Forensic scientist says DNA found on beer bottle, cigarette matches Newark schoolyard slayings suspect.

Forensic scientist says DNA found on beer bottle, cigarette matches Newark schoolyard slayings suspect.

Forensic DNA Analysis has been used to identify Rodolfo Godinez as a key suspect in a brutal murder investigation in Newark USA.

State forensic scientists used Forensic DNA Analysis to match the DNA of Rodolfo Godinez to a cigarette and bottle of beer discovered inside a Newark schoolyard hours after four friends were robbed then shot in the head nearly three years ago.

Those were the findings from a state forensic scientist who conducted DNA analysis on the two items, and who testified today in the trial of Godinez, one of the men accused in the Aug. 4, 2007, triple killing behind the Mount Vernon School.

Melissa Johns, a forensic scientist with the State Police, testified on direct examination that swabs from the cigarette butt and empty bottle of 40-ounce beer matched saliva swabs from Godinez.

But on cross examination, Godinez’s attorney disputed the accuracy of the findings of the forensic saliva analysis. The attorney, Roy Greenman, said because investigators had marked two different bottles of 40-ounce beers as one piece of evidence, the bottles may have been contaminated.

“Ideally, in a lab situation, would you put them in the same bag?” he asked Johns of the empty beer bottles, one a Colt .45, the other labeled Steel Reserve. “As a scientist who’s concerned with contamination and transfer of DNA, would you want those two bottles picked up and put in the same bag before they’re tested.?” After some back and forth with Greenman, Johns eventually acknowledged that she would prefer the evidence not to have been mixed or contaminated.

The trial is ongoing with new evidence expected to be presented to the court in reference to a machete found at the crime scene which has been tested for blood stains.

For more information about Forensic DNA Analysis, Forensic Fingerprint Analysis, Saliva Analysis and Blood Stain Analysis please contact Forensic Resources Ltd.