Dna

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - After initial DNA tests failed to provide a match, the Franklin County District Attorney's last week petitioned the court for a second set of tests on a man charged with raping a woman last year on the Appalachian Trail. Terry A. Boose, 33, of Gardners, Pa., also was charged with involuntary sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault and simple assault in an attack on a 28-year-old Delaware woman last June on a remote section of trail in Quincy Township.

CHAMBERSBURG, PA. - DNA from a baseball cap found at the scene of a September 2004 sexual assault matches DNA collected from a rape 12 days later in Franklin County, according to testimony Thursday in the preliminary hearing of a former Hagerstown man charged in the crimes. In both cases, the women testified they were kidnapped while getting into vehicles in shopping center parking lots, driven to secluded areas and photographed by a man while being sexually assaulted. Pov Srun, 35, formerly of 838 W. Washington St., was ordered bound over for court on all charges by Magisterial District Judge Gary Carter, who scheduled a mandatory arraignment in Franklin County Court for Aug. 30. Srun is charged with two counts each of rape, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, simple assault, terroristic threats, robbery of a motor vehicle, theft and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to court records.

HAGERSTOWN Nancy Baker and Lynda Daley are not crime scene investigators, nor do they play them on TV, but the two friends and loyal "CSI" fans said if they sat on a jury, they'd need to see scientific evidence to convince them of the defendant's guilt. Baker and Daley were among about a dozen people interviewed recently at Valley Mall who said they'd need to see fingerprint, DNA or other scientific evidence to convince them beyond a reasonable doubt of someone's guilt. Potential jurors in some Washington County cases are being asked that question in response to what prosecutors across the country are calling the "CSI Effect.

Parents can take their children to the gatehouse at the Maryland Correctional Training Center Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. to participate in the Maryland Masonic Child ID Program (MdCHIP), according to a Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services press release. Families will leave with digital photographs, video, fingerprints, vital child information and an oral DNA swab. All but the DNA will be burned onto a compact disc that is compatible with the Amber Alert system should a child turn up missing, according to the release.

To the editor: The six-week trial is mercifully over and now we await a verdict that will generate much ado about precious little. Regardless of how the judge decides, evolution will still be science and Intelligent Design will still not be. On the day Kitzmiller et al v. Dover Area School District began in the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg, Pa., (Monday, Sept. 26), The Washington Post ran a full-page article titled "Analysis of Chimp Genome Affirms Science of Evolution.

To the editor: In response to Doug Martin's "Science deals another blow to design": Mr. Martin, you have great faith in your evolutionary doctrine and those who misconstrue science in order to fit their preconceived naturalistic ideas. I have a few questions that I would like you to ponder for a moment: 1. Where has macroevolution (Example: dog to cat) ever been observed? What's the mechanism for getting new complexity such as new vital organs? How, for example, could a caterpillar evolve into a butterfly?

kimy@herald-mail.com The first-degree murder trial of Russell Wayne Wagner began Monday with prosecutors portraying him as a penniless man who bought drinks for friends at a bar on the night of the stabbing deaths of Daniel and Wilda Davis but who had no alibi for the time of the murders. The trial is Wagner's second in the deaths of the Davises, whose bodies were found by their 11-year-old granddaughter in the kitchen of their 109 W. Wilson St. home on Feb. 15, 1994. The jury failed to reach a verdict in the first trial.

Those butterflies in your stomach, the flush of heat to your cheeks, that inexplicable longing for your honey bunny — each is the result of a biochemical cocktail of hormones swirling in your head. As it turns out, it's the systems in your brain, not the trajectory of Cupid's arrow, that conspire to create the feelings we recognize as romantic love, says author, anthropologist and biologist Helen Fisher. "There are more nerve cells in the brain than there are stars in the Milky Way," said Fisher, who chatted with The Herald-Mail ahead of her lecture, "Lust, Romance & Attachment: The Science of Love and Whom We Choose," at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore.

Those without evidence must twist facts To the editor: I am writing in response to the letter by Richard Giovanoni published in the Herald-Mail on June 3. As far as I can tell, Giovanoni failed to present a single evolutionary or biological concept accurately. He implies that Darwin's conclusion that human origin in Africa was a forgone conclusion - wrong. In Darwin's day, Europeans believed that humans originated in Europe. Next, Giovanoni ridicules the use of certain terms in a scientific document he references.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- Fred Douty said he was in shock and feared for his life after he saw Anthony Juntilla slit Tina Marie Starcher's throat after both men had sex with her on Memorial Day weekend last year. "I could not stop what was happening," Douty said on the witness stand Wednesday morning during Juntilla's trial in Berkeley County Circuit Court. Cuffed and shackled, and wearing jail-issued orange, Douty repeatedly said he was telling the truth about what happened and admitted he had intercourse with Starcher, 40, of Martinsburg, before she was killed.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that police in Maryland and elsewhere can continue the warrantless collection of DNA from people arrested - but not convicted - of serious crimes. The 5-4 decision upheld a state law that allows investigators to take genetic information from arrestees, a practice followed by the federal government and about half the states. Police generally compare suspects' DNA to records from other cases in hopes of developing leads. The case, which amplified a long-running debate over the limits of government search-and-seizure powers, began with a challenge from a Wicomico County man linked to a rape after his DNA was taken in an unrelated arrest.

