The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is finalizing a contract with a startup from Wisconsin to assess its forensics lab after former forensic scientist Yvonne “Missy” Wood was found to have manipulated DNA test results of more than 800 cases.
CBI told lawmakers that it will cost almost $7.5 million to retest DNA sample tests and potentially retry cases affected.
Here’s what we know so far:
Who is Yvonne 'Missy' Woods?
Woods spent 29 years as a forensic scientist with CBI. She was involved in several high-profile cases in Colorado, including the 2003 investigation of late basketball player Kobe Bryant on rape accusations and the murder of University of Colorado student Susannah Chase.
The Bryant case was dropped after the accuser refused to testify. Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in 2020, settled with the accuser as part of a civil lawsuit in 2005.
Diego Alcalde was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree sexual assault and second-degree kidnapping and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the Chase case in 2009.
Woods had received numerous accolades for her work at CBI.
CBI opened an Internal Affairs Investigation on Oct. 3, 2023, and Woods was placed on administrative leave.
She retired from the CBI before the internal investigation was completed. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) assisted with the internal investigation. The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation opened a criminal investigation on Woods on Nov. 7.
Why did the CBI open an investigation into Woods’ work?
An intern research project assigned by management at a CBI laboratory found anomalies in her testing.
The intern discovered that certain data was missing from records of test results. The intern was researching historical data in CBI Forensic Services cases involving DNA. The discovery meant that Woods had manipulated data in the DNA testing process, leading to incomplete test results in certain cases.
This led to an investigation.
As of Aug. 27, 2024, officials identified 809 cases dating back to 2014 that Woods had a hand in.
Colleagues told investigators that Woods had a reputation for cutting corners. A coworker questioned Woods’ testing of evidence in a case and reported concerns to a technical leader 10 years earlier, in 2014.
Woods was accused of data manipulation in 2018. She was removed from casework and given other duties pending a review of the accusation but was later reinstated. The results of the review didn’t go to the CBI Director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety. In interviews with her coworkers, they described Woods as shady and manipulative.
The internal affairs investigation found that Woods didn’t falsify DNA matches or fabricate DNA profiles. She deviated from standard protocols and cut corners.
So what’s going to happen to the cases where Woods may have cut corners?
According to state budget documents, it will cost CBI almost $7.5 million to retest DNA samples tampered with by Woods. It will cost $3 million to retest 3,000 cases at $1,000 each.
Nearly $4.3 million will cover the review and post-conviction processes such as reimbursement to district attorneys across the state and other legal fees.
As of Nov. 7, CBI is working to finalize a contract with Forward Resolutions, LLC, to run assessments of its forensics labs. According to documents requested through CORA by CPR, the Wisconsin-based start-up won the bid over other organizations from Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. The company was founded by Jennifer Naugle and Nicole Roehm in 2019.
Forward Resolutions’ price tag of over $777,000 bid was the second-lowest among the bids ranging from $417,000 to $9.5 million, which would have been over the budget CBI submitted to the Colorado legislature earlier this year.
What are people saying about this years-long mishandling of DNA evidence?
Two watchdog groups, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the Korey Wise Innocence Project from the University of Colorado Law School sent a joint letter to CBI seeking clarity in the Woods investigation Wednesday. Forward Resolutions was carbon copied on the letter.
Both organizations said they have been investigating how CBI allowed Woods’ misconduct to go unchecked for so long. They said CBI has been out of compliance with requirements for federal funding.
“CBI allowed Missy Woods to alter forensic evidence for years. This misconduct brings CBI’s entire forensic operation into question, and a thorough, independent audit, followed by full disclosure of the results to stakeholders and the public is essential,” said Emma Mclean-Riggs, ACLU of Colorado Staff Attorney, in a statement.
The federal funding in question is the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grant. The program awards grants to states and units of local government to help improve forensic science and medical examiner and coroner services.
The letter questions if the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office — listed in the application as the investigative entity — has a “process in place” to conduct independent external investigations at CBI and if they were notified that the entity was on the grant application.
Both organizations encouraged CBI's use of an external entity for the assessment of its forensics labs. But, noted that the audit only covers a two-year period from 2022-24.
“External investigations and audits of state crime laboratories are essential to identifying the system-level root causes of past misconduct to create safeguards that can reduce the risk of future misconduct,” the letter read. “We raise these concerns with you because a strong, transparent, and high-quality forensic science system will be essential to restoring public trust.
Both organizations requested a response by Dec. 3.
Have any cases been overturned because of Woods’ work?
Legal proceedings over the mishandled DNA are underway. Some cases that have involved Woods have been affected.
In June, 9News reported that Boulder County prosecutors agreed to a plea agreement in the 2019 felony murder conviction of Garrett Coughlin. A jury found him guilty of killing three people at a home in 2017. Coughlin was originally sentenced to life behind bars without possibility of parole. But following the plea agreement, he was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
Colorado Politics reported In August that the Colorado Court of Appeals overturned an attempted murder conviction due to prosecutors' failure to establish a chain of custody for the defendant's DNA and fingerprints. Forensic analysts had linked Vigil to a gun used to shoot a victim in Adams County in August 2019. Woods testified in the case. But, the decision was dependent on the CBI scandal. A three-judge panel determined the forensic evidence likely affected the jury’s verdict and that the trial judge should have barred the experts' testimony. One judge wrote that Vigil’s fingerprints on file were not accounted for prior to testing at CBI.
Most recently, the Gazette reported that the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office filed for additional testing in a case of a defendant who was convicted of murder that was largely due to forensic analysis by Woods. Michael Clark was convicted in 2012 of the 1994 murder of Marty Grisham in Boulder. He’s currently serving life without parole.
