Lowcountry DNA Lab

Based upon a request for technology assistance from the Charleston County (SC) Coroner’s Office and the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), Southeast has agreed to review the need to establish a regional DNA Laboratory in the South Carolina Low Country.  This Laboratory will provide DNA services to all law enforcement agencies in the region.

Within the state of South Carolina there is a significant backlog of DNA test requests.  This backlog precludes agencies from submitting evidence to establish the commonality of an offender among multiple non-violent offenses, or the submission of samples from unidentified offenders to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) for potential matches.  Prior to establishing a regional lab, there is a need to quantify the workload to be placed upon this proposed lab.  Three sources of workload have been identified.  The first is DNA samples collected from violent crime scenes, the second is DNA samples collected from non-violent crimes such as property crime.  The third source will be from a change in the South Carolina State law requiring all convicted felons to provide DNA samples that will be placed into CODIS.  The only source which is not quantifiable is those samples from non-violent crimes.

Therefore, NIJ and the NLECTC-SE Center established a one year project involving four participating agencies (Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, Charleston Police Department, North Charleston Police Department and Mount Pleasant Police Department), the South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and Marshall University’s Forensic Science Center.  NIJ is funding the cost of processing the DNA samples by Marshall’s Forensic Center.  The goal of this project is to collect DNA samples from property crimes and have those samples expeditiously processed, the results returned to the agencies, compare the results with other DNA samples and analyze the statistical results to see how productive DNA sampling is in solving these types of crimes.