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20-year crusade puts rapist behind bars
– Sunday, 21 December 2008
Michael Taylor can still remember the scene examination he carried out in St Albans, Christchurch, on February 4, 1988.
The forensic scientist, who worked for what was then the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, was called to a flat where a 27-year-old woman had been brutally attacked two days earlier. "There are some I remember more than others," says 55-year-old Taylor, a science leader at Environmental Science and Research.
A prowler, wearing a stocking on his head, had woken the woman at knifepoint in her bed, lashed her to a dining table and raped her."
DNA forensics was in its infancy in New Zealand, and biological samples taken from the scene yielded insufficient DNA to be of use. "It was a particularly nasty attack.
But Taylor's analysis found that while the pattern of the prints matched the suspect's shoes, the size was different. The hunt for the attacker focused on shoeprints inside and outside the house, which a report rendered to police by a photographer linked to their main suspect. "I guess being human and putting a lot of work into the case, the police would have been disappointed," says Taylor, reluctant to acknowledge the flak. Police accepted its findings and eliminated the suspect, and the investigation eventually stalled, but not before Taylor copped criticism for his dissenting report, according to sources. The analysis vindicated the decision to exclude the initial suspect, as his sample did not match the one from the scene.
It was 12 years until progress was made, when Taylor reviewed the cold case using a new technique which amplified DNA samples previously considered too small to analyse. The attacker had pushed his way into the council flat of the 90-year-old victim, telling her he was her grandson.
More significantly, it revealed that the attacker was also responsible for an unsolved rape in the Christchurch suburb of Shirley in April 1996.
The link between the two serious attacks gave the inquiry renewed impetus, but inquiries failed to make any progress. The woman died three years later.
The breakthrough would come seven years later, when police suggested the two linked rapes were ideal candidates for familial DNA testing, a new technique ESR had made available. . They came up with two hits, including Kevin Moana Jarden, a convicted rapist who was sentenced to preventive detention in 2004 for sexual crimes involving young girls. ESR searched its DNA database for close to-perfect matches to the scene samples, looking for people who might be closely related to the offender. Detective Senior Sergeant Grant Wormald, the officer in charge of the investigation, was "elated".
His brother, Wayne Robert Jarden, had been spoken to by police even had his footwear tested during the initial 1988 investigation. After initially denying the rapes, Jarden, a 50-year-old labourer with previous convictions, pleaded guilty on Monday.
But a sample was still needed from Wayne Jarden, and police placed him under surveillance to obtain it, eventually retrieving a cigarette butt he discarded outside an Auckland takeaway shop in November last year.
Wormald said the long-awaited result was a credit to the "synergy of thought and mind" between police and ESR.
Wormald said the long-awaited result was a credit to the "synergy of thought and mind" between police and ESR. "It's about keeping in touch with what each other are doing. The skill that ESR applies to the evidence that's gathered is remarkable." Taylor, for his part, points out that ESR "only has a small part to play in a police investigation".
Arie Geursen, the scientist who first raised concerns about DNA tests which helped keep David Dougherty in prison for a rape he did not commit, said Taylor deserved credit "for tenaciously keeping an eye on the case" and resubmitting the samples when technological advances were made.
"He's to be congratulated for sticking to his guns that the person who was in the frame, and remained in the frame for some time his shoes couldn't match."
Wormald said he was "looking forward with interest" to see if testing Jarden's DNA profile would link him to other unsolved crimes.
Taylor does not keep count of the criminals he has helped put behind bars during 29 years with ESR, a period over which the forensic tools at his disposal have changed dramatically.
"That's not my focus," he says. His emphasis is on "delivering science of value", and bringing closure to victims, and it's work he draws great satisfaction from.
"The number of days I've not looked forward to going to work I can count on the fingers of one hand."