No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!
Genetic Genealogy Brings New Clues in Case of Samuel Little Jane Doe Victim from Willoughby Hills (19News – 8/07/2025)
For more than 40 years, this woman has remained a Jane Doe.
Her skeletal remains were found hidden in the woods off I-271 in Willoughby Hills back in March 1983. In 2018, detectives learned Samuel Little took her life. The serial killer from Lorain confessed to killing dozens of women across the country. He said she was a prostitute he picked up in Cleveland. “So when I dropped her over the fence, she practically disappeared in the weeds and stuff,” Samuel Little said to local detectives during his confession in Texas.
A copy of the case file from 1983 shows Willoughby Hills Police extensively investigated the case at the time, trying to connect her to missing women across the country. Now decades later, new technology could help crack the case.
Mozambique Launches First Forensic DNA Laboratory (Club of Mozambique – 8/10/2025)
Mozambique has inaugurated its first forensic DNA laboratory in the national capital of Maputo, which is expected to enhance the country’s capacity to solve crimes and paternity disputes, said an official from the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC).
During the inauguration ceremony on Friday, Director General of SERNIC Nelson Rego said the laboratory will enable authorities to analyse and process genetic material to identify individuals, establish links between crime scenes and victims, and clarify complex cases.
“The laboratory will allow us to collect and analyse biological material, including saliva, blood, and hair analysis, and the results will help the judiciary, particularly the Public Prosecutor’s Office, as well as the courts, in clarifying crimes in criminal investigations,” he said.
“With the launch of this laboratory, it becomes possible to resolve paternity evasion cases in the country,” Rego added.
With a processing capacity of 200 samples per day, the laboratory was constructed with funding from the state budget, totalling approximately 150 million Mozambican meticais (about 2.35 million U.S. dollars).
Maui County Reaches Grim Milestone In Fire Victim Identification (Honolulu Civil Beat – 8/11/2025)
Long after officials had identified all 102 Lahaina fire victims, the Maui Police Department was left with a conundrum: What to do with remains so fragmented they could not be separated out with even the most advanced science.
The remains belonged to previously identified people who had died huddled closely together. Using DNA, fingerprints and anthropological markers, the medical examiner’s office had matched bones and put a name to each person who had died. But fragments and fine dust remained.
For more than a year after the last victim was named, the coroner’s office in Maui County continued its work to try to make sure families received as much of their loved ones as possible.
Then, as the second anniversary of the fire loomed, forensic experts determined that science had reached its limit. In June, Maui County went to court to seek what’s known as a burial transit permit, which would allow the department to cremate the remains.
The mortuary that does the cremation typically holds onto the ashes, although it’s unclear what will happen to these. In a written response, police spokesperson Alana Pico said only that the permit would allow the department to honor victims “with the care and respect they deserve.”
Professor Designs AI-powered Gunshot Detection Tech to Overcome Current Drawbacks (Forensic – 8/11/2025)
Researchers at Purdue University Northwest have used AI to create a new indoor gunshot detection system that was specifically designed to overcome the current challenges of such systems.
The technologies have the potential to improve safety on school campuses and other public areas by enhancing situational awareness and reducing law enforcement and public safety officers’ response time to incidents involving gun violence.
Reexamination of Evidence Leads to Initial Suspect in 1995 Homicide of D.C. Officer (Forensic – 8/11/2025)
A Laurel (Maryland) man is in custody, nearly 30 years after a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer was found shot to death in the White Oak apartment they shared.
Sixty-two-year-old Amir Jalil Ali was arrested on August 5, 2025, by Montgomery County Task Force Officers assigned to the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Laurel, MD. He is charged in connection with the 1995 death of 24-year-old Denna Fredericka Campbell.
Detectives from the Major Crimes Division – Homicide and Cold Case Sections have continued to investigate the case since Campbell was found dead in the 1500 block of Heather Hollow Circle on Sept. 16, 1995. Campbell had been shot five times.
At the time of her death, Campbell was a four-year veteran of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, assigned to the 7th District. Campbell’s department-issued handgun was missing from the apartment and has not been located.
Ali, who went by the name Kenneth Burnell Wonsom in 1995, told police he had left the apartment after 3 a.m. to go to the store and returned to find Campbell unresponsive. He called 911 at approximately 5:04 a.m., reporting that a burglary had occurred and his girlfriend had been shot.
Wonsom was initially charged in the case in 1995, but the charges were dropped two months later. He legally changed his name to Amir Jalil Ali in 2021.
As the investigation continued, detectives re-examined evidence and reviewed details from the original case files. A warrant for Ali’s arrest was obtained on AUG. 3, 2025.
