County Crime Lab Accredited to Do Its Own DNA Tests

Using hair samples found near the spot where a Ventura man was fatally stabbed in 1989, Ventura County authorities became the first in the state to use DNA evidence to obtain a murder conviction.

DNA testing has been used here many times since, but investigators have always had to send out for processing, either to an expensive private firm or a state lab with several months’ backlog--costing precious time in a murder or rape case.

Now, nearly a decade later, the Sheriff’s Department crime laboratory has been accredited to run its own tests to match the genetic coding of hair follicles, blood and other body fluids found at crime scenes, officials announced Monday.

The accreditation, granted through the Florida-based National Forensic Science Technology Center, means local investigators may obtain evidence faster and for a fraction of the cost.

Maryland-based Cellmark Diagnostics, the firm that conducted DNA testing in the O.J. Simpson case and the one most often used by Ventura investigators, charges between $625 and $995 per sample.

The county estimates its cost per sample at $34. Investigators run 45 to 120 samples each year.

The $215,000 DNA lab, staffed by two criminalists, took the county three years to plan and assemble. About $70,000 of the expenses went toward actual lab equipment and were covered by a state grant.

Sheriff Bob Brooks said the cost savings in testing samples means investigators will be able to conduct DNA testing in a much wider range of criminal cases.

Already, the county lab has tested blood in connection with a recent burglary, which has yet to go to trial.

“Theoretically, at this cost you could use [DNA testing] for any case that had any body fluid” at the scene of the crime, Brooks said. “We’re a very safe county, but we have more crime than we want to have.”

Ventura County and its cities reported 25 murders, 174 rapes and 1,489 aggravated assaults in 1997.

County prosecutors said they will continue to use Cellmark in murders and other complex or high-profile cases until the county lab can firmly establish its reputation in court.

But they like the idea of local testing.

“We can get a speedier answer,” said Ron Janes, chief deputy district attorney. “We can walk across the street and talk to [the analysts]. Defense attorneys can walk across the street and talk to them. If we need someone to testify, we don’t have to fly them out here.”

Defense lawyers, meanwhile, see DNA testing as a way to clear wrongly accused defendants, said Kevin DeNoce, who worked locally as a prosecutor before going into private practice.

Local government DNA labs are becoming more common as state databases and an FBI database gather genetic information about criminals nationwide.

In California, Ventura County is the 12th local government to develop its own DNA lab, according to the state Department of Justice. Others include Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Francisco, San Bernardino and Santa Clara counties as well as the city police departments of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Oakland.

Times staff writer Tina Dirmann contributed to this story.