HAUGESUND (Dagbladet): The extensive police work in mapping the family of accused murderer Johny Vassbakk in relation to DNA evidence in the Birgitte Tengs case received a lot of attention this week in the Haugesund District Court.
The review of the work was sometimes very technical, both in terms of how the DNA was analyzed and how the defendant’s mutated Y chromosome was detected.
– I should never have been there
Along the way it also emerged that, in the search for answers, DNA material was obtained from Vassbakk’s father as a reference sample in family mapping. The challenge, however, was that the defendant’s father was already dead at the time. The material was then derived from a razor and a hearing aid, and helped map the father’s family, including the defendant’s siblings.
In the investigations, the much-discussed mutation of Vassbakk’s Y chromosome also came to light. A mutation that distinguishes the defendant from other family members and from many others in the world. The discovery of the mutation was the most central of the case as it was possible to exclude that the DNA found comes from others.
Not who, but how
The careful analysis and mapping of the DNA trace on Tengs’ tights, as well as the discovery of the mutation, have contributed to the fact that there are by far no major contradictions in court as to whether it is indeed Vassbakk’s Y chromosome which is been found in connection with the investigation.
Since the trial began four weeks ago, how the DNA found ended up on the pantyhose has been central to the parties.
Police and the prosecution believe that the DNA found came from the epithelium (in this case from the skin, journ.amn.) and was deposited on the pantyhose with Vassbakk’s finger, while on this was Tengs’ blood. Defenders, for their part, argue that that’s impossible to prove — and that it’s entirely possible that the Y chromosome ended up there in other ways, including through transmission through people or that Tengs and Vassbakk may have been in the same place.
– We do not know
New technologies, new answers
On Thursday, the court received a nearly seven-hour statement from senior DNA expert Walter Parson of the GMI institute in Austria. He has contributed to the Tengs case since 2000, with hair analysis and lead samples from the investigation.
When the case was reopened by Kripos in 2016, the approved laboratory received a request to re-analyze the old biological trace samples.
Since the 1995 murder, methods of analysis and technology have developed tremendously. This has helped ensure that new analyzes of the microscopic evidence of DNA are able to provide answers that had not previously been obtained. In court, it was also revealed that traces of DNA were found in the case, including in relation to several strands of hair, which cannot be linked to specific people.
Refuse selective investigation
Vassbakk’s defenders Stian Bråstein and Stian Kristensen believe they should have gone further to try to get more answers in the case.
– The investigation was selective in terms of what was prosecuted and not in this case. Incidentally, they had a person stamped in connection with analyzes in 2002 who they chose not to arrest. People were quick to get tunnel vision in this case, both when the cousin was in the spotlight and now, Bråstein believes.
It’s a claim State Attorney Thale Thomseth strongly rejects.
– This is a very strange objection. Here they have not been selective at all. Here they have sent everything that can be looked into and more, to see if they can move forward, says Thomseth.
