the importance of DNA as intruder in The Unsolved Murder of JonBenet Ramsey case study Angie Housman 9

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

As owner, I do my best to stay out of actual discussions about a crime.

The JBR case is the one expection.

Websleuths is a leader in true crime information as well as discussion. People come here to get information. It is imperative we deal with the facts. Not fantasy.

All I ask for are facts and a logical connecting of the dots. Logic and facts.

When I get time I will be going through the forum to make sure the JonBenet Ramsey forum is being held up to the high standards just like all our other forums on Websleuths.

The days of allowing anyone to post anything because it's part of their "theory" are gone. Facts and logic. Very simple.

Host Tricia Griffith is a veteran radio disc jockey and owner of Websleuths.com and owner of Forums for Justice.org.

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

delmar england wrote:
Letter to Boulder Colorado District Attorney, Mary Keenan

The crime scene consisted of an obviously bogus multi-page "ransom note" utilizing local materials. JonBenet's body was left in the basement of the Ramsey home with crude trappings falling woefully short of presenting a convincing kidnap\murder scene as it was intended to do. Even without pointing out more of a very long list of corroborating facts, the bogus note and inept staging is more than sufficient to isolate the perpetrators to the Ramsey household. Only a few minutes in examining and evaluating the evidence is required to reach this conclusion. It is impossible to reach any other conclusion on the facts. There was and is no evidentiary reason to look anywhere else. The only mystery to be solved was and is which Ramsey did what in relation to JonBenet's death.

Although it is not possible to reach any other conclusion from the evidence, it is possible to ignore the evidence and mentally invent "evidence" to take the place of truth and keep it hidden. Prompted by preconceived notions set in a context of money and political influence in conjunction with investigative cowardice and incompetence, this is precisely what has been going on for over six years.

delmar wrote:
Handwriting? Patsy has not been ruled out by several examiners. By my own analysis, not of the writing, but of the mind match between the note and Patsy is clear. This is explained in my analysis of the "ransom note." So far, neither you nor anyone else has quoted and challenged it. So, to say the handwriting does not match the Ramseys, thus all Ramseys are excluded as author, is just another arbitrary declaration without substance. Note the exclusion of Ramseys necessarily depends on the intruder idea of no factual substance.

DNA? So, it does not match the family. So what? Who does it match? Unknown? If unknown, how can it be known to connect to the crime and be "evidence?" If the source of this DNA were known, then factually connected to the crime scene, then it is evidence. Absence this, it is just more speculation that caters to intruder mental creation.

Does the DNA have to be connected to the crime? Could it not be from a benign source totally removed from the crime scene? Again, the alleged evidence evidences nothing except itself with no known connection to the crime. No outsider as perpetrator is required to explain the DNA since no connection is known as crime related.

The same is true for boot print, hairs, fibers, etc.. A close look into anyone's house would most likely turn up all sorts of things whose source were unknown whether there is a crime or not. To call something whose source and cause is unknown as evidence is to say it causal related while simultaneously saying cause is unknown, thus relationship unknown; more "negative evidence." If my recollection of high school Latin is correct, this could be called "ignotium per ignotius", the unknown by the more unknown.

This "Ramsey defense" "thinking" is a direct and absurd contradiction that is without limit. With this kind of "investigative latitude", I dare say that one could "prove" anything; or at least, convince the deluded self that he or she has done so. "negative evidence?" Surely, thou jest. I repeat: All known evidence is local.

delmar england wrote:
For every "could be", there is a "could be not", therefore, inconclusive until cause is known. Right? No thing is evidence until evidentiary cause is known. Right? Are we in agreement so far? If not, please point out what you think is my error in thinking, and why you think it is error.

A shoe print is found in the basement whose cause is unknown. It "could be" evidence of an intruder. "Could be not" is forgotten and "evidence" of an intruder is declared to be fact. There is a palm print with cause unknown; a rope with source unknown that "could be" something brought in by an intruder; an unidentified fiber, a baseball bat that "could have" been used by the intruder; a bit of dirt or leaves at a window well which "could have" been disturbed by an intruder. The list goes on and on and on.

