Posted on 08/06/2004 11:19:11 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO (AP) - New DNA tests sought by death row inmate Kevin Cooper failed to exonerate him of the 1983 murders of four people, a prosecutor said Friday.
The tests indicated that hairs found on three of the victims were likely their own, which undermines Cooper's theory that other people committed the murder, Deputy Attorney General Holly Wilkens said.
Cooper was sentenced to die in 1985 for killing Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 11-year-old friend Christopher Hughes, who was sleeping over at the Ryens' Chino Hills home.
Eight-year-old Joshua Ryen had his throat slit but survived.
Prosecutors said Cooper attacked the family with a butcher knife and hatchet.
Cooper, who is black, escaped from a nearby prison days before the killing. Defense attorneys contend that three white men - who were seen in a local bar but never identified - committed the murders and that police framed Cooper.
He was eight hours away from being executed in February when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him a stay and ordered the district court to determine if additional testing of evidence was warranted.
In June, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Huff in San Diego ordered DNA testing on the hairs found on the victims. The tests were conducted by Dr. Terry Melton, a Pennsylvania expert recommended by Cooper's defense attorneys.
Ten of the hairs were found in Jessica Ryen's hand. Two were in Doug Ryen's hand and one was on Christopher Hughes' arm.
The hairs had never been tested before since the technology to conduct DNA tests on rootless hairs did not exist during Cooper's trial.
Melton's mitochondrial DNA test found that two hairs were from a dog. The remaining 11 hairs likely belonged to the victims, Wilkens said.
Mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the mother, cannot specifically identify an individual. However, when compared with samples taken from a family member it can show the statistical likelihood that a hair or other tissue came from a certain person.
Unlike nuclear DNA, which provides a precise match, it can be extracted from rootless hairs.
Some folks just don't want to own up to their own stuff....We are way too lenient as far as I can tell
Isn't the Cooper case a big celebrity cause now?
Pardon my ignorance, but Hollywood ain't my thing.
Fry'em Danno
He's guilty, Jim. We really didn't need the additional testing to know he murdered an entire family. It proves nothing and the murderer-loving crowd wants him spared not cause he didn't do but cause they love people who flout the rules of the bourgeois society that they hate.
Eyewitness testimony isn't always solid, but did the surviving boy say Cooper did it? Presumably, and at the very least, the boy would know if three white men attacked his family and slit his throat...or if the killer was black.
I am so sick of Kevin Cooper. His execution can't happen soon enough.
The "Free Mumia" types are going to have a field day with this one. The hairs tested were not from the convicted murderer, but they were not from any other potential murderer either. They do nothing to support the defense's "three white guys" defense.
Of course, the "Free Mumia" types will trumpet that the hair tests "exhonerates" the convicted murderer, since the hairs were not his. But, of course, this fact means nothing. I am sure (quite sure) that I have hairs from my own head and my wife's head somewhere on my body right now.
Now if they had identified hairs from one of the three all-purpose white guys, then the defense might be on to something. But the proper way to interpret this evidence is that if the hairs were not an element of the previous conviction, this new testing is irrelevant and the process should move forward.
I do not favor the death penalty, generally, but neither should the system be abused. And guys who slit little kid's throats might get me to abandon my general attitude.
Um I don't understand your response...what does it have to do with what I said? like duh nothing
The tests on the hairs proves a similarity to the VICTIMS...with hair evidence that's about as good as it gets since they weren't extracting mitoshodrial or other DNA...
I thought that a bunch of celebrities had taken up this Cooper guy as some sort of cause.
I wasn't really responding to you; I was adding to your post.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/09/national/main598900.shtml
SOrry I misunderstood...Hollyweird referrences will do that to my brain ...bleeech
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