The Billiken's Bluff

With all the Tsunami damage, looming Iraqi election, and the break-up of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt this story almost slipped under the Billiken’s radar.

Law enforcement in Truro, Mass., a small town in Cape Cod, are requesting that all 790 of its male residents submit DNA samples to help solve the 3-year old murder investigation of Christa Worthington, who was found stabbed to death in Jan 2002. Semen was found on her body. Sgt. David Perry of the Truro Police Department say that the program is voluntary but that they will pay close attention to those who refuse to provide DNA.

"The person we're looking for is the one who deposited the DNA" by having sex with Ms. Worthington before she died, Sergeant Perry said. "We're not saying that this is the killer. What we're saying is we need to talk to this person, who may be just the last person to see her alive."

Understandably not everyone is enthused about submitting to a cotton swabbing. "I really think they're usurping my civil rights," said Mr. Seed, who may know something about DNA because his father is Dr. Richard Seed, the eccentric physicist who drew worldwide attention by announcing seven years ago that he planned to clone humans. "Are they going to chase down everyone who didn't give a sample? It kind of sounds like Stalin's secret police. If there's a murder committed in a restroom, are they going to be asking for a urine sample?"

In Baton Rouge, La., in 2003, authorities trying to find a serial killer took swabs from 1,200 white men who drove white pickup trucks, but the dragnet did not yield a suspect; a black man was later arrested using other investigative methods. In Omaha last year, the police, searching for a serial rapist, sought DNA from about three dozen black men who worked for the Omaha Public Power District. And in a rape investigation in Charlottesville, Va., the police over the last two years have asked for swabs from about 200 black men.

These investigations have been contentious, especially when the authorities hold on to the DNA of people found to have no connection to the crime. Baton Rouge law enforcement agencies are being sued by nearly two dozen of the 1,200 men they tested; the men want their DNA samples destroyed and their genetic information removed from a databank that can be used in investigations of other crimes.



Art, Literature, and Film all seem to have a preternatural ability to predict events like Truro’s DNA witchhunt. After 9/11 and the ensuing Guantanamo/Abu Ghraib torture scandals I immediately was reminded of Denzel Washington and The Siege. Last night I watched the season premier of 24 which seemed to present as realistic a picture of the terrorist threats currently facing this country, as any scenario that Richard Clarke or Condoleeza Rice have conjured. Hell, as I pointed out over the summer Men In Black anticipated The Department of Homeland Security’s tendency to raise the terror alert level at the first whiff of trouble.

So whenever I see something like this happening in real life I have a good chuckle. Hasn’t anyone in Truro, Mass ever seen Gattica, Minority Report, read A Brave New World? Has no one in the greater Cape Cod area ever seen any film, read any science fiction by Phillip Dick? Those narratives never end well for the individual or the society. Solving the murder of Christa Worthington is admirable, but well just like the Billiken, I’m dubious about DNA testing an entire town.