Murder trial hears crime scene DNA analysis points to defendant

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A forensic scientist said in a murder trial Tuesday that the odds were greater than a trillion to one that DNA recovered from one of Autumn Taggart’s breasts, found dead in her bed three years ago, belonged to Jitesh Bhogal.

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Bhogal, on trial before Superior Court Judge Renee Pomerance and 14 jurors, is charged with sexually assaulting and killing Taggart, 31, a mother of one, in her West Windsor apartment on University Avenue West late night. June 9-10, 2018.

Jennifer McLean, who works in the biology section of the Toronto Center for Forensic Sciences (CFS), testified that her agency, which provides scientific expertise to aid the justice system, analyzed samples taken from Taggart’s body by forensic agents from the Police Service. of Windsor, including swabs from the chest and internally, as well as nail clippings.

Two of the nail samples were found to have a “light brown staining consistent with blood”.

Using a different male-specific DNA profiling test for blood staining on the underside of two fingernails on the left hand, as well as for a swab sample taken from the deceased’s mouth, McLean testified that, in a On a scale of zero to 2,000, the odds ratio that the DNA came from Bhogal was 1,990.

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McLean said she became a CFS forensic biologist in 2001 and a CFS forensic scientist in 2005. She had previously testified in Ontario and in the Superior Courts of Justice about 60 times.

Pomerance called her an expert witness in calculating the statistical significance of DNA test results. But the judge also instructed jurors that when it comes to the opinion of an expert witness in a trial, they can give it “as much or as little weight as they think it deserves.”

McLean said DNA is used as a “comparison tool” in criminal investigations because no two individuals (except identical twins) have exactly the same DNA in their entirety, despite the fact that more than 99 percent of the DNA of an individual is identical in humans. DNA testing systems, he said, work on a billionths of grams.

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Earlier in the day, under cross-examination by defense attorney Peter Thorning, Windsor Police Service Sgt. William Hodgins, who worked on the case as a forensic specialist, testified that about 30 tissues with suspected blood stains had been collected from Taggart’s apartment, primarily from his bedroom floor. Thorning spent about an hour identifying and then reviewing the shape and location of each handkerchief with the officer who collected them from among the roughly 80 items seized from the scene.

When questioned by Assistant Crown Counsel Kim Bertholet, McLean said: “I do not believe I have received any requests (for DNA testing) for tissues with suspected blood staining.”

But McLean also said analysts at the Center for Forensic Sciences first start with samples taken from inside or outside the body and then “work outward” to try to generate their DNA profiles. “There is no need to go any further,” he said.

The trial continues on Wednesday and the defense has its turn to question the CFS expert.

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