More than a year passed before Middletown

More than a year passed before Middletown got back DNA results taken at two unsolved burglaries in 2010. Both cases ended with the suspects pleading guilty.Nicastro said he believes the state's backlog is partly related to departments sending multiple DNA swabs when they don't have an identified suspect. Bad guys aren't the only ones who touch items, so police will collect DNA from anyone who may have had contact with an item,R8 Collet manufacturers such as a door handle, to rule out suspects, he said.For a decade, the Pennsylvania State Police Forensic DNA division in Greensburg has processed biological evidence, including touch DNA, involving property crimes, Director Beth Ann Marne said.About half of the more than 2,000 requests the lab receives annually involve property-related crimes, she added. The growing demand has forced the state lab to limit the number of drug-related cases and the types of evidence, such as drug paraphernalia, that it accepts, Marne said.

"We were surprised by the response we got early on," she said. "We saw the value in it early on. But it's still amazing to me that we continue to see the substantial increases every year for property crimes requests."Before it recently added staff, the state lab experienced backlogs involving property crime DNA results of as long as a year because violent crimes always take priority, Marne said.Over the last two years, the state has devoted "significant" resources to increasing lab staff, Marne said, adding that wait times have dropped. The state lab now has almost 50 people working in the forensics DNA division, double the number from a few years ago.

The long wait for results through state labs is why Bensalem turned to a private lab in 2010,China TG Collet supplies shaving its wait time to 30 days or less. In November, the department took the technology to the next step, piloting a first-of-its-kind, rapid DNA initiative that generates results in 90 minutes.Bensalem's private database has only about 6,500 DNA profiles, compared to the millions in CODIS, which the department still uses for violent crime investigations. But the smaller database has played a role in 150 criminal investigations, mostly involving otherwise unsolvable drug and property crimes, said Fred Harran, director of public safety.