part of [the backlog problem] is funding, part of it is training, part of it is that DNA testing has become so popular because you can do so much more with it. There are a lot more uses—contact DNA, for example, from someone touching the steering wheel of a car—and police officers are turning in more evidence. Also, physical characteristics are being explored for use in aiding investigations. For example, the chromosome for red hair has been determined.

How accurate is DNA testing? Extremely accurate. One hundred percent accurate to rule someone out and 99.999 percent if you are the person. The DNA analysts do have to make [judgment] calls of the profiles; there is definitely an art to it. When there is plenty of DNA sample and a single source that provided it, then it’s a numbers game. In forensics, however, we are typically analyzing mixtures of two or more people who have contributed various levels of biological material to a piece of evidence, and we have to interpret which DNA goes to which person. Interpretations are also necessary when there are low levels or degraded samples.

What kind of physical evidence have you processed through your lab? We get a lot of work from the Caribbean islands, so we get quite a few machetes in. Seems to be the weapon of choice down there. Also, assault rifles from ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms], boots, clothing, rocks. Beer cans and cigarette butts are typical.

Have you worked any high-profile crime cases? Yes. There was a particularly heinous crime in the Orlando, Florida, area called the Xbox Murders in 2004. Four people were convicted of murdering six people in a situation that started with a dispute over an Xbox video game system. The defense called on us to review the DNA analyzed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). We affirmed that FDLE had analyzed the evidence correctly. All four defendants are in prison for life. We’re also participating in a 2005 murder case from Arkansas, Jones-Dirksmeyer, that may be featured on [the CBS television program] 48 Hours Mystery.

Is DNA used in solving burglaries? Yes. That is our main push right now. People who do B & Es [breaking and entering] graduate into the more serious crimes. They don’t start out with homicides. Crime labs are typically so overwhelmed they are not taking B & Es, just sexual assaults and homicides. If you catch them earlier in their criminal life, you can stop more crimes.

What are some of the privacy or ethical considerations in DNA testing? There might be privacy concerns in collecting DNA from people who have been arrested and not yet convicted. Does a person’s DNA stay in the database if he or she is acquitted? A lot of states are addressing that. There is also a concern that somehow insurance companies will get hold of genetic information and be able to deny insurance to those with a predisposition to a genetic disease. Great Britain has very open DNA laws. Law enforcement can take anybody’s DNA there, and they have a higher rate of convictions than we do too.

What are some of the latest advances in DNA testing? Using Y-STR technology [short tandem repeats on the male-specific Y chromosome], it’s becoming easier to pick up male DNA in a sexual assault case. With the previous technology, the female DNA can mask the male DNA. We are getting a lot of work from law enforcement agencies that don’t have the resources for that. It’s also getting easier to work with old bones in cold cases, and as I mentioned before, contact DNA is becoming very relevant with the technology becoming so sensitive. Perspiration, body oil, and skin cells are all excellent sources of DNA.

What else is going on in the field of DNA analysis? We are working with the governor of Florida to help find more ways to use DNA to reduce and solve crimes, including high-volume crimes like breaking and entering. There is also a lot of work going on in clearing the wrongly convicted and identifying remains. We are working on a pilot program within Florida that will allow law enforcement agencies to submit evidence for any type of crime for us to work. The FDLE crime lab will review our cases and put the results into the Combined DNA Index System. Since we provide our reports within two weeks, we are providing a valuable tool for crime investigation. They can determine early whether they are on the right track with a suspect, or it may link someone they had no idea was involved.

Bob Levitz (B.A. ’77) is a writer in Boca Raton, Florida.