Law would bank DNA at booking
ATLANTA - Winder resident Susan Cash does not hold out much hope that the man who raped and almost killed her 25 years ago ever will be caught, but she thinks a new bill in the state legislature will help police solve other cold cases.
State Rep. Rob Teilhet, D-Smyrna, plans to introduce a bill this week requiring law enforcement to take DNA samples at booking from anyone who is arrested on a felony charge.
The samples, taken by swabbing the inside of the mouth, could be compared to a state database to see if the arrested person might have committed other unsolved crimes.
"DNA is really treated like a fingerprint," Teilhet said. "It isn't any more of a radical idea than that."
Several victims of violent crimes and their families spoke out in support of the bill at a news conference Monday, including Cash.
In 1985, a man took Cash, then 19, at gunpoint to an abandoned house in Savannah, robbed, shot and raped her, then left her in the crawl space.
She could not identify her attacker and said authorities lost her rape kit three years after the crime, so it is unlikely DNA evidence could be used to bring her attacker to justice.
"Had this been in place long ago, when I was assaulted, it definitely would have helped," said Cash, who now runs the Piedmont Rape Crisis Center.
Athens-Clarke police have kept several cold cases - such as the killings of University of Georgia students Jennifer Stone in 1992 and Tara Baker in 2001 - open for years in hopes that DNA evidence will emerge to help them finger a culprit.
Police Chief Jack Lumpkin declined to comment on the bill until he reads it.
New Mexico, a state that passed a law two years ago that's similar to Teilhet's bill, has matched 116 samples taken at arrest with DNA evidence from past crimes, Teilhet said.
California gets 10 matches per day, and Virginia has found more than 500 matches, he said.
Georgia's 10-year-old DNA database has yielded 1,700 matches between samples and suspects, acco
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