BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?

Subject: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 06:34 PM

Elementary, my dear Fluffy: Cat DNA solves another homicide

Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News
2013 08 14

A British homicide case was solved by linking the genetic signature of cat hairs found on the body to the suspect's pet. Researchers say the technique demonstrates the power of pet DNA for forensic investigation.

DNA readings from cat hairs have once again helped crack a homicide case — demonstrating the power of genetic pet databases to solve crimes.

The latest case involves a suspect in Britain who was convicted of manslaughter after prosecutors drew a genetic link between his pet cat, Tinker, and cat hairs found at the crime scene. Investigators took advantage of a database of DNA from 152 cats in Britain.

"This is the first time cat DNA has been used in a criminal trial in the UK," Jon Wetton, the University of Leicester geneticist who led the cat DNA project, said in a statement Wednesday. "We now hope to publish the database so it can be used in future crime investigations."

How the case was cracked

In July 2012, the dismembered torso of Hampshire resident David Guy was found on a Southsea beach, wrapped in a curtain on which eight cat hairs were found. Constables sent the hairs to California for analysis of the mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from a mama cat to her kittens. Hairs from suspect David Hilder's cat were analyzed as well — and the tests came up with a match.

However, the prosecutors had to show how rare such a match might be for two random cats. That's when they brought in Wetton, who had already created a similar database for dogs while at Britain's Forensic Science Service. "We proposed creating a UK cat database from scratch," Wetton said.

The Hampshire Constabulary paid for a series of tests of blood samples from British cats, conducted by Ph.D. student Barbara Ottolini with the cooperation of vets across the country. When 152 cats were tested, only three of the samples came back with a mitochondrial DNA match to the hairs on the curtain, confirming that the genetic signature was uncommon.

Those findings were factored into the case against Hilder, a neighbor of Guy's who was convicted of manslaughter last month in Winchester Crown Court and sentenced to life in prison.

"This could be a real boon for forensic science, as the 10 million cats in the UK are unwittingly tagging the clothes and furnishings in more than a quarter of households," Wetton said.

Wetton acknowledged that Tinker's hairs weren't the only evidence in the case: The constables also found traces of Guy's blood at Hilder's Southsea residence. Nevertheless, the DNA evidence helped reinforce the prosecutor's case. The Associated Press quoted police as saying Tinker was alive and well and living with new owners.

Setting a precedent

Although the case of the curtained cat hairs appears to be a first for Britain, it's not the first time a homicide case has been solved thanks to cat DNA. In 1994, a Canadian woman named Shirley Duguay was found dead in a shallow grave. Her estranged husband, Douglas Beamish, had a white cat named Snowball.

Investigators determined that one of the key pieces of evidence in the case, a discarded leather jacket, was covered with Duguay's blood — and had cat hair in one of its pockets. DNA analysis of the cat hairs provided a match to Snowball's genetic signature. Meanwhile, experts tested about 20 other cats from the area to show that the signature was rare.

Beamis was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

A researcher involved in that case, Robert Grahn of the University of California at Davis, said cats might be particularly well-suited for forensic analysis — due to their clingy hairs as well as their habit of licking themselves for grooming. "Cats are fastidious groomers, and shed fur can have sufficient genetic material for trace forensic studies," Grahn and his colleagues wrote in a paper published in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics.

Since then, there's been growing interest in pet DNA databases for forensic purposes — and such evidence has figured in several prosecutions in the United States. In 1998, for example, dog DNA was used as evidence leading to the conviction of two Seattle men on charges of first-degree murder and animal cruelty.

****

[Sometimes I think I could trust our cats more than my spouse, but they'd turn on me in an instant if I miss a feeding.]

[Was the cat's DNA taken lawfully?]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 06:48 PM

Cats do not have human rights, nor indeed rights under the US constitutions.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 06:49 PM

Isn't how ironic that the 'so-called liberals' hate 'profiling'...but it's okay for the State to collect DNA samples....as if it doesn't provide a 'profile'!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: gnu
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 07:33 PM

"When 152 cats were tested, only three of the samples came back with a mitochondrial DNA match to the hairs on the curtain, confirming that the genetic signature was uncommon."

Really? "Uncommon"?

Soooo... why aren't the other three guys in jail? Weren't they in on the murder? I mean... thier "cat hairs" were, right?

Come on. It's like OJ. Everyone not on the jury points to DNA tests but the court evidence clearly states that the DNA evidence on OJ reduced the suspect population to 84,000 possible suspects residing in the USA. Hardly proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" now, is it? If ya can't prove it with science, baffle em with bullshit... hmmmm... maybe the four cats got together and committed the murder? I say the cats should be subject to meow detector tests. If they all meow... throw the litter at em!

