Tribune/Debra Reid DNA scraped from thousands of human cheeks are investigated by senior criminalist Jeffrey Riolo at the Washoe Count Crime Lab. Except for identical twins, each sample is unique.
Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley announced the news on Thursday, thanked the community for donating nearly twice the funds needed to test the DNA backlog and expressed hope that Denison's killer would be brought to justice.
"It did not end in a positive result in hitting on any major homicide cases," Haley said. "It did hit on 30 crimes in the local region and state. This demonstrates why DNA testing is so vitally important in the resolution to serious cases in this community.
"We continue to have hope we will come to a conclusion in those homicide cases," Haley added.
On Feb. 4, law enforcement leaders asked the community to donate $150,000 to cut down a backlog of 3,000 DNA samples from known criminals in an effort to identify Denison's killer. The killer's DNA was obtained from Denison’s body, found strangled in a field in south Reno on Feb. 15
The backlog has been cut down to just 300 unprocessed DNA samples from local crime scenes, said Washoe County Crime Lab Director Renee Romero.
The Las Vegas Police Department's lab tested 1,875 DNA samples, and the Bodie Technology Group tested an additional 1,000 DNA samples.
The 30 DNA matches connected known criminals to one sexual assault, and numerous unresolved burglary and robbery cases throughout Nevada.
"We are moving forward on all the cases significant to this community," Haley said.
The 30 DNA samples in criminal cases will move forward through a retesting process, Romero said. The DNA samples will be retested to confirm the hit, the investigating authorities will be notified and they will take evidentiary DNA samples from the suspects, which will then be tested and compared with the previous DNA samples.
Haley thanked everyone who donated to the effort, and said the Carano and Dermody families helped the Sheriff's Office head up the major fundraising effort.
"When we received the $150,000 in needed funds, we thanked the public, but they continued to send in donations resulting in a total of $292,113.14 for testing DNA samples against the DNA database," Haley said.
He also thanked organizations that gave one-time grants, including major donors — the Community Foundation of Western Nevada, the Ranson and Norma Webster Foundation, the Roxie and Asad Joseph Foundation Trust and the Robert and Dorothy Keyser Foundation — as well as the Hamilton Products Group for donating DNA management equipment.
"DNA samples continue to come in at a rate of about 300 samples per month," Romero said.
The Washoe County crime lab has a contract with the National Institute of Justice, and the extra funding will provide for the future testing of about 3,600 DNA samples.
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