Snoopy's Poop Scores Crime Coup

That was a headline announcing the arrest of a suspect in Indiana for a triple slaying. It came about when the suspect stepped in dog poop at the scene of the crime, and when he was apprehended later, he claimed he’d been nowhere near the site. However, not only did he leave a foot print in the poop, there was just enough found on his shoe for the DNA of the only dog on the property to be a match.

The match was made in a small, three-person laboratory at UC Davis – the only accredited forensic lab in the country dealing with animal evidence. They use the same techniques and tools as human labs, although they use primers specific to the animal evidence being tested.  Urine, hair, poop, saliva or other animal evidence left behind can help solve animal cruelty, animal attacks on humans and human crimes like robbery, rape and murder where an animal left a mark behind. Beth Wictum, the lab director said “Some studies show you can’t go into a house where there’s a dog or a cat without picking up some evidence.” For instance, in one case the woman’s dog relieved itself on the tire of the man who tried to sexually assault her. Even though she couldn’t pick him out in the lineup, the dog’s pee on the tire linked him to the scene.

My California rag doll cats watching TV

Once upon a time, animal evidence might have been overlooked, but today’s investigators automatically collect any animal fur, hairs, feces, urine stains and tissue samples found at a crime scene. They also take mouth swabs from pets after they defend their owners against attackers, and increasingly they check the blankets, rugs and sheets wrapped around homicide victims.

On Christmas Eve 2002, Kevin Butler was murdered in his home by two men who broke into his apartment and started to beat him. His pet cockatoo – named Bird after basketball great Larry Bird – tried to come to his rescue. He repeatedly dove down on the attackers, clawing at their skin and pecking their heads. The police found Bird dead, stabbed to death with a fork, but the blood trails Bird created as well as human DNA found in Bird’s beak, matched the prime suspect and helped put his owner’s murderer behind bars for life.

This lab doing such great work is in a humble setup; one trailer parked on a dusty side road on the fringe of the Davis campus. The three lab technicians; Beth Wictum, Teri Kun and Christina Lindquist, have access to databases from years of research at the wider Veterinary Genetics Lab, which includes databases of dogs, cats, horses, cows, llamas, sheep, goats, pigs and alpacas. They help solve animal abuse cases, ownership disputes and have even debunked some Bigfoot cases proving the fur came from a bear or a chimpanzee.

In my first book, The Blue Rose, the police chief sent cat fur in for DNA testing. Because my books cover a one week period and DNA testing can take months, I gave him a longtime friend from college days, who works in a DNA lab and rushes everything through for him. Hey, it’s fiction. What else can I say?

Have you ever included animal DNA testing in your stories?