This massive "evidence" stated to be more consistent with a theory of intruder than Ramsey guilt is hot air, nothing more than a string of unknowns verbally laced together on "could be", simultaneously divorced from the known, and declared to be much evidence of an intruder. Ridiculous to the max. No wonder no one will step forward and answer questions about alleged evidence of an alleged intruder. Its indefensible.

The beauty of truth is that it is consistent. Every fact is a complement of and blends with every other fact without contradiction. The presence of a contradiction is also the presence of error. Are we in agreement up to this point?

DNA? So, it does not match the family. So what? Who does it match? Unknown? If unknown, how can it be known to connect to the crime and be "evidence?" If the source of this DNA were known, then factually connected to the crime scene, then it is evidence. Absence this, it is just more speculation that caters to intruder mental creation.

Does the DNA have to be connected to the crime? Could it not be from a benign source totally removed from the crime scene? Again, the alleged evidence evidences nothing except itself with no known connection to the crime. No outsider as perpetrator is required to explain the DNA since no connection is known as crime related


The same is true for boot print, hairs, fibers, etc.. A close look into anyone's house would most likely turn up all sorts of things whose source were unknown whether there is a crime or not. To call something whose source and cause is unknown as evidence is to say it causal related while simultaneously saying cause is unknown, thus relationship unknown; more "negative evidence." If my recollection of high school Latin is correct, this could be called "ignotium per ignotius", the unknown by the more unknown.

This "Ramsey defense" "thinking" is a direct and absurd contradiction that is without limit. With this kind of "investigative latitude", I dare say that one could "prove" anything; or at least, convince the deluded self that he or she has done so. "negative evidence?" Surely, thou jest. I repeat: All known evidence is local.

O'FALLON, Mo. – A convicted pedophile who ran an international child pornography ring has been charged with the 1993 abduction, rape and killing of a 9-year-old Missouri girl, after previously undetected DNA found on her clothing implicated him in the crime, authorities announced Wednesday.

Earl Webster Cox, who has been in custody for years because the state deemed him a sexually dangerous person likely to re-offend if set free, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and sodomy in the death of Angie Housman, St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar said at a news conference.

Angie disappeared after getting off her school bus on Nov. 18, 1993, less than a block from her home in St. Ann, a St. Louis suburb. Her body was found nine days later in the August A. Busch Wildlife area, which is about 20 miles west of St. Ann, in St. Charles County.

Investigators said she had been sexually assaulted, starved and handcuffed, and that she died just hours before she was found. Lohmar said her head was covered in duct tape except for her nose and that she had tried hard to free herself.

"She was dehydrated, she was malnourished and she was alive when she was left out in the woods to die," Lohmar said, noting that investigators don't know where she was kept while she was missing.

Angie's mother, Diane Bone, died of cancer in 2016 at age 52. Her stepfather, Ron Bone, told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday, "I can't say anything about being happy until he's found guilty."

The disappearance of Angie and a 10-year-old girl, Cassidy Senter, the following month caused a panic in the area. Hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officers searched for Angie before a deer hunter found her body. Cassidy, meanwhile, was later found dead in a St. Louis alley.

Investigators feared that a child serial killer was on the loose before determining that Cassidy's killer was one of her neighbors, who was eliminated as a suspect in Angie's death.

In late February, St. Charles County crime lab investigators caught a break: They found previously undetected DNA on a pair of Angie's Barbie-themed underwear that was found at the crime scene that matched a DNA profile in a national crime database.

"They were looking for a needle in a haystack without a magnet and still found the needle," Lohmar said.

Lohmar said investigators have spoken with Cox about the killing, but he declined to say if Cox acknowledged knowing anything about it. He also wouldn't say if his office will pursue the death penalty, and that investigators "have reason to believe that Earl Cox was not the only suspect," though he didn't elaborate.

Cox, now 61, grew up in the St. Louis area. He was living in another suburb, Ferguson, when Angie was abducted, but he had relatives who lived near her school and not far from her home, Lohmar said.

Cox enlisted in the Air Force in 1975 but was dishonorably discharged in 1982 after being convicted in a court-martial for molesting four young girls for whom he babysat while stationed at Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany. He was paroled in 1985 and returned to the St. Louis area, where he was questioned in at least two reported instances of child molestation in the four years before Angie's killing.