Don't you hiss at me! Scat!

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 08:02 PM

"... 'so-called liberals' hate 'profiling'...but it's okay for the State to collect DNA samples....as if it doesn't provide a 'profile'!!!"

You've used 'profile' in two different senses. Look up 'equivocation' in a directory of informal fallacies.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 08:40 PM

My daddy always told me that pussy can get you in a world of trouble...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:32 PM

Early on, one of my favorite short-story writers was H. H. Munro, better known as "Saki." One was a story entitled, "Tobermory." Tobermory was a cat.

Synopsis:

At a country house party, one guest, Cornelius Appin, announces to the guests that he has perfected a method of teaching animals human speech. He demonstrates this on his host's cat, Tobermory.

Soon it is clear that animals are permitted to hear and see many things on the assumption that they will remain silent. Such as the host, Sir Wilfred's comments on one guest's intelligence, or the sexual activities of another guest. The guests are furious, of course.

Plans to poison Tobermory fail when he runs away to pursue a rival cat, but to the relief of his owner, Tobermory is killed by the rival cat.

Cornelius Appin's marvelous achievement obviously has some drawbacks. But not to worry. Before he can teach his method to anyone else, he is killed while attempting to teach a zoo's elephant to speak.

So—you just never know. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: gnomad
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 12:37 AM

I asked a neighbourhood cat his opinion on this (not really expecting a reply, to be honest) and got the answer:

"Me, 'ow?"

I know, getting my coat now.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 03:03 AM

So nobody here picked up on the quote "build up a cat database from scratch" then?

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Ed T
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:03 AM

There will likely be a day when science will help sheep to tell all in a court of law - a future day of reconing.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 06:01 AM

I'm laughing fit to bust at the idea of my Siamese Smokey-Pokey testifying in court. He does in fact 'speak' and no doubt would have lots to say about me and my habits. His favourite word is 'Laptop'. It's quite clear and makes all the neighbours laugh. Imagine the Prosecutor asking him, "And what in fact did your owner steal last Friday?" "Laptop!" "Guilty M'Lud!" I too laughed at '...build up a database from scratch..." Musket. Maybe they could introduce a claws dealing with non-fitness to testify. The cat would have to be 'fit for purr-paws'.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 06:07 AM

"Forced"? Just you try and force my cat to do anything!

~M~`

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 06:32 AM

Seriously though, cat hairs do get absolutely everywhere, and must indeed get left at the crime scene if the perpetrator has a cat or dog. I have a constant battle to hoover up the fluff from our three, and when I go out, I'm sure there are one or two Siamese hairs on my clothes. So if you wish to murder somebody, don't keep pets!

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 06:53 AM

Cat hairs get everywhere, but so do cats.
Unless the cat is never allowed out (and no wise suspect would admit to that) he could visit a variety of houses sampling the company and the menu.
We had evidence of 3 on our cat's 'round' - the neighbour who said "he'll only eat chicken breasts", the old chap who smoked, and the woman who wore perfume (could tell by smell who he'd visited).
And if the murderer was someone else he's not going to admit to a visit from the cat.
If the defence was any good surely any cat-owner on the jury would have laughed at the evidence. And if the cat wasn't someone's house a hair could be transferred from cat-owner-to chair-to another-crime scene.

I just don't see that it is evidence. (Might point the police in a certain direction, but isn't proof)

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 06:58 AM

Animals betraying a murder - not quite new. See the legendary Cranes of Ibycus.

DNA will not remain the top state of the art. Tiny spy cams and microphones secretly attached to dog collars or licence tags, or bumblebees entering by the window ...

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: gnu
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 07:06 AM

I discovered that the little black ferel cat was eating my pea sprouts when I donned my glasses to see if I could detect what type of insect was destroying them. As a result, planting was delayed a month and I asm just now able to have more than a few peas a day.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 07:14 AM

From: GUEST,Ed T - PM
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:03 AM

There will likely be a day when science will help sheep to tell all in a court of law - a future day of reckoning.

No problem, just make sure you always stand behind them :)

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 09:45 AM

Or stun the sheep with 'stupefy' ((c) J K Rowling)
"Put a spell on ewe" Screamin Jay Hawkins.

Or come to an agreement to keep quiet (this is a talking sheep!)
"Ewe never can tell"   Chuck Berry

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 09:48 AM

Or as Mick Jagger said to (actor) Dennis Weaver, who was about to mount one of his sheep:
"Hey, McCloud, get offa my ewe!"

