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Author: Yujiemi Chisholm

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Bureau of Justice Assistance

CEBR Funding Contributes to Approximately Half of All CODIS Hits to Date

Recent performance data from grantees show that CEBR funding is responsible for more than 500 CODIS hits per week. Based on the reported metrics, the CEBR Program has contributed to approximately half of all CODIS hits to date. See the FBI’s CODIS-NDIS Statistics page for more information on CODIS and BJA’s DNA CEBR Grantees page for more information on program accomplishments.
May 2023
Publications

Project FORESIGHT Annual Report, 2021-2022

Project FORESIGHT is a business-guided self-evaluation of forensic science laboratories across the globe. The participating laboratories represent local, regional, state, and national agencies. Economics, accounting, finance, and forensic faculty provide assistance, guidance, and analysis. Laboratories participating in Project FORESIGHT have developed standardized definitions for metrics to evaluate work processes, linking financial information to work tasks, and functions. Laboratory managers can then assess resource allocations, efficiencies, and value of services—the mission of Project FORESIGHT is to measure, preserve what works, and change what does not [Description provided by the WVU website].
May 2023
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Highlights

Ohio BCI Receives Federal Grants to Assist in Continued Caseloads in Criminal Investigations

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has awarded two grants totaling $434,099 to the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI). This funding will assist the BCI in meeting expected caseloads and enhance overall lab capacity. This much-needed investment will assist the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in their efforts to test DNA cases at no cost to law enforcement agencies in Ohio. These resources will help Ohio law enforcement bring more criminals to justice and prevent crime in our communities.
April 2023
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Dallas County

Dallas County’s Postconviction funding supports DNA testing that leads to the exoneration of Martin Santillan and the arrest of living suspect in a collaborative multi-state investigation

The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office announces the exoneration of Martin Santillan for his 1998 capital murder conviction after an exhaustive re-investigation initiated by Centurion Ministries, Inc., a Princeton, New Jersey-based innocence organization, and conducted by the Dallas County DA’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), which concluded that Mr. Santillan is actually innocent.
March 2023
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Highlights

DeKalb DA announces break in 30-year-old homicide case, Rebecca Burke identified

The DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office has been awarded a three-year Missing and Unidentified Human Remains (MUHR) Program grant in the amount of $500,000 to identify the remains of 27 individuals found in DeKalb County. The DeKalb County Cold Case Task Force will use these funds to catalog, report, test, identify and return to families the unidentified remains of 27 individuals, including Burke’s remains. To date, some remains have been housed at the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office. Others are buried and will be exhumed to begin the process of identification.
March 2023
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Highlights

Husband of murdered Oregon woman arrested in 35-year-old cold case

The husband of Deborah Lee Atrops has been arrested for her murder, 35 years after her death. The arrest of Robert Atrops was the first major case the Washington County Cold Case Unit has worked on since it began in 2020. The Washington County District Attorney’s Office secured a grant called Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA, which allowed them to launch the Cold Case Unit. The unit focuses on investigating and prosecuting violent crime cold cases involving identified DNA associated with a possible suspect.
March 2023
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Hawai’i Innocence Project

Exoneration of Albert “Ian” Schweitzer

In 1991, Albert “Ian” Schweitzer was convicted for the sexual assault and murder of Dana Ireland. After 25 years of wrongful incarceration, on January 24, 2023, his conviction was dismissed based on new DNA testing that excluded him as a contributor to DNA evidence collected from the crime scene and instead identified one unknown male perpetrator. Mr. Schweitzer’s wrongful conviction was also impacted by false testimony, false confession, and ineffective assistance of counsel.
January 2023
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Bureau of Justice Assistance

Finding a Serial Killer—and Justice—After 40 Years

Last winter, police in Denver, Colorado, announced that they had solved the cold-case murders of four women who had died about 40 years ago, all of whom had been the victims of one man—a previously unknown serial killer named Joe Michael Ervin. It took years of old-school police work and a cutting-edge investigative technique called forensic genetic genealogy (FGG). It took the combined efforts of law enforcement in Colorado and Texas, along with support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), which used two different grants to help crack the case.
January 2023

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