Attention Turns To Science In Rape Trial
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Jen [email protected]
Hattery is accused of breaking into an apartment, raping its occupant three times and stealing some of her personal items. Hattery faces felony burglary, battery, criminal confinement, criminal deviate sexual conduct, attempted deviate sexual conduct, rape, sexual battery, obstruction of justice and theft charges stemming from the Oct. 5, 2005, incident at Orchard Ridge Apartments.[[In-content Ad]]While the jury heard the victim's testimony Wednesday, they saw a DVD Thursday of the interview Detective Tony Faucett conducted with her at the Warsaw Police Department about five hours after she arrived at the hospital. The interview was recorded by a hidden camera in the interview room.
At the end of the video, the victim is shown when she saw her mother for the first time after the incident. The victim broke down crying, hugged her mother, who held her while the girl sobbed. During the viewing of the video, several jury members wiped away tears during the raw display of emotion on screen.
When the video was finished yesterday, Faucett returned to the stand to finish answering questions after his testimony was stopped Wednesday due to the late time of day.
Faucett explained why the victim's co-worker and a skateboarder she had seen outside at her apartment were not questioned after the crime.
"I did not interview them because they did not fit her description of the attacker," Faucett said.
Then the prosecution presented witnesses to explain how the DNA sample was gathered from the evidence gathered in the rape kit. Orchid Cellmark Laboratory in Nashville, Tenn., is a company contracted to perform DNA testing on evidence when the Indiana State Police Lab is backlogged.
Videos of depositions were shown Thursday from Deanna Lankford and Tanya Vo, forensic DNA testing analysts for Orchid Cellmark.
Lankford said that the evidence from this case was received at Orchid Cellmark Dec. 30, 2005, from the Indiana State Police. She explained that the evidence from the sealed rape kit was opened, inventoried, labeled and returned to a secure location in the laboratory until it is tested for DNA.
Both Lankford and Vo also explained how DNA is extracted from cuttings from the swabs that are submitted for testing. The cuttings are separated and put into various reagents to test for the presence of semen. Once semen is found on samples, they are put into a centrifuge and the semen is separated from other fluids that are in the sample. In this case, the swabs from the victim's vagina as well as a sample of liquid from the vaginal wash performed on her at the hospital yielded the best evidence of semen.
Once the DNA is extracted, it is analyzed, and a DNA profile is identified. Each human being, unless they are an identical twin, has a unique DNA profile.
After the DNA was extracted from the samples from the rape kit, the results and the evidence were returned to the Indiana State Police. The state police then entered the information into a database, which is checked against the Convicted Offender DNA Index System for a match. When the original sample was obtained from the rape kit in July 2006, there was no match in the system.
However, in 2008, the Indiana State Police received a match for the DNA. Hattery was convicted of a crime in a different case, and he was sent to prison. Hattery had to submit to a DNA test to be entered in the CODIS database.
After his DNA was entered into CODIS, Hattery's name matched the DNA collected in the Oct. 5, 2005, rape in Warsaw.
Once the DNA match was made, Faucett was contacted and he and Indiana State Trooper Tim Carpenter went to the prison where Hattery was incarcerated. While Faucett interviewed Hattery, Carpenter swabbed Hattery's mouth for DNA for an evidentiary sample. When the evidentiary sample was tested by Nicole Keeling at the Indiana State Police laboratory in Indianapolis, it also matched the DNA from the rape case.
In cross examinations of the witnesses, defense attorney Scott Lennox tried to poke holes in the case. He hinted that the sample from the lab could somehow be tainted or mixed up with someone else's sample. However, each witness testified that the samples are kept separate and secure at each step of the testing process.
The trial reconvened today at 8:30 a.m. as the prosecution presented more witnesses.
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Hattery is accused of breaking into an apartment, raping its occupant three times and stealing some of her personal items. Hattery faces felony burglary, battery, criminal confinement, criminal deviate sexual conduct, attempted deviate sexual conduct, rape, sexual battery, obstruction of justice and theft charges stemming from the Oct. 5, 2005, incident at Orchard Ridge Apartments.[[In-content Ad]]While the jury heard the victim's testimony Wednesday, they saw a DVD Thursday of the interview Detective Tony Faucett conducted with her at the Warsaw Police Department about five hours after she arrived at the hospital. The interview was recorded by a hidden camera in the interview room.
At the end of the video, the victim is shown when she saw her mother for the first time after the incident. The victim broke down crying, hugged her mother, who held her while the girl sobbed. During the viewing of the video, several jury members wiped away tears during the raw display of emotion on screen.
When the video was finished yesterday, Faucett returned to the stand to finish answering questions after his testimony was stopped Wednesday due to the late time of day.
Faucett explained why the victim's co-worker and a skateboarder she had seen outside at her apartment were not questioned after the crime.
"I did not interview them because they did not fit her description of the attacker," Faucett said.
Then the prosecution presented witnesses to explain how the DNA sample was gathered from the evidence gathered in the rape kit. Orchid Cellmark Laboratory in Nashville, Tenn., is a company contracted to perform DNA testing on evidence when the Indiana State Police Lab is backlogged.
Videos of depositions were shown Thursday from Deanna Lankford and Tanya Vo, forensic DNA testing analysts for Orchid Cellmark.
Lankford said that the evidence from this case was received at Orchid Cellmark Dec. 30, 2005, from the Indiana State Police. She explained that the evidence from the sealed rape kit was opened, inventoried, labeled and returned to a secure location in the laboratory until it is tested for DNA.
Both Lankford and Vo also explained how DNA is extracted from cuttings from the swabs that are submitted for testing. The cuttings are separated and put into various reagents to test for the presence of semen. Once semen is found on samples, they are put into a centrifuge and the semen is separated from other fluids that are in the sample. In this case, the swabs from the victim's vagina as well as a sample of liquid from the vaginal wash performed on her at the hospital yielded the best evidence of semen.
Once the DNA is extracted, it is analyzed, and a DNA profile is identified. Each human being, unless they are an identical twin, has a unique DNA profile.
After the DNA was extracted from the samples from the rape kit, the results and the evidence were returned to the Indiana State Police. The state police then entered the information into a database, which is checked against the Convicted Offender DNA Index System for a match. When the original sample was obtained from the rape kit in July 2006, there was no match in the system.
However, in 2008, the Indiana State Police received a match for the DNA. Hattery was convicted of a crime in a different case, and he was sent to prison. Hattery had to submit to a DNA test to be entered in the CODIS database.
After his DNA was entered into CODIS, Hattery's name matched the DNA collected in the Oct. 5, 2005, rape in Warsaw.
Once the DNA match was made, Faucett was contacted and he and Indiana State Trooper Tim Carpenter went to the prison where Hattery was incarcerated. While Faucett interviewed Hattery, Carpenter swabbed Hattery's mouth for DNA for an evidentiary sample. When the evidentiary sample was tested by Nicole Keeling at the Indiana State Police laboratory in Indianapolis, it also matched the DNA from the rape case.
In cross examinations of the witnesses, defense attorney Scott Lennox tried to poke holes in the case. He hinted that the sample from the lab could somehow be tainted or mixed up with someone else's sample. However, each witness testified that the samples are kept separate and secure at each step of the testing process.
The trial reconvened today at 8:30 a.m. as the prosecution presented more witnesses.
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