He was arrested in October 1989 in Overland, which borders St. Ann, after he allegedly had inappropriate contact with two 7-year-old girls. Cox was not charged in that case, according to court records, but the arrest led authorities to revoke his parole for crimes in Germany and he was returned to federal custody from January to December 1992. He got out 11 months before Angie was killed.

At some point during the 1990s, Cox moved to Colorado. In January 2003, he set up a meeting with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl whom he had asked to become his sex slave. It turned out to be an undercover federal agent.

After Cox was arrested, police seized about 45,000 images of child pornography from his computer and discovered that he led an international online child pornography ring known as the "Shadowz Brotherhood." The subsequent investigation led to the arrest of about 60 people in 11 countries.

Cox was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Before he was scheduled for release in 2011, Cox was certified as a sexually dangerous person, which allowed authorities to keep him incarcerated even after he completed his sentence because he was considered likely to re-offend. He has unsuccessfully appealed the government's decision to keep him incarcerated, arguing in part that his poor health makes it unlikely that he would re-offend.

___

Associated Press writer Margaret Stafford in Kansas City

ST. CHARLES, Mo. (KMOV.com) – Detectives used DNA evidence to identify a suspect in 9-year-old Angie Housman’s 1993 death, according to a probable cause statement released Wednesday which outlined the charges and details of the crime.

Earl Webster Cox, 61, was charged with murder, kidnapping and sodomy Wednesday, 26 years after Angie Housman was kidnapped after getting off a school bus in St. Ann. Cox is currently civilly confined in a North Carolina prison after being deemed a “sexually dangerous person” by federal courts due to unrelated criminal convictions. He will be extradited to Missouri in upcoming weeks.


After the kidnapping, authorities allege Cox took Housman to a secluded area in the August A. Busch Wildlife area off Highway 94 in St. Charles County, where he sexually assaulted her and left her tied to a tree to die.

Her body was found by a deer hunter on November 27, 1993, nine days after her abduction. An autopsy performed a day after her body was discovered indicated she died of hypothermia.

According to investigators at the time, the 9-year-old had only been dead for a few hours when she was found.

St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar, when asked if he'll seek the death penalty against Cox, said it was too early to know, but added "the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst and this one seems certainly along those lines."

Lohmar added there could be more arrests in the case, saying it's possible he did not act alone. Lohmar said there was no evidence to suggest there was a struggle during the abduction.

“The way the evidence unfolded at the crime scene, the way she clearly was held for a period of time at a particular location, and then transported to the woods, which was obviously another location; just some other things we observed at the crime scene, it would lead us to believe he did not act alone. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t act alone, but there’s a hunch for all of these guys involved that there could possibly be another person involved." Lohmar said. "We have reason to believe that Earl W. Cox was not the only suspect ... we do believe that it was very possible that another person was involved."

[WATCH: Timeline of the Angie Housman Investigation]

Cox was not considered a suspect during the initial investigation.

"We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of leads, he did not appear on anyone's radar," Lohmar said. "He was on a list of several hundred if not a thousand known sex offenders in the St. Louis area."

“It’s easy to say, as we sit here and Monday morning quarterback it, ‘Well why didn’t you go talk to him? Why didn’t you follow that lead up?’ It’s not that simple. It’s a manpower issue. Even if they had followed up with him - or anyone on that list - without scientific evidence to pin him down, without other circumstantial evidence, without other eye witness evidence, it would be very difficult to form a suspect out of a simple name on a list.”

"Nobody saw anything, that’s what made it so hard," Lohmar said, of the day of the abduction. "There was a lady who watched kids get off the bus to make sure everyone is okay. She wasn’t there that day."

DNA Leads to Charges

In early 2019, A St. Charles County forensic scientist analyzed pieces of clothing found at the 1993 scene and look for DNA samples. In late February, detectives were notified DNA came back from two people: Cox and Housman. Cox was initially identified through an online DNA database and was retested with his consent, the probable cause statement said. For the portion consistent with Cox's DNA, only one in 58.1 trillion unrelated individuals, selected at random, could be expected to have that same profile.

When asked if other DNA was found, leading to suspicion about a second suspect, Lohmar spoke broadly.

