May 21, 2013
  • DNA match between OWS and Sarah Fox may be result of lab error

    Sarah Fox, theJuilliard student whose body was found

    Photo credit: Sarah Fox, theJuilliard student whose body was found in Manhattan May 25, 2004.(Camden Courier-Post)

    A careless lab error may have caused the DNA match between evidence from the unsolved 2004 murder of Sarah Fox and a recent Occupy Wall Street protest, according to published reports.

    A chain found at the site of a March 28 OWS protest in East Flatbush had DNA on it that matched the CD player the 21-year-old Fox had when she went missing in 2004 in Inwood Hill Park. Her naked body was later found nearby.

    But the samples found on the items may be that of the lab supervisor at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner who touched both pieces, The New York Times reported.

    "The OCME tainted the samples and it was the OCME supervisor's whose DNA was on both," a source told The New York Times.

    The OCME denied the claim.

    Tests are still being done on the sample to determine the identity of the DNA, spokeswoman Ellen S. Borakove told the Times.

    Officials had already determined that the DNA was not that of the case's primary suspect, 47-year-old Dimitry Sheinman, or Fox's family.

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