2018/03/20

Forensic Magazine March 20, 2018: Canadian Court Approves Advanced Y-STR Testing in 1983 Murder

The inmate has maintained his innocence from behind bars for more than 30 years, saying that he was not the one who raped and killed a toddler—his cousin—one night in 1983. Since 2011, DNA testing from biological samples found in storage at a Canadian children’s hospital could not definitively exclude him. But another man had been seen drunk near the crime scene the night of the killing—and that person had a criminal history of sexually assaulting children.

That man was the convicted inmate’s uncle, and they shared patrilineal DNA markers.

How were appeals attorneys, convinced of Phillip James Tallio’s innocence, to determine once and for all who left the closely-related DNA on a girl’s body 35 years ago?

They found the latest in Y-STR testing, which provides a whole new dimension in discriminating between males, even within the same family.

The British Columbia appeals court approved the new testing for Tallio, now 52, who was 17 at the time of the brutal slaying of Delavina Mack, just short of 2 years old at the time she was raped and killed.

The results remain to be seen, in the months to come.

Rachel Barsky, the attorney who started her look into the case in 2011 as a student, told Forensic Magazine that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Crown are making arrangements to transport the biological evidence to the Netherlands Forensic Institute, which can complete the advanced analysis of random mutation Y-STRs, or RM Y-STRs.

“Hopefully the materials will be flown by the RCMP to the NFI within the next couple of weeks,” Barsky said. “It will take four to six weeks for the completion of the testing and report after they receive the materials.” more