“There’s other DNA samples out there. I’m not prepared to comment on it yet. But those are certainly places that give us a launching point for pursuing other leads.”
Cox has lengthy criminal background

-- In their charging documents and from additional research done by News 4, it’s clear Cox has a lengthy criminal background, including convictions of child sexual assault and child pornography.

-- Cox joined the Air Force in 1975 and was dishonorably discharged in 1982 due to sex offenses involving four girls while in Germany. As a result, Cox was court martialed and sentenced to eight years in prison.

-- In 1985, Cox was released from prison and placed on federal parole. Three years later he transferred his parole supervision to Missouri, and moved to the 3400 block of Wismer Avenue, in Breckenridge Hills. This address, according to the probable cause statement, is one-quarter mile from where Housman was abducted four years later.

-- In October 1989, Cox was a suspect in the sexual abuse of two girls investigated by the Overland Police Department. Those crimes were alleged to have happened at Mort Jacobs Park, which is located behind Buder Elementary, the school Housman attended. Cox was eventually charged in connection to those offenses, but the charges were later dropped.

-- As a result of those 1989 charges, Cox’s parole federal parole was revoked, and he was returned to Leavenworth Prison.

-- Additionally, prosecutors said, it was determined during the early 2019 investigation of Housman’s murder, that Cox committed additional violent sexual offenses against one of the two girls in Overland. They said charges are pending in that case out of St. Louis County. St. Louis Prosecutor Wesley Bell says his office must interview the victim first and hopes to do that within the next week.

-- In December 1992, Cox was released from Leavenworth Prison and he moved back to the St. Ann and later Ferguson. Cox’s sister lived in Overland, very near the school Housman attended and less than a mile from where she was seen alive.

-- In 1997, Cox became involved in a child pornography network known as the "Brotherhood," which facilitated the international distribution of child pornography, officials wrote in court documents.

-- In November 2002, Cox exchanged sexually explicit emails with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl but was really an undercover FBI agent.

-- In 2003, he was arrested and afterwards, agents conducted a search of his of computer and found more than 45,000 still images and videos of child porn, including children as young as three.

-- Cox was found guilty in 2003 of a number of charges, including attempted enticement of a minor to travel in interstate commerce, possession of child pornography and 19 counts of receiving child pornography. He was sentenced to serve 120 months in federal prison.

-- Cox was scheduled to be released in 2011, but a number of doctors testified that he had no empathy for his victims and said that he would have difficulty in refraining from sexual violent conduct in the future.

-- In 2012, he was deemed a “sexually dangerous person” and ordered to be criminally confined under the Adam Walsh Act – which allows authorities to keep a convict beyond their sentence, if a panel of experts deem the person is likely to re-offend. He has been incarcerated ever since

A 9-year-old’s murder stumped police for 25 years. Her killer may have been hiding in plain sight.

On the afternoon of Nov. 18, 1993, 9-year-old Angie Housman stepped off the school bus and began walking the half-block to her parents’ duplex in St. Ann, Mo. It was the last time that anyone would see her alive.

A deer hunter found her nude body tied to a tree in a wildlife refuge in St. Charles County, Mo., more than a week later, partially covered with snow. The fourth-grader had been violently sexually assaulted, gagged with her own torn underwear, then left in the woods in below-freezing temperatures, where she eventually died of exposure. Investigators determined that her captor had kept her alive for nine days while denying her food and water, and she had died just hours before her body was found.

The crime shook the community, leading schools in the St. Louis suburbs to institute buddy systems so that no children walked home alone. And for more than 25 years, the case stumped police. Thousands of tips came in, but none ever panned out. Somehow, no one had seen the girl disappear. A woman who typically watched schoolchildren get off the bus every day hadn’t been standing at her window on the day that Angie vanished, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, and another neighbor who usually monitored from her porch was taking care of a sick relative.

That scientific evidence came many years later, thanks to advances in genetic testing. Forensic scientists detected a DNA sample on a tiny scrap of fabric taken from the pink trim of Angie’s Barbie underwear, which matched Cox’s profile in a national database. It was one of the last pieces they had left to check. Testing the tiny scrap of fabric wouldn’t have been possible years earlier, Lohmar said, because until 2017, clothing dye made it difficult to get an accurate DNA sample.

