The German police collected DNA from the scenes of crimes
ranging from break-ins to murder. The samples were stored on a DNA
database and matches began to appear. One woman's DNA had been
collected at all the scenes.
The mystery serial killer was assumed to be behind the
strangling of a pensioner in 1993, the shooting of a policewoman in
2007 and four killings in between. Also on the non-existent
killer's rap sheet were a restaurant break-in and burglaries.
Police were stumped by the lack of any pattern to the crimes
except that they were all committed in south west Germany, France
and Austria. They offered a €300,000 reward for information about
the supposed killer.
German authorities grew suspicious, though, and conducted tests
at suppliers' factories. They found that of 96 swabs that had not
yet been used, seven contained the DNA of the supposed mystery
killer.
"The puzzle of the phantom killer has been solved," said Volker
Link, a German prosecutor on one of the cases, according to
Associated Press.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office told AP that it would
be investigating what measures could be taken in future to prevent
DNA contamination.
DNA evidence is increasingly collected and stored by police
forces. In England, DNA evidence can be collected from anyone taken
in for questioning by police. It can be kept even if that person is
not convicted or even charged with a crime.
Around 4.5 million records are currently on the UK DNA database,
and 850,000 of those are said to belong to people who have never
been convicted of a crime.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled last year that
the retention of innocent people's records is a breach of their
human rights as protected by the European Convention on Human
Rights.
"The blanket and indiscriminate nature of the powers of
retention of the fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles of
persons suspected but not convicted of offences, as applied in the
case of the present applicants, fails to strike a fair balance
between the competing public and private interests and that the
respondent State has overstepped any acceptable margin of
appreciation in this regard," said the ECHR
"Accordingly, the retention at issue constitutes a
disproportionate interference with the applicants' right to respect
for private life and cannot be regarded as necessary in a
democratic society," it ruled.
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