Getting Away With Murder

"The Othram genealogy team used the profile to develop investigative leads that were returned to LVMPD [Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department]." 

"This was a huge milestone."  

"When you can access information from such a small amount of DNA, it really opens up the opportunity to so many other cases that have been historically considered cold and unsolvable." 

"One of the advantages of having your own lab and doing everything in-house is that you can really refine the methods. I’m hoping that this case will inspire other agencies to dig through their backlogs and find cases that may look hopeless or unsolvable, but really are tractable with some of this new technology."

David Mittelman, chief executive, Othram, genome-sequencing laboratory

 

"I'm glad they found who murdered my daughter. I never believed the case would be solved."

"It's good to have some closure, but there is no justice for Stephanie at all."

"We will never have complete closure because nothing will ever bring my daughter back to us."

Mother of Stephanie Isaacson 

 

"Othram scientists used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to build a genealogical profile from the remaining DNA evidence — only 120 picograms (or 0.12 nanograms) of DNA. This sets a new lower limit on the quantity of DNA required to build a genealogical profile for a suspect of a crime."

"The Othram genealogy team used the profile to develop investigative leads that were returned to LVMPD. LVMPD detectives were able to confirm the identity of the suspect in Stephanie's sexual assault and murder as Darren Roy Marchand. The suspect died in 1995 by suicide but has been tied to other crimes." 

DNASolves.com

Fourteen-year-old Stephanie Isaacson's case had been cold for 32 years  Police handout

It was Stephanie Isaacson's daily routine, to walk to her Las Vegas high school from her home, through an empty sandlot as a shortcut, setting out at 6:30 a.m. On June 1, 1989 her father called the school, and then some of her school friends, when his daughter failed to return home from school as usual. No one had seen the 14-year-old that day; she hadn't appeared at school, her friends hadn't seen her at all. Next call was to the Las Vegas Police.

An air and ground search by law enforcement agencies followed. The search ended at 8:40 p.m. when investigators came across a few of the school books belonging to the girl in a "desert area" close to her home. Which then led to search parties scouring the area, eventually finding Stephanie's body roughly 25 metres off the trail she took walking to school on a daily basis.

She was found through the autopsy that followed to have had "significant blunt force trauma injuries and that she had been sexually assaulted". And, according to the notes left by the Clark County Coroner's Office, her death was caused by strangulation. Several suspects were identified over the following years, leading investigators to travel to Washington State, Ohio and Texas, following up on promising leads.

 

The Coroner's Office forensic laboratory attempted to test evidence for DNA with the use of technology that is now obsolete, back in 1998. Another attempt was made in 2007, succeeding in obtaining a DNA profile from semen found on the girl's shirt, according to Kim Murga, the director of the lab. The DNA profile was subsequently uploaded to an FBI database, but no match was ever received. 

 

Everything in the cold case changed when a genome-sequencing lab specializing in assisting with cold cases contacted lab director Murga's forensic team with an offer of services with the use of new technology. There would be no cost associated, since an unnamed individual donated funding for the lab to aid in the solving of a cold case with the LVMPD. The laboratory worked for seven months to gather the data they required to build a genetic profile with the minuscule amount of DNA they had to work with.

"Stephanie's case was chosen specifically because of the minimal amount of DNA evidence that was available."

"It appears to [have been] a random attack while she was walking to school."

LVMPD Lt. Ray Spencer

It took thirty-two years for the cold case to be solved, when the Texas laboratory -- Othram -- with the use of new technology, used the equivalent of 15 human cells to find the link that had so long eluded Las Vegas investigators, identifying the young girl's killer as Darren Marchand. The man had a criminal history, explained Lt.Spencer, arrested in 1985, age 20, charged with fatally strangling 24-year-old Nanette Vanderburg in her home.

 

There was no conviction for lack of evidence. At that time DNA testing was not available but police were able to compare the DNA from her case with the DNA found in the young girl's case which proved to be a match. Frustratingly, Darren Marchand murdered two women and the legal system still will not be able to extract some form of justice for his unspeakable crimes. By his own action he removed himself from the reach of the criminal justice system by committing suicide at age 29 in 1995. 

