2015/01/15

The Wild Life January 13, 2015: Pet CSI: How Dog And Cat DNA Nabs Bad Guys

On Sept. 14, 2000, Wayne Shumaker, 58, Corby Myer, 30, and Lynn Ganger, 54—three carpenters building a barn loft at an upscale property near Lakeville, Indiana—were bound and shot execution style during an armed robbery. Less than two years later, the triggerman in the case, Phillip Stroud, was found guilty on all three counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The criminal was done in—at least in part—by the dog droppings he had stepped in during the commission of the crime. It turns out that dog feces not only messed up his sneakers, but his defense too. It was a simple mistake that was exploited by the prosecution using some new and very sophisticated science. Samples from Stroud’s sneakers were compared to dog feces at the barn. Through DNA analysis (as they exit, feces snag DNA-carrying epithelial cells from the colon), the specimens turned out to be a perfect match—proof positive that the defendant had been present at the scene of the crime.

It’s one case among hundreds, if not thousands, of human crimes being solved by the emerging science of veterinary forensics, which can help catch and convict murderers and rapists, not to mention poachers and animal abusers.

Since 1996, when the first case using animal DNA evidence was presented at a trial in Canada, dogs—and cats—have been helping crack horrific crimes, including murder and rape, by doing nothing more than shedding, drooling, urinating, defecating or bleeding. more