In 2012, when San Diego police used DNA testing to try and solve the 1984 beachside rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl, they came up with two suspects: a convicted rapist who’d died in 2011, and a man who’d worked as a SDPD crime-lab analyst from 1982-2002. Was the analyst guilty … or had his DNA simply gotten mixed into the evidence sample by mistake? This enthralling Atlantic piece investigates.
Photo of San Diego’s Ocean Beach by John Eckman
