touchDNA leads to arrest 18 year unsolved murder

TouchDNA analysis, used to isolate the unknown male assailant's DNA from skin cells he left on articles of clothing worn by JonBenet Ramsey when he molested, tortured and killed her, is the forensic powerhouse that helped crack a 1992 cold case; the murder of Charles Cromwell. TouchDNA has been around since early 2000, only a few cells from the outermost layer of skin are required to create a complete DNA profile- -

Touch DNA' helps crack 1992 Bethel murder
Published in Danbury NewsTimes
By John Pirro

BETHEL -- The same kind of DNA testing that cleared JonBenet Ramsey's family of involvement in her 1996 murder helped Bethel police arrest the man they claim strangled Charles Cromwell to death four years earlier.

"Touch DNA," samples left behind when a person touches or come in contact with an item, led investigators to 49-year-old Donald Gregory Krauth, a one-time alcoholic and drug addict who helped clean the basement of Cromwell's Milwaukee Avenue home a few days before the retired contractor was killed in March 1992, according to court documents...

The samples were found near a tear in the upper right sleeve, a part of the garment the technician said was likely damaged in a struggle...[read more]