In solving cold cases, State DNA registry succeed

Without a DNA match, police Capt. Alex Minor wonders if the 12 - year - old murder of a Binghamton woman would ever have been solved.
" Obscure not, " vocal the venerable Binghamton police big wheel.

Access 1997, Terry Dittman, therefrom a 37 - year - old mother screen a crack cocaine addiction, had been stabbed clout the throat when police settle her naked, speechless body slow the former DPW building on the East Side.

A pathologist had found a condom with semen inside Dittman ' s body at autopsy after her death. But it wasn ' t until 2001 that a DNA match in the state ' s registry was linked with the sample from the condom.

The match belonged to Bobby Jo Hatchcock, an Afton man who had submitted a DNA sample to the state ' s registry as a result of a burglary - - a crime that had nothing to do with Dittman ' s death.

Hatchcock had not even been a suspect in Dittman ' s homicide until the DNA match.

In June, A Broome County jury convicted him of Dittman ' s murder.

Old and cold cases are getting solved with the use of DNA as police collect biological evidence at crime scenes and look for matches in the state ' s registry.

In the past decade, roughly 8, 270 police investigations in New York have been aided by matches from the registry, which was begun in 1996 and called for samples from convicted murderers and some sexual crimes. Over the years, the registry was expanded to include more felony convictions.

" We know from experience that people who commit heinous crimes also commit lesser crimes, " Minor said.
About 83 percent of offenders linked to sexual assaults were in the DNA registry for other crimes, according to the DCJS.