Editorial: Crime-solving tools must be deployed

Police received more than 100 tip offs about the cold case rape and murder of Alicia O'Reilly after revealing this week her killer's DNA had been extracted from long-lost evidence. Photo / NZ Police, File

Editorial

EDITORIAL

There are more than 60 unsolved murders in New Zealand.

Today, we report on fresh thinking that may lead to their killers. In most cases, relatives who knew the victims will have gone - but not Nancye O’Reilly, who wants to know who murdered her 6-year-old daughter Alicia.

The key could be in popular genealogy websites where law enforcement agencies overseas have been finding success by comparing the DNA of unidentified suspects with genetic profiles.

It’s an amazingly effective tool but New Zealand’s outdated laws give no guidance on using the technology in a criminal investigation and police await expert advice on the complex privacy and legal considerations.

Alicia was found dead in her bed in Avondale in August 1980, while her sister Juliet, 8, slept just metres away in the same room.

Hundreds of suspects were questioned in the homicide investigation, but Alicia’s killer was never found. Detectives working on the case decades later believed that forensic evidence — hair and semen left by the killer — had been inexplicably destroyed during the original investigation.

But three years ago, some unmarked samples were found in archives. Scientists from ESR, the Crown research institute, have extracted a full DNA profile of the perpetrator.

The last thing anyone would want is for a culprit of such a heinous crime to be identified but beat prosecution due to a legislative loophole. This legal hitch must be cleared.

Science knows who killed Alicia, nothing should prevent naming him.