Advances in forensics are developing to such a degree, that hopefully techniques may still be discovered to forge an opening in the Zodiac case. The same hope that emerged with the development of DNA profiling in 1984 by Alec Jeffreys, first used in the criminal prosecution of Colin Pitchfork in respect of the 1988 Enderby murders in Narborough, England. With question marks still surrounding the origin or validity of the DNA in the Zodiac case, another equally potent crime fighting tool would be of great value, in not only ruling out suspects, that our partial DNA fingerprint is able to do, but one that will definitively rule them in.
Mitochondrial DNA (such as found in hair shaft devoid of the root) is maternally inherited, so has distinct limitations compared to nuclear DNA. It cannot be used as definitive proof a suspect is the donor of say a hair shaft found at a crime scene, only to exclude that individual from being the source. William Gregory was exonerated in 2000 when his mtDNA was subsequently found to not match six hairs from an attempted rape case. In the case of the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates, a mitochondrial DNA sample was extracted from the hair shaft retrieved from Cheri Jo's thumb at autopsy, but this failed to provide a match to their prime suspect in the case. Whether or not this mitochondrial DNA from Riverside has been compared to any suspects hair in the Zodiac case is another topic, along with any nuclear DNA retrieved from the letters in both cases.
Mitochondrial DNA (such as found in hair shaft devoid of the root) is maternally inherited, so has distinct limitations compared to nuclear DNA. It cannot be used as definitive proof a suspect is the donor of say a hair shaft found at a crime scene, only to exclude that individual from being the source. William Gregory was exonerated in 2000 when his mtDNA was subsequently found to not match six hairs from an attempted rape case. In the case of the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates, a mitochondrial DNA sample was extracted from the hair shaft retrieved from Cheri Jo's thumb at autopsy, but this failed to provide a match to their prime suspect in the case. Whether or not this mitochondrial DNA from Riverside has been compared to any suspects hair in the Zodiac case is another topic, along with any nuclear DNA retrieved from the letters in both cases.
In 2002 Cydne Holt of the San Francisco DNA laboratory found a reddish-brown hair sealed beneath a stamp on the Stine envelope, a letter confirmed as Zodiac correspondence, in part due to a section of taxicab driver Paul Stine's shirt accompanying it. The eyewitnesses at the crime scene described a man with a reddish-brown crew cut, so this finding carries some significance. However, as already stated, if the donor of this hair was our killer, or at the very least our letter writer, any mitochondrial DNA found in the hair shaft could rule out suspects in the Zodiac case as its contributor, including Arthur Leigh Allen. Hair is very resilient, surviving long after other biological forms have degraded, such as in archaeological digs.
Recent advances have opened up the possibility of a definitive match to a suspect, using only a shaft of hair, based upon its constituent proteins, that may be unique to an individual. So far scientists have detailed 185 protein markers and hope to focus in on 100, enough to identity an individual from the world's population. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09 This may be useful going forward in producing a 'protein fingerprint' database. Once a hair is taken from a suspect, either dead or alive, it would then be entered into the database to effectively single out the specific perpetrator of a crime. In respect to the Zodiac case, the horse may have bolted, but along with salivary amylase and partial DNA recovered from the stamps and envelopes in the Zodiac case, the power of mtDNA in regards to hair retrieval, should not be underestimated as a supplemental crime fighting tool in our case.
Recent advances have opened up the possibility of a definitive match to a suspect, using only a shaft of hair, based upon its constituent proteins, that may be unique to an individual. So far scientists have detailed 185 protein markers and hope to focus in on 100, enough to identity an individual from the world's population. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09 This may be useful going forward in producing a 'protein fingerprint' database. Once a hair is taken from a suspect, either dead or alive, it would then be entered into the database to effectively single out the specific perpetrator of a crime. In respect to the Zodiac case, the horse may have bolted, but along with salivary amylase and partial DNA recovered from the stamps and envelopes in the Zodiac case, the power of mtDNA in regards to hair retrieval, should not be underestimated as a supplemental crime fighting tool in our case.
The Paul Stine, October 13th 1969 letter, is the only confirmed correspondence by the Zodiac Killer in which he placed a crosshair on the envelope. Is it too far fetched to believe he placed the hair under the stamp deliberately, giving us a false lead. The hair effectively coming from a disguise, that he proudly boasted about in the Bus Bomb letter mailed on November 9th 1969: "I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different. I shall not tell you what my descise consists of when I kill." A crosshair can be seen in the top left of the envelope.
Was this a play on words; Across hair - found under the stamp directly across from the Zodiac sign. Was the Zodiac really this devious and clever, or just my imagination running wild? Most likely the latter.
THE ZODIAC KILLER'S DNA PART ONE
Was this a play on words; Across hair - found under the stamp directly across from the Zodiac sign. Was the Zodiac really this devious and clever, or just my imagination running wild? Most likely the latter.
THE ZODIAC KILLER'S DNA PART ONE
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