DENVER — A longtime DNA scientist, facing a criminal investigation over “anomalies” in her lab work, testified in court as an expert witness at least 500 times – including in some of the state’s highest-profile cases.
In at least 370 of those cases, she testified as an expert in forensic DNA.
On Tuesday, district attorneys across the state were beginning the process of trying to figure out which of their cases Yvonne “Missy” Woods had worked on, or testified about, during her 29 years at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
That came a day after CBI acknowledged the discovery of problems with some of her work and announced that she was no longer employed there and was subject to both internal and criminal investigations.
Woods’ attorney, Ryan Brackley, said she “has been a loyal, dedicated and well-respected forensic scientist with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for close to 30 years” and would cooperate in the inquiry.
The scope of the allegations about her work has not been disclosed, and it’s not clear what charges she could face.
Even as that remains unknown, the challenge to her credentials could lead to calls for review of an untold number of cases she worked on during a career that began in the infancy of DNA and grew in stature as genetic work became ever more sensitive and precise.
Take, for example, two of Colorado’s most notorious murder cases – the January 1984 hammer killings of Patricia Smith in Lakewood and Bruce and Debra Bennett and their daughter Melissa in Aurora.
By 1998, investigators in the Bennett case were consulting Woods about new forensic testing that might move the investigation forward. In 1999, her testing revealed previously unseen semen on a comforter and a piece of carpeting from beneath Melissa Bennett’s body. In 2009, her testing revealed for the first time that DNA from the carpeting beneath Patricia Smith’s body matched genetic material found at the Bennett crime scene.
In 2018, after a DNA hit identified Alex Christopher Ewing as a suspect in the two cases, it was Woods who conducted the tests that confirmed his genetic profile matched the one found at the two crime scenes.
She testified in both of his trials – and Ewing was convicted in both and is serving consecutive life sentences.
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