Our next guest is Ginger Clark, Forensic DNA Analyst. Welcome to The Junction.

Thank you for having me.

So can you start by telling us what your background is and how it relates to the field of veterinary forensics?

I started out in conservation and population genetics of a variety of different animals. My area of expertise is actually venomous snakes. Um, I worked with Canebrake rattlesnakes for 25 years. Um, but the population genetics, you have to figure out using DNA, what is a species and then what are the populations associated with those species. And what you end up doing is building large databases. And so, if your species are animals of interest, such as hunting animals or, um, other animals that are of significant interest to people, you have large databases that you can use for statistical analyses. And so that's where I started was conservation of population genetics. And a wildlife officer asked me at some point, could I distinguish yes or no, is it white tailed deer, if he gives me a piece of meat. And that's basically where I started. And the challenge of each of those kinds of tests and designing the assays was really challenging and interesting. And then as I started getting cases, the different kinds of evidence that came in, the different questions that were asked, those are all things that, Keep my imagination and just keep me doing this because it's interesting to try and figure it out. Yes, trying to figure it out.

That's amazing. So what, what are the uses of DNA? Like how can we use DNA in forensics?

In a forensic situation, often the question is, if you have a blood splatter, is that, what organism did that blood come from? Is it human? Is it dog? Is it cat? Is it, you know, some other animal that is going to be of interest? Um, and then once you know what species it is, um, if it's a dog, does it go to any of these other dogs? Whether it's a deceased animal, an animal that's being abused, an animal that's been stolen. Can we compare those two and put them together? And DNA can do that, and that's What's the, the value of DNA is its ability to be able to put all those pieces together and be reliable, relatable, consistent, and be able to take that into a court of law. So DNA has been validated for humans. We use exactly the same methods and protocols in animal forensics so that we can take that to court.

One of the things that you talked about was using DNA to identify an animal as a victim and as a perpetrator, which we kind of, kind of make sense, but then you also discussed about using it to find out if an animal is a witness. So how can animals be witnesses of a crime?

What happens there is, the first case of that was a man who murdered his girlfriend and he owned a large, fluffy, white cat. And they found that cat's hairs on the woman whom he said he did not know. And so they were able, and they found those same cat hairs on the jacket that he wore when he killed her. And they were able to do DNA to say that those two hairs came from the same individual animal. So there the cat, by proxy, was a witness. And I've done a couple of cases where it's essentially the same thing. Either the suspect has an animal or the victim has an animal, and that animal's DNA shows up on the other person, and that ties those two individuals together in a fairly compelling way and often in a specific time and space.

We talk a lot about the CSI effect, and I think that DNA is probably one of the fields most affected by it. How is the public perception wrong as far as what they expect out of DNA based on these shows that they watch?

They assume that it's, it always works, which it does not. They assume that it's fast, uh, it takes more than 45 minutes. Um, And they assume that it is always right. And that's not necessarily the case. And the expectation that DNA is going to have all of the answers is incorrect. On TV you see DNA going into a machine and minutes later it pops up an answer with the person's name, date, birth date, and all this other stuff. And often what we get is "That's interesting. Now let's do whatever we can to see if we can match it to something and put it together".

I think another misconception is just the cost, right? Like, people think that DNA should be done in every single case, but that's not really feasible, right?

It is not feasible and it's not always the answer. I prefer to do cases where The officers have really done their homework, because then I know it's probably going to be successful. Um, but it's not inexpensive, and it's not, you know, one of the things that happens in human is the expectation that there's DNA for everything, including a bounced check. It doesn't, you It doesn't apply to all the questions.

So what type of, what type of crimes can DNA be used in, in animals?

When we're looking at animals, if there's um, an abuse situation, um, an animal has been beaten, if there is blood on, say the wall as well as the victim, uh, and the perpetrator. So we can match those together so we can put together the the victim and the suspect to be able to say this person inflicted whatever harm it was on an animal based on them both having the DNA. So DNA gets shared back and forth. But certainly cases where animals are stolen, um, where horses are stolen and slaughtered for food, um, if we can find meat in the freezer, blood on the fellow's clothes. So it's, it's applicable to a lot of situations. Um, is it a stolen dog? Is it, you know, is that the stolen dog? Is that the dog's parents? So it's not always an abuse thing. You know, there might be a question of paternity of the animal. You know, a stolen dog. I will still have the dog's bed. That looks like my dog. Is it the same one?

