DENVER—Denver Police say malfunctioning equipment in a crime lab caused a mix-up in DNA samples from 11 cases, including three property crimes that went to court.
Police say they learned of the mix-up late Thursday. No details of the court cases were available, including the outcomes and the defendants’ names.
Police say they’re determining what role the DNA had in the the cases. The defendants are being notified.
The mix-up occurred in 2011 when a DNA processing machine stopped working. Lab technicians got instructions from the manufacture on how to restart the machine and reload DNA samples that had been in it.
When the machine stopped again in November, technicians again called the manufacturer but got different instructions. That prompted them to re-examine the 2011 procedures, which uncovered the error.