Lab Hiring More Scientists to Double Capacity and Address Backlog (Forensic – 8/11/2025)
The Washington State Patrol (WSP) Crime Laboratory Division (CLD) provides high-quality forensic science services for all criminal justice partner agencies within the State of Washington. Four of the agency’s six labs (Vancouver, Tacoma, Seattle, and Spokane) offer firearm forensics services where scientists examine both firearms and ammunition components in criminal investigations. The demand for those types of examinations has grown over the years and is straining the labs’ capacity, creating unacceptable backlogs and delays.
As has been the case in other forensics backlog challenges successfully addressed in the past several years, the projected demand for the services continues to rise, and WSP must increase its capacity not only to accommodate the increased demand but also to address the backlogged cases.
While rates of submission and case completion have been consistently increasing, they can vary significantly depending on the type and complexity of case submissions; however, some trend lines are evident.
DNA Doe Project identifies Jane Doe found in Wisconsin in 2002 Skull discovered by Boy Scouts belonged to 92-year-old Alyce Peterson (DNA Doe Project – 8/13/2025)
Twenty three years after the skull of a woman was found in a plastic bag in Houlton, Wisconsin, the DNA Doe Project has identified her as 92-year-old Alyce Catharina Peterson. Peterson had died in hospital of natural causes in St. Paul, Minnesota, fifteen months prior to the discovery of her skull in Wisconsin. Investigators are currently working to ascertain what happened to Peterson’s body after her death.
On October 21, 2002, a group of Boy Scouts walking through the woods in rural Wisconsin found a skull inside a plastic bag. A forensic examination determined that the skull belonged to a woman of Asian, Asian Pacific or Native American ancestry, who was between 35 and 60 years old when she died. It was also revealed that she was missing all of her teeth by the time of her death. Investigators believed that she had died around 12 months before her skull was found.
The St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office brought this case to the DNA Doe Project in 2021, and a DNA profile was soon generated for the woman known only as St Croix County Jane Doe. This profile was then uploaded to the GEDmatch and FTDNA databases, which revealed some surprising information. Rather than being of Asian or Native American heritage, the unidentified woman was Caucasian. Specifically, she appeared to have recent Swedish ancestry.
“We were surprised to discover through DNA analysis that St Croix County Jane Doe was of Swedish descent,” said co-team leader, Robin Espensen. “This unexpected result turned out to be a huge new lead. In particular, a woman living in Stockholm ended up being crucial to solving this case.”
This woman in Stockholm was the only DNA match to the Jane Doe closer than a fourth cousin. DNA Doe Project researchers built out her family tree, focusing on the distant relatives of hers who had immigrated to the US. But there didn’t appear to be any missing people in her family, while research was also complicated by people changing their names after arriving in the US.
One of those people was a great great granduncle of the match, who changed his name after moving to the US in the 1890s. He married a fellow Swedish immigrant in 1902, and together they had seven children. The team realised that some of his descendants had moved to the city of Stillwater, Minnesota, just a few miles from where the unidentified skull was found. Extensive research revealed no missing people in his branch of the family either, but there was one possibility left.
One of his children was Alyce Catharina Philen, who was born in 1909. She became Alyce Peterson upon marriage, and she was a longtime resident of South Dakota before her eventual move to Stillwater. She was still a resident of Stillwater at the time of her death in 2001, and the team realised that the timeframe for St Croix County Jane Doe’s death matched up with the timing of Alyce’s passing, though she was much older than the age estimate.
The team informed the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office of the Stillwater connection and asked whether one of Alyce’s living nieces would be willing to take a DNA test. Investigators then contacted a niece, and she agreed to test. Weeks later, her DNA results came through – she shared roughly 25% of her DNA with the unidentified woman, consistent with an aunt/niece relationship. This prompted further DNA testing, which confirmed that the woman formerly known as St Croix County Jane Doe was, in fact, Alyce Peterson.
“This is the first time that I have seen a Doe identified as someone who had a death certificate and who was supposedly cremated,” said case manager, Eric Hendershott. “The fact that Alyce’s skull ended up where it did was a real shock, but I’m glad that the team was able to identify her and reunite her with her family.”
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups and individuals who helped solve this case: the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Office, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; Astrea Forensics for DNA extraction; HudsonAlpha Discovery for sequencing; Kevin Lord for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro and FTDNA for providing their databases; our generous donors who joined our mission and contributed to this case; and DDP’s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring all our Jane and John Does home.
SAKI Funds Help ID Suspect in 2009 Rape of Child (Forensic – 8/13/2025)
The Peoria Police Department (Arizona), in collaboration with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, has made an arrest in connection with a 2009 kidnapping and sexual assault of a child. The suspect, Steven Paul Lipton, a 43-year-old male, was taken into custody on July 31, 2025, following a recent DNA match.