So speaking of paternity, I discussed with you a little bit ago, an interesting case, and I'm changing a little bit the facts of the events of the case, but basically somebody who bred a dog that had won all of these championships, uh, so like a dog show, award winning dog, and the dog died. So the owner said that he had some of this dog left over and he cloned the dog so that he could then sell the puppies from this cloned dog for a high price because it's a show dog. So the puppies supposedly would be coming from the show dog. So can DNA help us determine if that is fraud?

Yes, it can. Um, once you have DNA from the so called clone dog, you have DNA from the puppies. If this dog was used for breeding prior to its death to his death, then you would have other puppies and potentially. that deceased dog's parents. So with that kind of DNA, you can then look to see what the, uh, paternity is. So yes or no, you know, is this dog, especially if you have puppies prior, you should be able to look at that DNA and say half the DNA comes from him with the prior puppies, half the DNA can be accounted for by him with the next group of puppies. So yeah, maybe it is a clone. In all likelihood, what you'll find is the DNA from the prior puppies doesn't match and cannot account for that dog being a parent.

You were talking about illegal like meats, um, and that makes me think also about the illegal wildlife trade so is DNA useful in that?

Yes, it is. There's extensive work that's been done with rhinos and elephants in particular and some of the big cats looking at their DNA and being able to determine where those animals were poached from and in some cases tie them back to specific um, poaching rings and um, it's often associated with drugs and guns and, uh, a lot of other illegal activities. But the DNA can often identify the specific, especially with, um, elephants. Uh, we can identify the cartel that has taken that animal and know exactly where it's gone, uh, based on the DNA and the work that's been done by colleagues in that field.

Any investigators that are listening to this that are interested in submitting DNA, what samples should they be looking to collect and how should they handle those samples?

The samples are going to be, uh, you sort of need to think about, where are you going to get your DNA from? So, plucked hairs, plucked feathers, pieces of hide. Pieces of tissue, uh, blood swabs, so swabs of blood from surfaces, from individual animals, clothing, so there's a whole variety of samples that can be, that have the appropriate DNA on it. You have to think about your question and therefore what samples are likely to have the DNA that will answer those questions. And then submitting it is, you know, once we're contacted for something, um, we have information on how to package and send material, you know, dry, wet, um, frozen. So it needs to be sent quickly and with a good chain of custody on it because you want to be able to take it to court.

What are the biggest errors or mistakes that investigators will do when making a submission?

The biggest mistakes tend to be, with tissue or other samples that are messy and not double bagging, not freezing and sending it overnight, not bagging sandy things well, putting two pieces of evidence in the same bag and they should be separate. So it's, it's usually a packaging issue and then not mailing it appropriately. Um, if you have something that's frozen and being sent, it should be sent overnight and not ground.

So

a lot of problems, I would say, with like contamination from Often there's contamination within a case that we receive because it hasn't been, the individual items have not necessarily been packaged appropriately. And so they touch and contaminate.

We know about using DNA for like criminal cases, but is there a use of DNA in like civil cases?

Yes. Yes. I often do civil cases and often they're associated with dog maulings. So someone is mauled by a dog. Uh, there is, there can be a criminal component to it, but often it's the civil case that comes out of it. So your dog killed my dog. You're not controlling your dog is a criminal case. Um, my loss of companionship, that's now a civil case. So yes, we do have cases that are civil as well as criminal.

So overall, what's the most common type of cases that you are, uh, asked to, to look into?

I, I always have dogfighting cases, often have cockfighting, and I also do a lot of death investigations. Where, or near death investigations where it's, the victim has been, mauled or, you know, injured in some way. So those are probably the most common ones at the moment.

Excellent. Well, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and thank you for everything that you do.

Thank you for having me.