Mark Carver on 20/20 and Touch DNA

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If you watched 20/20 this past weekend, you saw the story of Mark Carver–a fisherman who was on the banks of the Catawba River in North Carolina 100 yards away from Irina Yarmolenko, a UNCC student, who was murdered in 2008.

Carver was looked at by police because of his close proximity, and eventually charged and convicted of her murder on what appears to be a very weak, if not even flawed case.

ABC’s 20/20 presented a compelling case why he might be innocent. I saw no red flags to support guilt in the interviews shown, but I’d have to see interviews prior to his conviction to make a fair assessment. I honestly don’t remember if the interviews shown were pre- or during the trial or not.

I am also curious who the man was who didn’t identify himself on the show.  He was the man on the pontoon who said he talked to Carver the afternoon Yarmolenko was murdered. He only showed his back to the cameras and wouldn’t identify himself. He peaked my interest because police never spoke to him!  Who is this man?

I will also say I am adamantly against using “touch” DNA in cases like this because its not totally understood. While it may be accurate in identifying people or an “unidentified” person’s DNA who came in contact with the item tested, without knowing how far “touch” DNA can travel, or how easily it can be transferred nefariously or innocently, I fear it’s use will be abused.

If you remember in the JonBenet case, D.A. Mary Lacy declared that “touch” DNA exonerated the Ramseys because the “touch” DNA found on JonBenets leggings didn’t match the Ramseys. But in tests run by experts on a CBS show discussing the Ramsey case clearly showed that new panties bought on store shelves contain “touch” DNA before anyone even opened or used them!  It obviously came from the workers at the factory, which shows how someone can make erroneous assumptions about “touch” DNA.

We should conclude then that “touch” DNA should never  be used to exonerate anyone and it may be questionable in putting someone at a crime scene, too, because it might be easily transferred from one person to another or to different objects. We just don’t know enough about it to use it as objective science yet. I can think of only one instance where it might be plausible to use it, but we just don’t know enough yet.

I wish a court would mandate that further studies need to be done before we use such technology because we don’t fully understand it, and using it without full knowledge of how it can be transferred is flat out reckless in my opinion.