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Press release: DNA Used to Identify Man Responsible for 1969 Murder of Jane Britton. Middlesex [County] District Attorney, Nov 20, 2018.
https://www.middlesexda.com/site ... _-_jane_britton.pdf
Quote:
"Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan announced today that Michael Sumpter, a career criminal with ties to Cambridge has been identified as the person responsible for the 1969 murder of Jane Britton.
"On January 7, 1969 at 12:40 pm, the body of Jane Britton, 23, of Needham[, Massachusetts], a graduate student in Anthropology at Harvard University, was found in her fourth floor apartment, located at 6 University Road, in Cambridge by her boyfriend who came to check on her after she had failed to appear to take an examination that morning. [Naturally police scrutinized the boyfriend among others, but for 5 decades no charge could be filed.]
"In 2017 the Middlesex District Attorney's Office received several requests for the Jane Britton file to be released to the public [which spurred that office into action]. * * * With fresh eyes on the file investigators also sought to determine whether there were any further investigative actions that could be taken, including consulting with the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab about whether any new advances in forensic DNA technology might be of assistance in yielding a more comprehensive evidence profile. The decision was ultimately made to perform additional DNA testing with the most up to date testing on the remaining evidence samples. For the first time, the Massachusetts State Police Crime lab was able to obtain a Y-STR, or male-specific profile, from the remaining DNA samples on file from the original swabs [the press release did not say from where, but presumably from vagina] in October of 2017. In July of 2018 the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab notified the investigators that there was a match between the 2017 Y-STR profile from the evidence sample and Michael Sumpter's CODIS sample on file with the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab. Although Sumpter was already deceased, investigators were able to locate [through Ancestry.com DNA database, as disclosed at press conference held by the DA] and obtain a DNA sample from Michael's biological brother who has the same male Y-STR profile. Testing on this sample excluded 99.92% of the male population as a contributor of the DNA and confirmed that Michael Sumpter's profile matched both the original soft hit and the Y-STR profile. Sumpter's brother was excluded as a possible contributor.
"On the day she died, Jane went * * * ice skating with her boyfriend on the Cambridge Common. They also visited Charley's, a pub across from Jane's apartment, before returning to Jane's apartment around 10:30 pm. After her boyfriend left the apartment at around 11:30 pm. Jane then went next door to her neighbors' apartment for a glass of sherry before returning home around 12:30 a.m. The next morning [actually 12: 40 pm, shortly after noontime] she was found dead in her bed. The Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy on Jane and was able to collect forensic evidence. He ruled that she had been struck by a blunt object multiple times resulting in fractures of the skull, and contusions and lacerations of the brain which were the cause of death. A murder weapon was never positively identified. Subsequent toxicology testing revealed that her blood alcohol was negative but
her stomach alcohol was 0.08% suggesting that the alcohol she ingested did not have time to metabolize and make it to the bloodstream before death. This indicated that Jane was killed shortly after returning to her apartment [presumably the boyfriend reported to police Jane did not drink at the pub]. On January 7, 1969 a resident of Jane's apartment building reported hearing someone on the fire escape that connected to Jane's apartment earlier on the evening of her murder and a second witness account detailed that a man who appeared to be approximately 6' feet tall and 170 Ibs. was seen running in the street near Jane's apartment at 1:30 am., Mr Sumpter was 5'11" and weighed 185 Ibs. when he was arrested in 1972. It is believed that Mr Sumpter entered Jane's apartment through a window [via fire escape]
"Sumpter was also arrested and convicted of a physical assault on a woman whom he had met at the Harvard Square MBTA station, blocks from Ms Britton's apartment, three years after Jane Britton's murder [in 1972; so this is a different rape that the 1975 one]. This is the third homicide linked to Michael Sumpter since the time of his death. In 2010, the Suffolk District Attorney's Office was informed that Mr Sumpter's DNA was a match to DNA taken from the 1972 murder and rape of 23-year-old Ellen Rutchick in her Beacon Street apartment and in 2012, a second CODIS hit matched Mr. Sumpter to the evidence taken from the 1973 rape and murder of 24-year-old Mary Lee McClain in her Mount Vernon Street apartment. None of the victims are believed to have known, or had any relationship with, Mr Sumpter. Sumpter had been convicted of committing the stranger rape of a woman in her Boston apartment in 1975. Mr Sumpter died of cancer at the age of 54 in 2001, 13 months after he was paroled from his 15 to 20 year sentence for this 1975 Boston rape. In 2002, after his death, Sumpter was identified by another CODIS hit in connection with a 1985 stranger rape of a woman in Boston committed after Sumpter escaped from work release. [altogether:] Since his death, DNA testing and the CODIS database identified Michael Sumpter in connection with five sexual assaults, three of which involved the murder of the victim.
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发表于 11-24-2018 13:45:40
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