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,highlandman at work
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 10:15 AM

I would think that even though the cat hair itself might be near unique, the ubiquity and persistence of cat hair would make it very unconvincing to incriminate someone -- especially if there was commonly contact between the victim and the accused, which I understand is the case in many violent crimes. The number of people who could be implicated by having the hairs of my late cat on their clothing would be staggering.
-G

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Becca72
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 11:12 AM

Eliza,

My Sheldon (part Siamese part tuxedo) has a vocabulary of about 5-6 very distinct words in addition to all kinds of yowls and howls so I had the same thought you did. :-)

I came home from a weekend away to him coming down the stairs, all rumpled. When I asked why he was so disheveled he looked at me and clearly said "WELL??"

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 11:15 AM

With cat hairs being able to incriminate you, there's a lot to be said for a shaved pussy :)

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 11:15 AM

I agree, Highlandman. I was glad to hear that there was evidence beyond the cat hair in the conviction of David Hilder.

I've been thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure that cats in a neighborhood tend to be related. Somebody will have had a female cat at one time, and they permitted her to have litters of kittens. Every one of her kittens will have her mDNA, and most of them will have been given to neighbors, co-workers and classmates of the family. All her female descendants will have the same mDNA. All her male descendants who happen to mate with a sister will also pass that 'unusual' mDNA on.

Cats that are abandoned and are feral will really keep the same mDNA around, since they can't go far.

The victim was wrapped in a curtain with 8 cat hairs on it. That curtain could have come from the neighborhood thrift store, and it could have picked up the hairs there. (Or it could have arrived at the thrift store with the hair already on it.) The curtain could have hung in an open window, and the cat could have been right outside. The hairs could have come from the pet of a previous resident of the home.

I think that cat hair as evidence requires a lot more thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 12:25 PM

A question regarding DNA evidence that has seemed to me to exist relates to the way that such evidence is generally presented.

Typical testimony is based on a "match" of some half-dozen to a dozen genetic "markers" that match in two separate samples.

The "mathematics" cited is that only 300 persons in a population of 1,000,000,000 would have those same markers, so "odds that the two samples came from the same person are 1 in 3,000,000, which is likely to convince most juries.

People having similar ethnic origins, however, tend to have similar sets of "markers" at the level of common evidence testing, and the percentage of possible "matching markers" is additionally affected if only persons genetically related to the suspect(s) are considered.

So what happens if all of the 300 "possible matches" live in the same town where the crime occured. In a small town of perhaps 14,000 population, 300 possible matches gets about 1 in 50 persons who could be "identified" as the criminal.

Not very good odds.

LiK's obsession with her dead relatives has led her to look for some of mine, and her current results show I probably have a a direct genetic relationship to about 80% of the people who lived in the small Kansas town, population about 14,000 then, where I was born (even though I never actually lived there and most of those "relatives" have names I don't even recognize).

A recent report that takes a different line of argument, too long to quote here, suggests that at least a few people recognize a "trend" that should admit the possibility of "bias" that could affect the validity of some "DNA evidence" as now used:

Family DNA searches hold potential for racial bias, study says
Tia Ghose LiveScience
14 August 2013
Gaston De Cardenas / Reuters

The problem of limiting the evidence to valid matches is magnified with a "inbred" population - like cats, dogs, and/or race horses (or small town Lutherans, Mormons, et. al.?). Identifying a larger number of "markers" in each sample can reduce the odds of false identifications, but not all who testify use a really sufficient number of characteristics for the positive conclusions claimed - especially, as the article notes, - in "ethnicly/familialy segregated" locations.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 02:15 PM

gnu, that poor little feral cat eating your pea sprouts must be almost starving. Could you, do you think, put out a little meat for him/her?
Nigel, you made me giggle. We had a rather daft female colleague where I taught, a sexy redhead with a huge bust. All the male staff fancied her. One day she came into the staff room during break waving a photo and asked, "Anyone want to see a photo of my ginger pussy?" As we all choked on our coffee, one of the men muttered, "I thought it would be!"

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: gnu
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:54 PM

Eliza... why do you think her and her kittens were doing so well?
>;-) But, it pisses me off that they had to eat my peas with the tuna and such.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: gnu
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:57 PM

BTW.... the neighbourhood effort managed to live trap "Blackie", spay her and return her to look after her kittens. Capture of all is an ongoing story but homes are awaiting every one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Can Your Cat be Forced to Testify?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 02:16 PM

That's lovely to know, gnu. And very kind of you to help her and her brood. Feral cats are such a problem. We have a poor scruffy thing that sneaks through our catflap at night and hoovers up what's left on our cats' plates. But it's vicious and attacks ours. I'm worried about infections and germs. He also wees copiously all over the kitchen before he leaves, terrible stink! I've solved it by locking the catflap at night, but leaving some food outside for him. Trouble is, it encourages rats. Some of the neighbours have said they'll try to catch him and have him homed.