Florida's effective DNA database
at the police department other than adding DNA indexing,” Blackledge said.
“We have identified suspects in hundreds of cases and developed well over 100 suspects. In fact, we’re getting so many results, we can’t keep up,” Blackledge said, adding that the agency forwards about 150 swabs a month to its lab.
Other agencies have noticed the success of the $100,000-a-year Local DNA Index System, or LODIS, used by Palm Bay. LODIS is a service of North Carolina-based DNA: SI Labs, a forensic DNA testing company developing new processes and products to improve DNA testing and its impact on society.
Cocoa Police Department adopted the same system in 2009, and the Melbourne Police Department is ready to launch.
“All of our training is complete,” said Cmdr. Vince Pryce of the Melbourne Police Department, referencing the skills officers need to collect and handle samples in the field.
In the four years since Palm Bay started processing its own DNA, police have collected 12,900 samples. A third of those have yielded full DNA profiles or matches to specific people in the local database, from suspects to residents and to convicted felons processed into the state’s prison system.
Blackledge said DNA evidence has allowed Palm Bay detectives to develop about 591 criminal cases, including the discovery that multiple burglaries were carried out by the same person.
The goal, agents say, is to eventually expand LODIS from Palm Bay, Cocoa and Melbourne into a countywide database that shares results.
Palm Bay’s database program — which won an international law enforcement award for science innovation in 2008 for its DNA indexing — was crafted in conjunction with officials with DNA: SI LABS.
“No one else had anything like it,” said Blackledge, who has given presentations on the program to other agencies.
Then-Palm Bay Police Chief William Berger, also the head of the 20,000-member International Police Association and now a U.S. Marshal, approved the training of road officers to collect DNA in the public-private partnership. It was a move away from what other agencies were doing when only forensic agents could harvest evidence at crime scenes.
“This is a tool. We can get DNA from anything that touches the skin, blue jeans, cigarette butts, skull masks, knife handles,” Blackledge said. “It’s cutting-edge technology,
