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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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There's a lot of talk about this. Apparently he had a history of home burglaries and armed robberies, he had both the laptop and the purse from the victim (with her ID!). The DNA found on the knife was not from a potential alternate suspect but some police officer who mishandled it in the station after testing and finding no DNA could be recovered.

Seems pretty open and shut to me.

The DNA found on the knife was not from a potential alternate suspect but some police officer who mishandled it in the station after testing and finding no DNA could be recovered.

Do you have a cite for this? It would be super helpful because of all the "BUT THE DNA EXONERATED HIM" discourse.

I haven't tracked down the underlying filing yet, but the Washington Post reports:

But hours before an evidentiary hearing on the evidence, Bell and Williams’s team learned the DNA that excluded Williams belonged to former St. Louis prosecutor Keith Larner and an investigator who, years earlier, contaminated the murder weapon by handling it without gloves, according to court filings.

Thank you sir.