By Virginia Hennessey

Armed with a Supreme Court ruling and a DNA profile in 2010, Monterey, Calif., police obtained the county's first "John Doe" arrest warrant, identifying a commercial burglary suspect whose name and face were unknown.

The effort is about to pay off. Monterey police Lt. Leslie Sonne said the department will soon make an arrest it believes will clear 14 other commercial burglaries from Palo Alto to Beverly Hills where police collected the same DNA profile.

Monterey police Sgt. Bill Clark said the case exemplifies how advances in DNA testing and the availability of warrants based solely on a suspect's genetic profile are changing the way detectives process property crime scenes that used to get only a dusting for fingerprints.

DNA analysis has come a long way since the days when criminalists needed a large blood stain to get a profile. Since 2005, scientists have been able to isolate DNA swabbed from surfaces like windowsills and cellphones that were merely touched by suspects, hence the common reference "touch DNA."

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Source: The Herald