ACLU Seeks an End to DNA Sample Collection

Civil rights advocates asked authorities Monday to stop collecting DNA samples from men in the small town of Truro in their investigation of a fashion writer’s slaying.

Calling it “a serious intrusion on personal privacy” that is unlikely to yield results, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts sent a letter to Cape Cod prosecutor Michael O’Keefe and Truro Police Chief John Thomas, urging them to end the DNA effort.

In recent weeks, police have gathered DNA samples from hundreds of men in Truro in a renewed effort to solve the January 2002 slaying of Christa Worthington. Officers have waited at the local dump, the post office and other sites to gather samples.

Worthington, 46, was found stabbed to death in the kitchen of her isolated Truro home. When her ex-boyfriend discovered her body about 36 hours after she was killed, her 2 1/2 -year-old daughter was found nearby, hungry and crying but unharmed.

Worthington had sex shortly before her death, but despite the semen samples, police have not been able to figure out who the man was.

“The mass collection of DNA samples by the police is a serious intrusion on personal privacy that has proven to be both ineffective and wasteful,” said the letter from ACLU Executive Director Carol Rose and John Reinstein, the organization’s legal director.

The letter raised concerns about statements from O’Keefe, who indicated that investigators would take note of those who decline a swab of the inside of their mouths.

O’Keefe said he did not intend to change tactics. “Our goal is to employ whatever methodology is available to us to solve a homicide,” he said, adding that authorities understood some people would not participate “for a variety of legitimate reasons.”

Thomas did not return a call seeking comment.

Mass DNA collection has been used to crack criminal cases in Europe, but in this country the technique has been used only sporadically.

Authorities in Baton Rouge, La., collected DNA swabs from about 1,200 men in 2003 in an attempt to catch a serial killer. An arrest was eventually made, but authorities say it was not the result of the mass DNA collection.

Investigators in Virginia and Nebraska have also done mass DNA testing, with little success.