http://www.ktvu.com/news/2632328/detail.html Back To The DNA At The Peterson Trial
POSTED: 11:48 AM PST November 12, 2003
MODESTO, Calif. -- An FBI scientist on Wednesday defended the forensic evidence offered by a co-worker that linked Laci Peterson to a hair found in a boat her husband said he took fishing the day she disappeared.
FBI scientist Bruce Budowle was called by prosecutors to rebut testimony from a defense expert who had criticized the DNA techniques used by FBI lab workers to analyze the hair, found in pliers in Scott Peterson's boat.
Budowle said the DNA sample wasn't contaminated, as the defense has suggested, and said the defense misrepresented the way the FBI went about its analysis.
He also defended the database the FBI used to determine the probability that the hair could have been from Laci Peterson, the 27-year-old Modesto woman who disappeared on Christmas Eve.
"The ideal size database would be the entire world population," Budowle said. "If we had a larger database, we could have greater confidence."
But he said the FBI database was large enough that scientists there were confident of their findings.
The hair has become the most time-consuming element in the preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to try Peterson in the slaying of his wife and unborn son. Wednesday marked the seventh day of testimony in the preliminary hearing.
A witness called by the defense last week said the DNA testing technique, called mitochondrial DNA, was less reliable than other methods.
Scott Peterson's lawyer, Mark Geragos, also renewed his request Wednesday to subpoena FBI surveillance tapes taken outside the Peterson household after Laci Peterson was reported missing.
He said his efforts have been met with resistance from the FBI.
"The FBI is basically telling me to go pound sand," Geragos told the judge.
Scott Peterson, 31, a former fertilizer salesman, told police he was fishing on Dec. 24 in the Bay Area and discovered his wife missing when he returned that evening.
The bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son washed ashore in April, about three miles from where her husband said he was fishing.