US prosecutors in a case involving a Guyanese murder accused, who allegedly tracked his rape victim down and slashed her to death days before she was to testify against him, have been given the green light to use the DNA tracking technique that can nail criminals with a speck of blood or the mere touch of a finger.
A report in the New York Daily News said that Queens Judge Robert Hanophy ruled last week that prosecutors can tell jurors about a trace of blood on a seat belt of the victim Natasha Ramen’s car that was linked to Hemant Megnath through “touch DNA” testing. Ramen was also Guyanese.
According to the report, the technique has been used in other countries to win convictions in several high-profile criminal cases. Such evidence also has been used in US courts, and the city medical examiner has a lab devoted to it.
The tests were challenged by Megnath’s lawyer, Todd Greenberg, and the judge was forced to convene several hearings since 2008.
“There is still a raging debate among scientists as to the reliability, [but] the judge ruled against us,” the lawyer was quoted as saying in the newspaper.
The report stated that the test is largely the same as traditional DNA analysis, but allows scientists to scrutinise microscopic skin or blood cells.
Megnath allegedly killed Ramen in 2007 in a case that her relatives blamed prosecutors for as they felt she might still be alive if prosecutors had done their job right and had the accused’s bail revoked.
The beautiful young woman’s throat was slit, allegedly by Megnath who was on bail on a charge of raping the 20-year-old woman. Ramen was scheduled to testify against Megnath who had allegedly threatened to kill her if she did.
It was revealed in court that the judge who presided over Megnath’s hearing for the rape charge never received information that the man had allegedly threatened to kill Ramen if she testified that he raped her in May 2005. The judge granted Megnath $10,000 bail. Had the judge known of the murder threat allegation he could have thrown Megnath back in jail when the case was heard again.
Despite a protection order, Megnath had made frightening threats to Ramen’s in-laws at their home after he was arrested on aggravated harassment charges.
In response, Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes’ office had said that instructions were given to his juniors to apprise the judge of Megnath’s arrest on harassment charges, but the judge said he never received any information.
Even as she lay dying, Ramen had used her own blood, pouring from her neck, and her index finger to scrawl some kind of message on the back door of her Queens’s home.
No date has been set for Megnath’s murder trial.
