A criminal was linked to a eight-year-old armed robbery by DNA extracted from a blood-gorged leech found at the crime scene.
On September 28, 2001 two armed robbers tied a 71-year-old woman to a chair in her home in the remote Australian bush, while they liberated her safe of a few hundred dollars. In the investigation that followed, a leech was found that was believed to have dropped from one of the suspects. Police extracted blood from the leech, but no suspects were identified; until an unrelated drug charge gave the police a DNA profile that matched one of the armed robbers.
Peter Cannon, 54, was arrested and plead guilty to the aggravated robbery. It is believed that this may be the first time that DNA evidence extracted from a parasite has been used to solve a crime.
[The Age]
