In a rape case in Drenthe, the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) was trying to develop a way to distinguish the DNA of the suspect’s identical twins.
The institute will present its findings in court on Monday. Two NFI experts will explain their findings in the court in Assen on Monday, RTV Drenthe reports.
In July 2019, a 76-year-old woman was attacked and raped in the De Strubben-Kniphorsthorstbosch nature reserve. The suspect, identified as Rick K. from Zuidlaren, was apprehended after the police found traces of his DNA on the woman’s clothes. However, he claimed that his twin brother was the culprit. Therefore, in August 2020, the court ordered the institute to conduct DNA research to identify the actual suspect.
Rick K., imprisoned for almost 1.5 years before he was released in December 2020, still maintains that he was not the attacker. His brother provided an alibi, stating that he was with his friends when the incident occurred. However, his friends also noted that K. had left the area for a while.
The institute’s researchers analyze the DNA of identical twins for two years. According to Arnoud Kal, a DNA expert at the institute, the development of these twins can be explained through the splitting of a fertilized egg. Two different embryos then divide into them and copy the same DNA. However, Kal also explained that minor differences could occur in the DNA of the twins due to reading errors in the womb.
According to Kal, analyzing the suspect’s DNA took about two years since analyzing the DNA of the suspect twins was complex due to the number of steps involved. In addition to repeated analyses, a statistical model was also developed to explain the study’s results. He showed RTV Drenthe how the process works by showing 3,000 letters on a sheet of paper. “This is part of that code. In reality, the code is 3 billion letters long, which requires five pallets of paper.” Kal said.
If the researchers can develop a way to distinguish the DNA of identical twins, it could help prevent wrongful convictions. Currently, in most cases, cases where only DNA evidence was used as evidence against the suspected identical twins always ended in acquittals due to the difficulty of proving that the twin was not the one committing the crime.
