Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/23/dna-on-chewing-gum-leads-to-conviction-in-1980-cold-case.html
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So he was 16 or so when he committed the murder? What’s the chances they figure he killed other people?
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Better late than never, but people generally don’t know how appallingly bad the crime clearance rate in the U.S. is.
Just slightly more than half of murders and nonnegligent homicides are cleared.
And that is the category with the best record.
Auto thefts are at the low end of the scale, at <10%.
According to TFA, a crime can be cleared if someone is arrested for it.
This doesn’t mean they got the actual perp.
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Sounds like another case where they found the suspect by identifying family members through one of those “23andMe” style databases. No way around it; this is an investigative technique that is here to stay.
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This is why comments about how dumb criminals are are just plain wrong-the criminals that get caught are usually the dumb ones, and the smart ones never get caught.
And it doesn’t take many smarts to avoid arrest, even in these days of forensic science. Be a little bit careful and there will be nothing for the police to investigate. Don’t get greedy in your financial shenanigans, avoid obvious flags of too much money and you can go on for decades.
Then there are the crimes where the perp is known but the evidence won’t hold up in court. These tend to be gang related.
Then there are the people who buy their way out of trouble, either by having expensive lawyers or by being rich enough that they aren’t considered seriously as suspects, or by direct bribery.
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We’re watching a Quincy marathon on Pluto.
He could solve everything, in less than an hour.
He could have used bite marks alone in the chewing gum, with the help of Sam of course.
From the pilot.
Sam tries to persuade the authorities to take notice of a new process he has developed to help track down killers. His tooth print process shows that the man the police have as their suspect in a rape case is not the man who did it.
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Or by running for president
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Have you watched NCIS? I kinda love that show because it’s so far detached from reality that I just see it as an alternate reality comedy/fantasy police procedural rather than the copaganda it’s probably intended to be. I laugh so much at that show.
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This is what forensics is most useful for, at least for investigations that are trying to determine what actually happened: ruling things OUT. Even something simple like an ABO blood group can rule out 65% of the population, minimum.
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My wife loves that show, I’m not a fan. Isn’t that the show where they enhance meme came from? Or maybe CSI. My wife lives that show as well.
For me it’s 70s crime shows like Quincy, Columbo, Rockford, Banacek, etc…
I gave up on Law and Order when Lenny left.
I keep wanting to do one of those DNA ancestry things out of curiosity, I’m still on the fence about it.
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How about Murder, She Wrote; with the wonderful Angela Lansbury?
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What was the per-capita murder rate in Cabot Cove? The place was practically a freakin’ war zone.
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Poor, Barbara Tucker. 
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Inspectors Barnaby have entered the chat
ETA: Ah, I see I owe @ euansmith a coke…or would U prefer a pint, or a dram?
Midsomer bonus:
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I think the enhance meme came from CSI, but the classic NCIS ridiculousness is the two people pounding away on one keyboard trying to prevent a hacker from getting into their system.
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Did you see the punk episode!!! The punk episode is legendary!
Holy shit, it’s amazing! Like, every bad, lying trope about punks in one 45 minute drama… Just… punk panic for 45 minutes straight… it’s unhinged!!!
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Mom and I used to watch NCIS alla time. We began getting sick of it before Gibbs left, and we quit.
We watched Castle alla time, too, and managed to miss the universally loathed final ep, thank fuck.
We were big fans of Lewis and Endeavour, but I didn’t start watching Morse until shortly after she’d passed.
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I quit watching Castle after the 3rd season I think? I do watch the Rookie (I’m a Nathan Fillion fan…I have to), and the copaganda in that show isn’t quite as bad as in most police procedurals. Law school also kinda ruined most police procedurals for me, because the legal stuff in these shows is usually sooooo bad. I can’t watch courtroom scenes in Law and Order at all anymore. The last time I tried, I was yelling “You can’t do that!” every minute or so.
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I recently watched the first dozen or so seasons of NCIS. I spent most of the episodes waiting for people to call out Gibbs and DiNozzo for their toe-curling sexism. It was a real struggle. The final season or so that I watched, DiNozzo left and Gibbs got slightly better written.
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