After almost 25 years in prison, two brothers, David and Robert Bintzunjustly sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a woman in 1897, were freed, thanks to the use of Genetic Genealogy, which exonerated them of that crime.
Sandra Lison was found dead on August 4, 1987.after disappearing from the bar where he worked in Green Bay; His body was found about 300 miles from where he disappeared.
Forensic evidence indicated that he had been beaten, strangled and sexually abused. At that time, the culprit of the crime was not found, but in 2000, brothers David and Robert Bintz were arrested and convicted of the crime, all as a result of an informal conversation between a prisoner at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution and the guards. security.
So, without further ado, the two Bintz brothers were sentenced to life in prison, although there was no physical evidence that linked them to the event, not even the blood and semen found on Sandra’s body.
District Attorney David Lasee was interviewed by NBC 26, emphasizing how two men could be sentenced to life in prison for a crime for which there was no physical evidence linking them to the scene.
The prosecutor responded that “Prosecutors and law enforcement handled this case from the beginning, followed the evidence they had at the time, and that conviction was strong.”
DNA to the rescue
An opportunity arose with a study of a DNA profile of the blood and bodily fluids from the crime scene that remained in Brown Country. It was a special type of genealogical DNA analysis.
Thus, the brothers’ luck changed when Great North Innocence Project of Minnesota He started looking at the case. James Mayer, the Project’s attorney, said they were analyzing the case to find out what really happened.
So they sent the evidence of Sandra’s body, a preserved DNA sample, and employing the Genetic Genealogy Research Center at Ramapo College in New Jersey, according to the International Human Identification Symposium (ISHS) report, in order to identify the source of the unknown DNA.
The team worked tirelessly for three days and came to the conclusion that The DNA definitely did not correspond to either brother.who had been imprisoned for more than 20 years for a crime they did not commit.
Researchers say that through genetic genealogy research it is possible to determine specifically which person in a family has perpetrated a crime, as stated by Cairenn Binder, Assistant Director of the Genetic Genealogy Research Center at Ramapo College in New Jersey.
The culprit
The DNA was linked to a man who died in 2000, identified as William Hendricks, a convicted rapist. The court document says: “According to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab, the probability of having collected semen from the body of Sandra Lison that does not belong to William Hendricks, whose body was exhumed, is one in 329. trillions.”
Investigative genetic genealogy has only been used a few times to exonerate prisoners in the United States. As in the case to identify the Golden State Killer in 2018, in which Steve Kramer, an FBI lawyer, the first to use it, “a family tree is built, probable suspects are found, who are pursued by the police, or their relatives, to determine if the related DNA matches that of the crime scene.”
Now, after almost 25 years in prison, they must receive, Under Wisconsin law, $5,000 for each year spent behind bars, capped at $25,000 per Bintz brother. The Wisconsin Innocence Project (WIP) expresses the happiness of having achieved the freedom of the Bintz brothers, which they had been seeking for more than 20 years.
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