Activity vs. Source Level Propositions: It Looks like Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA Was on the Bra Clasp, But How Did It Get There?

The title of a New Scientist news report — “Software Says Amanda Knox’s DNA Wasn’t at Crime Scene” — suggests that a new study has excluded Knox as a killer of Meredith Kercher. Not so fast, says the Professor David Balding, the author of the study.

Balding, a statistical geneticist at University College London, has made important contributions to the statistical evaluation of forensic DNA profiles. Now he is developing an open-source program to make inferences about the contributors to low-template DNA samples — samples that have too few copies of DNA fragments to amplify reliably.

An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) describes the program and applies it to an electropherogram the police obtained from one sample in the Knox-Sollecito case. Seeking to clarify the New Scientist report, Balding describes this finding on his website … [continued on FSSL]