DNA evidence and an unrelated criminal offense in Tennessee led to the conviction Thursday of a Hagerstown man for a rape in Frederick County eight years ago, according to the Frederick County State's Attorney's Office and Frederick Police Department. A Frederick County Circuit Court jury deliberated for about one hour and 40 minutes before finding Najarred Theodore Walker, 28, guilty of first- and second-degree rape, third-degree sex offense and second-degree assault, a state's attorney's office news release said.

Those butterflies in your stomach, the flush of heat to your cheeks, that inexplicable longing for your honey bunny — each is the result of a biochemical cocktail of hormones swirling in your head. As it turns out, it's the systems in your brain, not the trajectory of Cupid's arrow, that conspire to create the feelings we recognize as romantic love, says author, anthropologist and biologist Helen Fisher. "There are more nerve cells in the brain than there are stars in the Milky Way," said Fisher, who chatted with The Herald-Mail ahead of her lecture, "Lust, Romance & Attachment: The Science of Love and Whom We Choose," at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore.

Those without evidence must twist facts To the editor: I am writing in response to the letter by Richard Giovanoni published in the Herald-Mail on June 3. As far as I can tell, Giovanoni failed to present a single evolutionary or biological concept accurately. He implies that Darwin's conclusion that human origin in Africa was a forgone conclusion - wrong. In Darwin's day, Europeans believed that humans originated in Europe. Next, Giovanoni ridicules the use of certain terms in a scientific document he references.

HAGERSTOWN -- An armed robber's disguise provided DNA that led to the identification of a suspect in a December 2009 holdup of the Sheetz store at 1396 S. Potomac St., according to allegations in court documents filed this week by Hagerstown City Police. Matthew John Comegys, 22, of 151 Doub Way, was charged Monday with armed robbery, robbery, theft of less than $1,000, carrying a dangerous weapon with intent to injure, reckless endangerment and second-degree assault in the Dec. 2, 2009, robbery, according to the application for statement of charges filed in Washington County District Court.

Sheriffs: W.Va. forensic lab results slow BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. -- The West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Charleston, W.Va., had the body of Stephen J. Tamburo Jr. for 13 weeks before he was identified through a DNA sample.  Tamburo, 62, of Berkeley Springs, went missing in December 2008. A body found in the Sleepy Creek Wildlife Management area on April 25, 2009, was identified as Tamburo on July 24.   The medical examiner's office found evidence that suggested foul play in his death, which is now being investigated as a homicide.

Parents can take their children to the gatehouse at the Maryland Correctional Training Center Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. to participate in the Maryland Masonic Child ID Program (MdCHIP), according to a Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services press release. Families will leave with digital photographs, video, fingerprints, vital child information and an oral DNA swab. All but the DNA will be burned onto a compact disc that is compatible with the Amber Alert system should a child turn up missing, according to the release.

WASHINGTON COUNTY -- The dozen or so seniors who spent a recent morning assembling DNA collection kits found the time to be well-spent. About 1,700 DNA collection kits will be distributed to all Washington County Public Schools kindergartners. The kits are provided through The Travelers Protective Association, Post "C" in Hagerstown, a nonprofit, fraternal organization. "It's a good idea. It's supposed to be better than fingerprints," said Michael Baliff, 67, of Smithsburg, on Wednesday.

McCONNELLSBURG, Pa. - Using DNA evidence that linked the suspect to the crime, Pennsylvania State Police on Tuesday arrested a Fort Defiance, Pa., man in an attempted rape from last June in which a man forced a woman into woods in Wells Township and tried to rape her, state police said. Kevin Duane Foor, 43, of 174 Fox St., has been charged with kidnapping, rape and other charges and was placed in the Franklin County Jail on $250,000 bond, state police said in a news release. The attempted rape occurred about 12:30 p.m. on June 16, when the woman was walking on Enid Road about one tenth of a mile west of Wells Valley Road in rural Fulton County, the release said.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- Fred Douty said he was in shock and feared for his life after he saw Anthony Juntilla slit Tina Marie Starcher's throat after both men had sex with her on Memorial Day weekend last year. "I could not stop what was happening," Douty said on the witness stand Wednesday morning during Juntilla's trial in Berkeley County Circuit Court. Cuffed and shackled, and wearing jail-issued orange, Douty repeatedly said he was telling the truth about what happened and admitted he had intercourse with Starcher, 40, of Martinsburg, before she was killed.