That scientific evidence came many years later, thanks to advances in genetic testing. Forensic scientists detected a DNA sample on a tiny scrap of fabric taken from the pink trim of Angie’s Barbie underwear, which matched Cox’s profile in a national database. It was one of the last pieces they had left to check. Testing the tiny scrap of fabric wouldn’t have been possible years earlier, Lohmar said, because until 2017, clothing dye made it difficult to get an accurate DNA sample.

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

As owner, I do my best to stay out of actual discussions about a crime.

The JBR case is the one expection.

Websleuths is a leader in true crime information as well as discussion. People come here to get information. It is imperative we deal with the facts. Not fantasy.

All I ask for are facts and a logical connecting of the dots. Logic and facts.

When I get time I will be going through the forum to make sure the JonBenet Ramsey forum is being held up to the high standards just like all our other forums on Websleuths.

The days of allowing anyone to post anything because it's part of their "theory" are gone. Facts and logic. Very simple.

Host Tricia Griffith is a veteran radio disc jockey and owner of Websleuths.com and owner of Forums for Justice.org.

tricia griffith wrote:
Anti-K, this whole forum has example after example after example that an intruder did not commit this crime.

No one can show one scintilla of evidence of an intruder.

delmar england wrote:
Letter to Boulder Colorado District Attorney, Mary Keenan

The crime scene consisted of an obviously bogus multi-page "ransom note" utilizing local materials. JonBenet's body was left in the basement of the Ramsey home with crude trappings falling woefully short of presenting a convincing kidnap\murder scene as it was intended to do. Even without pointing out more of a very long list of corroborating facts, the bogus note and inept staging is more than sufficient to isolate the perpetrators to the Ramsey household. Only a few minutes in examining and evaluating the evidence is required to reach this conclusion. It is impossible to reach any other conclusion on the facts. There was and is no evidentiary reason to look anywhere else. The only mystery to be solved was and is which Ramsey did what in relation to JonBenet's death.

Although it is not possible to reach any other conclusion from the evidence, it is possible to ignore the evidence and mentally invent "evidence" to take the place of truth and keep it hidden. Prompted by preconceived notions set in a context of money and political influence in conjunction with investigative cowardice and incompetence, this is precisely what has been going on for over six years.

delmar wrote:
Handwriting? Patsy has not been ruled out by several examiners. By my own analysis, not of the writing, but of the mind match between the note and Patsy is clear. This is explained in my analysis of the "ransom note." So far, neither you nor anyone else has quoted and challenged it. So, to say the handwriting does not match the Ramseys, thus all Ramseys are excluded as author, is just another arbitrary declaration without substance. Note the exclusion of Ramseys necessarily depends on the intruder idea of no factual substance.

DNA? So, it does not match the family. So what? Who does it match? Unknown? If unknown, how can it be known to connect to the crime and be "evidence?" If the source of this DNA were known, then factually connected to the crime scene, then it is evidence. Absence this, it is just more speculation that caters to intruder mental creation.

Does the DNA have to be connected to the crime? Could it not be from a benign source totally removed from the crime scene? Again, the alleged evidence evidences nothing except itself with no known connection to the crime. No outsider as perpetrator is required to explain the DNA since no connection is known as crime related.

The same is true for boot print, hairs, fibers, etc.. A close look into anyone's house would most likely turn up all sorts of things whose source were unknown whether there is a crime or not. To call something whose source and cause is unknown as evidence is to say it causal related while simultaneously saying cause is unknown, thus relationship unknown; more "negative evidence." If my recollection of high school Latin is correct, this could be called "ignotium per ignotius", the unknown by the more unknown.

This "Ramsey defense" "thinking" is a direct and absurd contradiction that is without limit. With this kind of "investigative latitude", I dare say that one could "prove" anything; or at least, convince the deluded self that he or she has done so. "negative evidence?" Surely, thou jest. I repeat: All known evidence is local.

delmar england wrote:
For every "could be", there is a "could be not", therefore, inconclusive until cause is known. Right? No thing is evidence until evidentiary cause is known. Right? Are we in agreement so far? If not, please point out what you think is my error in thinking, and why you think it is error.

