JonBenet DNA case in limbo

DENVER — Unless he has another brush with the law someday and a DNA sample is taken from him, JonBenet Ramsey’s killer might never be caught.

Even worse, his DNA might already be in a police files somewhere, waiting, along with hundreds of thousands of genetic samples from felons across the U.S., to be processed and entered into the national DNA databank.

The nation’s DNA tracking system is beset with a huge backlog that could take years to clear. And in the meantime, law enforcement officials say, crimes are going unsolved.

“It’s very, very frustrating because this tool is so powerful,” said Norm Gahn, a Milwaukee prosecutor who helped pioneer the practice of filing charges against unidentified sex offenders based solely on their DNA profile.

Investigators in the JonBenet case said this week that tests on a few skin cells have convinced them they have the DNA profile of the man who killed the 6-year-old beauty queen in her Boulder home in 1996. But so far they haven’t found a match.

L. Lin Wood, an attorney for JonBenet’s father, John, said he is confident someone will be arrested someday: “DNA will get the killer of JonBenet.”

How long it might take depends on whether the killer has any major brushes with the law that would make him subject to a mandatory DNA test. It might also depend on how quickly state or local police — or an outside laboratory — can analyze the sample, extract the DNA profile and get it entered into the national databank.

About 200,000 to 300,000 DNA samples from convicted offenders nationwide were still waiting to be added to the federal government’s database in 2003, the most recent numbers available, the U.S. Justice Department reports.

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