 

The Hollow Thump of Justice

"If he were alive today, the Toronto Police Service would arrest Calvin Hoover for the murder of Christine Jessop."

"There are no winners in this announcement. There is no reason to celebrate. It does, however, allow us to take a major step forward in our efforts to bring justice to Christine's family."

"I'm probably one of the few around that was still here when that murder was being investigated. I can assure you that there is a great sense of relief, and it's not just in the policing profession."

"I mean, this has impacted the entire judiciary and the legal system ... I think we are all genuinely relieved that the person actually responsible for this has finally been identified."

Acting Chief of Police Jim Ramer, Toronto

Christine Jessop in an undated photo provided to police by her family. (Submitted by Toronto Police Service)

"It's not that we start with Calvin Hoover. What we do is we start with an unidentified semen stain that has a DNA profile to it. This is submitted to a lab and from that profile they build out a potential familial lineage."

"And It's from that lineage that the investigators then work downwards to be able to try to identify potential persons of interest."

Superintendent Peter Code, Toronto Police Service

Morin tried twice, convicted, later acquitted. Moe Doiron/CP

 

"I am relieved for Christine's mother, Janet, and her family, and hope this will give them some peace of mind. They have been through a dreadful ordeal since they lost Christine in 1984. I am grateful that the Toronto police stayed on the case and have now finally solved it."

"When DNA exonerated me in January, 1995, I was sure that one day DNA would reveal the real killer and now it has."

Wrongly convicted, Guy Paul Morin

One of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in Canadian history occurred when Guy Paul Morin was found guilty of murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop. Long after the fact, a public inquiry into his two trials discovered that both investigators and prosecutors relied on specious science, fabricating jailhouse informants and a subpar police investigation. In their determined zeal to name a suspect a murderer and 'solve' the horrendous murder, they sent an innocent man to prison for 18 months.

Christine Jessop

On an afternoon in early October of 1984, Christine Jessop returned home from school, she left her backpack on the kitchen counter, and this is what her mother and brother found when they arrived home from a dental appointment, expecting to see an absent Christine. Photographs of the child were posted everywhere in the province. Eventually her body was discovered on New Year's Eve, 50 kilometres from her home. The little girl had been stabbed to death. Traces of semen were discovered in her underwear.

It took many years, but finally DNA extracted from that semen proved that Guy Paul Morin, languishing in prison was not the murderer, and he was exonerated as having been wrongly convicted. He was compensated for the loss of a year-and-a-half of his life and loss of dignity to the tune of $1.2M.

This is as good an example as any why Canada long ago abolished the death penalty. On Thursday, that same DNA evidence taken from the semen sample from the little girl's underwear, led the Toronto Police Service to the real killer. And on Thursday, at an online press conference, the identity of the man  was revealed; Calvin Hoover of Toronto.

 

In 1984, Hoover was 28 years of age when he murdered the nine-year-old Christine. A known linkage has not yet been revealed, but police indicate that Hoover's wife may have worked alongside Christine's father. Cold case homicide detectives identified him with the use of a relatively new technique called genetic genealogy. He will never face justice for abducting, raping and stabbing a child to death, due to the fact that in 2015 he committed suicide. 

 

The DNA sample in the possession of Toronto police was sent to an American laboratory and received results that gave investigators the opportunity to build two genetic family trees of potential suspects. Eventually the search was narrowed to a single name. And the murderer's identity was revealed. A man with a previous criminal record not of relevance to the investigation, but as it happened the province's Centre of Forensic Sciences possessed a sample of Hoover's blood enabling detectives to match the DNA sample to the blood, concluding the investigation.

Detectives next met with Christine Jessop's mother to inform her of their findings, and that information was also given to Guy Paul Morin whom DNA evidence cleared in 1995 after he had spent 18 months in prison for a crime he did not commit and for which he claimed innocence.

Calvin Hoover