Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders

by Kathryn Miles

But that sophistication has also come with a problematic legal cost. A few years ago, a father was convicted of raping his young daughter after his semen was discovered in her underwear. Subsequent forensic work found his semen in the clothing of his other relatives as well. It wasn’t until experts determined that something as simple as washing a load of laundry was enough to deposit those cells on other people’s clothing that he was exonerated. A few years ago, European officials were convinced they had a continent-wide serial killer after DNA taken from more than forty evidence kits pointed to the same individual. It took months before one enterprising lab scientist determined that the DNA actually came from a factory worker who had packaged the swabs used to collect evidence.