1. The murder of Leanne Tiernan. The case In November 2000 a 16- year old girl, Leanne Tiernan went missing following a shopping trip with a best friend in Leeds. What followed was the largest search in West Yorkshire as the police searched around 800 homes and 1500 gardens on the direct route back to her home from the bus stop as well as searches of a three-mile stretch of canals, drains and moorlands. Eventually with no witnesses, concrete evidence of new leads the case went cold. However in August 2001 a man walking his dog about 10 miles from her home in a woods found her body buried in a shallow grave.
Shew was found with a back lastic bad over her head, held in place with a dog collar, with a scarf and cable tie around her neck and cable ties holding her wrists together. The body had then been wrapped in green plastic bin liners tied with twine. The investigation Through finger print analysis it was proved to be the corpse of Leanne Tiernan. The pathologist examining her body said that it had not been there since November. She had been strangled and her body stored at low temperatures in the intervening time.
The first piece of evidence that the Police investigated was the dog collar and they tracked down relevant suppliers and found hat a local man from had bought several similar to the one found around Leanne Tiernan’s neck. His name was John Taylor, and he was a poacher who had been seen around the woods where the body was found. The next phase was to investigate the twine was an unusual kind, used for rabbit netting, and was tracked down to a supplier in Devon, which had only produced one batch. It matched twine found in John Taylor’s home. Furthermore the cable ties used were of a type used almost exclusively by the Royal Mail, the parent company of John Taylor’s employer, Parcel Force. When the police searched John
Taylor’s house they found more of the cable ties and one of the dog collars. On searching the woods Police recovered a high number of items and and forensic scientists compared DNA samples from these, the duvet cover and the bin bags with samples from friends, family, residents on the council estate where Leanne lived, and known sex offenders. The scarf tied around Leanne Tiernan’s neck had a few hairs caught in the knot. Unfortunately, there was not sufficient DNA in the roots for standard DNA profiling. However, the scientists found very small amounts of DNA in the hair shaft and used mitochondrial DNA testing to match it to John Taylor.
There were dog hairs on Leanne Tiernan’s body, and scientists in Texas produced a partial dog DNA profile – this was the first time a British murder investigation had used dog DNA profiling. However, John Taylor’s dog had died, so this could not be used in evidence. Forensic scientists found a strand of pink carpet fibre on her clothes, with specific patterns of dye. Though John Taylor had destroyed the carpet by burning it, police found strands around a nail that matched the fibre on her jumper. Searching under the floorboards, police found bloodstains that the forensic scientists identified as belonging to Leanne Tiernan.
Forensic Scientists found traces of pollen in Tiernans nasal cavity as well as on her skin and in her hair. Analysts were able to match the pollen in Taylors garden to the pollen fond on Tiernans body. John Taylor was arrested in October 2001, and sentenced to two life sentences in July 2002. In February 2003, he was convicted of two rapes, based on DNA evidence, and given two additional life sentences Sourse
2. Antoni Imiela – The M25 rapist The search for Imiela was the biggest linked police enquiry since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper and resulted, in 2004, in him being sentenced to seven life sentences for the rape of seven omen and girls aged 10 to 52 with a further 29 years for the kidnap, indecent assault, and attempted rape of a 10-year old girl in Birmingham. As most of the crimes took place around London and the Home Counties, the press named him the ‘M25 Rapist’. The convictions were based on evidence from the and girls, and on forensic evidence from a number of wom disciplines. DNA Evidence The first attack was in November 2001, when a 10-year-old girl was kidnapped from outside a community centre in Ashford, Kent, and taken to woodland and raped. The forensic analysis began with a profile of DNA samples taken from the rape victim.
When scientists compared Imiela’s profile with the one taken from the child, there was no match with either the national DNA database or samples taken from 2,000 local men In July 2002 there was a further attack of a 30 year old woman who was raped in Earlswood, in Surrey. Using a technique called low copy number (LCN) DNA profiling the forensic services were able to match fragments of DNA to those from the first case. Following the rapes of a 26-year-old woman on Putney Common in London on the same day in July 2002, a 52-year-old woman on Wimbledon Common, London in August 2002, and a 26-year-old oman in Epsom, Surrey, also in August 2002, the forensic scientists screened the DNA of 1000 men but could not find any matches.
In October 2002, the rapist abducted a 14-year-old girl in Stevenage (Hertfordshire) and raped her at knifepoint. The girl was able to provide a description of her attacker. Following a release of the description, and anonymous caller gave the police a tip-off and Imiela came in to provide a DNA sample. Two days after this, in November 2002, he abducted and indecently assaulted a 10-year-old girl in Birmingham. Forensic scientists found hairs in Imiela’s car with DNA matching that of the 10-year old girl.
Imiela’s DNA sample matched the DNA from the first rape, and the police arrested him in December 2002 Other Evidence Forensic scientists found a number of brightly coloured fibres on the victim’s clothes, which may have come from Imiela – this is called ‘secondary transfer’. Long and careful study found that these matched fibres from jackets worn by rail workers (Imiela worked on the railways) and even the curtains in Imiela’s home. Evidence from use of mobile phones and bankcards put Imiela in the same areas as the rapes. Imiela had used a victim’s bag as a pillow during one rape and this had his fingerprint on it.
Overall, more than 100 people from five Forensic Science Service laboratories, including scientists and support staff, worked on the Imiela case, and processed DNA samples from more than 3500 men. 3. The murder of Hyo Jung Jin In November 2002, the body of a young Asian woman was found, with mouth taped, in a suitcase by a walker in Askham Richard, a village near York. A pathologist confirmed that she had been suffocated, Examination of the body by an anthropologist from and ethnic testing carried out by The Forensic Science Service (FSS) using the red-hair analysis test as an ethnic marker, confirmed that the woman was South East Asian (Oriental) rather than Indo-Pakistan.
Despite dental examination, DNA analysis and fingerprint recovery, investigators could not identify her, so a portfolio of this information was prepared for Interpol. Her details were matched to a Southeast Asian web site listing missing people Her name was Hyo Jung Jin, she was 21 years old, and she was studying French at the University of Lyon. Her friends contacted her family in Korea when she did not return to university in October after a trip to London. Her brother put her details on the Korean missing person’s website, and a South Korean police officer, who was studying at Leeds University saw these and contacted the police about a possible connection.
The Korean Embassy passed fingerprint details of Koreans (all South Korean adults have their fingerprints recorded) to the North Yorkshire Police, and these confirmed her identity. Furthermore Hyo Jung Jin’s death was linked to the death of In Hea Song, another Korean student whose body was found in a cupboard in a house in East London. She had also been suffocated, and through DNA kinship analysis forensic scientists had identified her body by matching her DNA profile with those of her parents.
