From The Free Lance–Star:
Culpeper town police thought they knew who was responsible for an outbreak of automobile vandalism last summer, but they just didn’t have quite enough evidence to take the case to court.
Now, thanks to DNA evidence, they have charged a 17-year-old boy with destruction of property in the incidents.
Now, the last I checked, it cost quite a bit to do a DNA test.
Not only that, but how many cases of a more serious nature (e.g., murder, rape) had to wait in line while the forensic lab was doing DNA testing for a vandalism case? In 2004, for example, the Commonwealth had a six-month backlog for DNA testing. In 2007, it was estimated by the Director of the state crime lab that “the state has a backlog of 1,100 to 1,200 DNA cases.”
Despite what you see on those stupid television shows such as CSI: [Whatever] or Law & Order: [Whatever] it can take weeks for a DNA test to be completed.
And given the fact that it appears that at least three tests had to be done (the story notes “blood and other DNA evidence [was] found at the scenes” and you also have the reference sample from the suspect), how many hours were consumed for this case and what was the total cost?