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After Shannon Murrin's trial for the murder of eight year old Mindy Tran, the public was led to believe that the jury
had not accepted the DNA results because this was new and untested technology
being presented for the first time in Canada. The actual
reasons for rejecting the DNA results were far different. The Crown was unable to explain how
several differing DNA profiles which were
originally found on Mindy's clothes, had turned into one after Sgt. Tidsbury and
members of the Crown had personally transported the DNA to England for testing. Why the RCMP and the Crown would even
present the evidence in this manner is suspect. It makes the RCMP appear to be framing Murrin.
The jury can hardly be blamed for rejecting the DNA results as submitted. The judge in this case placed an unrealistic degree of responsibility on the
jury by allowing flawed and conflicting DNA test results to be admitted. The
jury was instructed that they had to determine for themselves if the differing DNA results were due to
degradation, a determination that could only have been made by scientists. After
providing conflicting mitochondrial DNA results, this revelation was followed in the closing days of the trial by an admission
from the RCMP that they once had the conclusive nuclear DNA evidence found on Mindy's
clothes but had washed the evidence away before any samples could be taken. These
actions were obviously going to raise more doubts and the prosecution was instrumental in
allowing this to take place. The evidence as presented and lack of any defense
for actions implicating the RCMP and the Crown in evidence tampering led to the
impression that the RCMP would do anything to gain a conviction against
Murrin at all costs. Murrin's defense could hardly be expected to avoid the
implications when the case was being handed to them on a silver platter. The
jury was never told that Murrin was an RCMP agent and there fore never knew of
an alternative motive for the RCMP to be supplying suspicious and conflicting
evidence. RCMP
agent Shannon Murrin was acquitted as a result. The following excerpts are from the DNA Results submitted at Shannon Murrin's trial. Supplied by
Kathy MacDonald, Murrin's former juror. On cross-examination even more problems were revealed. Bark had reversed protocol by testing the known sample first thereby increasing the likelihood of contamination by Shannon's nuclear DNA. Bark explained that Shannon's nuclear DNA was analyzed first because of the urgency of the request. Contamination was present in all the tests and contamination greater than 10% was present in 2 of the 3 tests. There was only enough of hair 11 to produce one test instead of the usual two tests for confirmation purposes. And the nuclear DNA extracted from the root of hair 11 in Canada was a different DNA sequence from that of the shaft. Not only that but a different sequence was arrived at in each of the two tests on hair 11. The way Bark's figures were arrived at was also strange. The jury was led to believe that Shannon Murrin's MtDNA was rare. The FSS database of 63 people was examined and produced a match. But then other databases were added to the original database to reach a conclusion. The Miller Concordance was examined and it produced another match. Then the results were sent to the FBI for comparison with the SWGDAM database. This database didn't produce a match and Bark concluded that only 24 in 10,000 people would have Shannon Murrin's MtDNA. On cross-examination, Peter Wilson questioned Bark about the confusing conclusions on hair 11. Bark conceded that it was an impossibility to have one DNA result for the root of hair 11 and another for the shaft but he concluded that contamination was the culprit. Bark based his conclusion on the fact that each hair matched each other and Shannon's DNA. How could hairs that didn't match each other in Vancouver match each other in England? Given the problems with Tidsbury's investigation why weren't the hairs photographed? Why was Tidsbury allowed to transport them himself? Why was the nuclear DNA extracted from the root of hair 11 in Vancouver different from the shaft? Is it possible that Shannon Murrin's hairs were sent to England instead of the original ones from the Vancouver lab? see- Full DNA Voir Dire Or -did some one
deliberately skew the results for some other ulterior motive, not to falsely
implicate Murrin, but to throw doubt on the findings in order to aid in his
acquittal? Note the way the evidence is presented, obviously this was going to
raise doubt, not justify a conviction. Could the additional DNA
profiles originally present, have been those of the people seen with Murrin on
the night of the murder? If these people were suspects, why are they not being
investigated by the RCMP? If they are witnesses, why have they not come forward?
Why are the police not investigating? All of the information contained here is well known to the press and the police.
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