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The culprit's name remains unknown. But he licked a stamp, and now his DNA stands indicted.
Morning Mix
The culprit’s name remains unknown. But he licked a stamp, and now his DNA stands indicted.
The criminal complaint against John Doe, Unknown Male With Matching Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA Profile.)
By Meagan Flynn October 17 at 6:42 AM
There was just enough spit on the back of the 9-cent stamp to piece together the identity of the person who licked it. Everything except for his name.
The anonymous person had mailed two threatening and racially tinged letters to Dane County Circuit Court Judge Juan Colás, the Wisconsin county’s first Hispanic judge, after one of the most controversial decisions of his career. It was early October 2012, and Colás had just struck down a law that gutted collective bargaining rights for public employees, resulting in praise from unions and piles of hate mail from others — including death threats from this anonymous mailer. The judge’s decision was later overturned. But the pursuit of the anonymous letter-writer continued.
....
The sender has never been caught. They don’t know his name. But he put a 9-cent stamp on one of the envelopes he mailed — never mind that the last time that stamp was sold by the Postal Service was about 1975. And forensic analysts took the spit left on the back of the stamp and ran it through the lab to obtain a DNA profile, which, as it happened, matched the DNA found on anonymous threatening letters mailed to three other public officials in Wisconsin.
But they still had no name. So on Oct. 8, the night before the statute of limitations would have made an indictment impossible, the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed felony charges, in a case now known as State of Wisconsin vs. John Doe, Unknown Male With Matching Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Profile at Genetic Locations D3S1358 (15, 18), etc.
....
Meagan Flynn is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. She was previously a reporter at the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Press. Follow https://twitter.com/Meagan_Flynn
The culprit’s name remains unknown. But he licked a stamp, and now his DNA stands indicted.
The criminal complaint against John Doe, Unknown Male With Matching Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA Profile.)
By Meagan Flynn October 17 at 6:42 AM
There was just enough spit on the back of the 9-cent stamp to piece together the identity of the person who licked it. Everything except for his name.
The anonymous person had mailed two threatening and racially tinged letters to Dane County Circuit Court Judge Juan Colás, the Wisconsin county’s first Hispanic judge, after one of the most controversial decisions of his career. It was early October 2012, and Colás had just struck down a law that gutted collective bargaining rights for public employees, resulting in praise from unions and piles of hate mail from others — including death threats from this anonymous mailer. The judge’s decision was later overturned. But the pursuit of the anonymous letter-writer continued.
....
The sender has never been caught. They don’t know his name. But he put a 9-cent stamp on one of the envelopes he mailed — never mind that the last time that stamp was sold by the Postal Service was about 1975. And forensic analysts took the spit left on the back of the stamp and ran it through the lab to obtain a DNA profile, which, as it happened, matched the DNA found on anonymous threatening letters mailed to three other public officials in Wisconsin.
But they still had no name. So on Oct. 8, the night before the statute of limitations would have made an indictment impossible, the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed felony charges, in a case now known as State of Wisconsin vs. John Doe, Unknown Male With Matching Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Profile at Genetic Locations D3S1358 (15, 18), etc.
....
Meagan Flynn is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. She was previously a reporter at the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Press. Follow https://twitter.com/Meagan_Flynn