This investigation began back in January 2009, when an 8-year-old girl reported being approached by a man while walking home from a nearby elementary school. The suspect, posing as a police officer and claiming to be a friend of her mother, convinced the child to get into his vehicle. He then drove her to a nearby neighborhood where he committed heinous acts on her and released her.
At the time, a sexual assault kit was collected and tested, which came back with negative results. The case went cold until DNA obtained at the time of the crime was sent for further testing using grant money from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI).
In July 2025, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) Laboratory received a CODIS hit identifying the suspect.
DNA Found on Reexamined Evidence Leads to Arrest in 1991 Murder (Forensic – 8/13/2025)
Last week, Eddie Sykes, 55, of Mullica Twp., NJ, was indicted by an Atlantic County Grand Jury for the first-degree murder, first-degree felony murder, and first-degree aggravated sexual assault of Evelyn Caez, 23 at the time of her death, also of Mullica Twp.
On Oct. 12, 1991, at approximately 7:30 a.m., the Mullica Township Police Department responded to 1 W. Lakeview Drive in Mullica Twp. Police located Caez, who was deceased, in the kitchen of her residence. An autopsy revealed that the victim died as a result of stab wounds, and the manner of death was a homicide. There was additional evidence of sexual assault.
The investigation remained active over the years and reevaluated for additional forensic testing. In September 2023, the NJSP Office of Forensic Sciences reexamined forensic evidence from the crime scene resubmitted by the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office.
In January 2024, this additional forensic examination resulted in the detection of DNA on the victim’s underwear. The DNA evidence on the underwear was identified as belonging to Eddie Sykes.
Article: Significant Need for Comprehensive Care for Gun Violence Survivors (Forensic – 8/13/2025)
A new review article published in JAMA underscores the critical need for comprehensive long-term medical care for patients treated for firearm injuries, which has become an epidemic in the U.S. fueled by years of rising gun violence. More than 48,000 people died of firearm injuries in the U.S. in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with 120,000 suffering from gunshot wounds that they recover from.
While emergency care protocols are well established, long-term recovery pathways for survivors—particularly in the outpatient setting—remain poorly defined and inconsistently applied, according to the review paper authors who are all professors of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).
This review consolidates the latest evidence on the physical, neurological, psychological, and social consequences of firearm injury, excluding injuries to the brain and spinal cord. “We wanted to provide guidance for primary care physicians, psychiatrists, and rehabilitation specialists to help them manage the long term care of these patients to help facilitate a full recovery,” said study first author Bethany Strong, MD, an assistant professor of surgery at UMSOM who practices at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.
Ocoee Police Department and Districts 9 and 25 Medical Examiners Office Team with Othram to Identify a 2016 John Doe (DNASolves – 8/14/2025)
In April 2016, the skeletal remains of an unidentified individual were found by surveyors in a heavily-wooded area on the north side of a highway in Ocoee, a city near Orlando in Orange County, Florida. There were known transient camps in the vicinity, but not the specific location where the remains were found. Several law enforcement agencies responded to the scene, including the Oconee Police Department.
Investigators searched the area and, along with the remains, they found pants and an extremely degraded possible quilted-type jacket. The pants appeared to be tan in color, with a brand label of “Haband FIT-FOREVER” on the waist. Near the remains, they found a yellow metal “Pulsar” wrist watch. Investigators determined that the individual was likely a Black man, who stood about 5’4″ and was probably between 40 to 60 years old. It was determined that the remains had been there two to three years.
Despite a lengthy investigation, the man could not be identified and he became known as Oconee John Doe (2016). Details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP16742.
In 2023, the Ocoee Police Department and the Districts 9 and 25 Medical Examiners Office submitted forensic evidence to Othram in The Woodlands, Texas to determine if advanced DNA testing could help identify the man. Othram scientists successfully developed a DNA extract from the provided evidence and then used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown man. Othram’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team used the profile in a genetic genealogy search to develop new investigative leads that were returned to law enforcement.
Using this new information, a follow-up investigation was conducted leading investigators to a potential family member of the unknown man. A reference DNA sample was collected from the family member and compared to the DNA profile of the unidentified man. This investigation led to the positive identification of Oconee John Doe, who is now known to be Lloyd Williams, born in May of 1923.
Williams was 89 years old when he was reported missing in 2013 after his neighbors found the back door open to his home when they went to check on him. At the time that Lloyd Williams was reported missing, his son confirmed to authorities that his home appeared to have been ransacked. Investigators said the cause of death has been listed as suspicious and the investigation continues.