A shoe print is found in the basement whose cause is unknown. It "could be" evidence of an intruder. "Could be not" is forgotten and "evidence" of an intruder is declared to be fact. There is a palm print with cause unknown; a rope with source unknown that "could be" something brought in by an intruder; an unidentified fiber, a baseball bat that "could have" been used by the intruder; a bit of dirt or leaves at a window well which "could have" been disturbed by an intruder. The list goes on and on and on.

This massive "evidence" stated to be more consistent with a theory of intruder than Ramsey guilt is hot air, nothing more than a string of unknowns verbally laced together on "could be", simultaneously divorced from the known, and declared to be much evidence of an intruder. Ridiculous to the max. No wonder no one will step forward and answer questions about alleged evidence of an alleged intruder. Its indefensible.

The beauty of truth is that it is consistent. Every fact is a complement of and blends with every other fact without contradiction. The presence of a contradiction is also the presence of error. Are we in agreement up to this point?

That scientific evidence came many years later, thanks to advances in genetic testing. Forensic scientists detected a DNA sample on a tiny scrap of fabric taken from the pink trim of Angie’s Barbie underwear, which matched Cox’s profile in a national database. It was one of the last pieces they had left to check. Testing the tiny scrap of fabric wouldn’t have been possible years earlier, Lohmar said, because until 2017, clothing dye made it difficult to get an accurate DNA sample.

The same is true for boot print, hairs, fibers, etc.. A close look into anyone's house would most likely turn up all sorts of things whose source were unknown whether there is a crime or not. To call something whose source and cause is unknown as evidence is to say it causal related while simultaneously saying cause is unknown, thus relationship unknown; more "negative evidence." If my recollection of high school Latin is correct, this could be called "ignotium per ignotius", the unknown by the more unknown.

This "Ramsey defense" "thinking" is a direct and absurd contradiction that is without limit. With this kind of "investigative latitude", I dare say that one could "prove" anything; or at least, convince the deluded self that he or she has done so. "negative evidence?" Surely, thou jest. I repeat: All known evidence is local.

delmar england wrote:
For every "could be", there is a "could be not", therefore, inconclusive until cause is known. Right? No thing is evidence until evidentiary cause is known. Right? Are we in agreement so far? If not, please point out what you think is my error in thinking, and why you think it is error.

A shoe print is found in the basement whose cause is unknown. It "could be" evidence of an intruder. "Could be not" is forgotten and "evidence" of an intruder is declared to be fact. There is a palm print with cause unknown; a rope with source unknown that "could be" something brought in by an intruder; an unidentified fiber, a baseball bat that "could have" been used by the intruder; a bit of dirt or leaves at a window well which "could have" been disturbed by an intruder. The list goes on and on and on.

This massive "evidence" stated to be more consistent with a theory of intruder than Ramsey guilt is hot air, nothing more than a string of unknowns verbally laced together on "could be", simultaneously divorced from the known, and declared to be much evidence of an intruder. Ridiculous to the max. No wonder no one will step forward and answer questions about alleged evidence of an alleged intruder. Its indefensible.

The beauty of truth is that it is consistent. Every fact is a complement of and blends with every other fact without contradiction. The presence of a contradiction is also the presence of error. Are we in agreement up to this point?

That scientific evidence came many years later, thanks to advances in genetic testing. Forensic scientists detected a DNA sample on a tiny scrap of fabric taken from the pink trim of Angie’s Barbie underwear, which matched Cox’s profile in a national database. It was one of the last pieces they had left to check. Testing the tiny scrap of fabric wouldn’t have been possible years earlier, Lohmar said, because until 2017, clothing dye made it difficult to get an accurate DNA sample.

That scientific evidence came many years later, thanks to advances in genetic testing. Forensic scientists detected a DNA sample on a tiny scrap of fabric taken from the pink trim of Angie’s Barbie underwear, which matched Cox’s profile in a national database. It was one of the last pieces they had left to check. Testing the tiny scrap of fabric wouldn’t have been possible years earlier, Lohmar said, because until 2017, clothing dye made it difficult to get an accurate DNA sample.