{"id":46064,"date":"2021-06-26T01:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T07:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dna-experts-take-stand-in-mark-redwine-trial\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:29:16","slug":"dna-experts-take-stand-in-mark-redwine-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dna-experts-take-stand-in-mark-redwine-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"DNA experts take stand in Mark Redwine trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Prosecutor
Prosecutor Michael Dougherty goes over DNA evidence collected in Mark Redwine\u2019s Vallecito home with Rebecca Strub, a DNA and body fluids analyst, as she testifies Friday in Durango. Strub worked for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at the time the first of Dylan\u2019s remains were found in June 2013. Mark Redwine is on trial for second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in the death of his son, Dylan Redwine. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The investigation into Dylan Redwine\u2019s death has stretched on for so long, that Friday\u2019s testimony in the trial for the boy\u2019s father, Mark Redwine, resembled a history class focusing on the advancements made in DNA science since June 2012.<\/p>\n

Mark Redwine, 59, is charged with second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in Dylan\u2019s death during a custodial parenting visit for the then 13-year-old during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2012.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say Redwine, enraged by sordid photos Dylan had discovered that showed him in women\u2019s clothing and a diaper and eating feces from a diaper, killed Dylan late on the night of Nov. 18.<\/p>\n

Redwine has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

Redwine has said he woke early on Nov. 19, assumed Dylan was sleeping in and ran errands in town. After coming back in the afternoon, he realized Dylan was missing.<\/p>\n

Defense attorneys in opening arguments said Dylan left the house early and was likely killed by a bear or a mountain lion in the remote area around Redwine\u2019s home at the north end of Vallecito Reservoir.<\/p>\n

Analyses of DNA evidence are focusing on samples not only from Dylan and Mark Redwine, but also Dylan\u2019s older brother, Cory; his mother, Elaine Hall; and Mark Redwine\u2019s half-brother, David Stone.<\/p>\n

A new software program, STRmix, was adopted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in 2018, and evidence in Dylan\u2019s death was retested using the software. It was the first evidence from a criminal case in Colorado tested using STRmix, said Sarah Miller, who until recently was program manager of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation Forensic Lab.<\/p>\n

Miller now works for a private DNA laboratory in Florida.<\/p>\n

Miller testified that DNA collected on a coffee table in Mark Redwine\u2019s Vallecito home had overwhelming statistical probability of coming from two individuals \u2013 Dylan and Mark Redwine.<\/p>\n

But DNA tests have their limits, Miller told defense lawyer Justin Bogan during cross-examination.<\/p>\n

\u201cSTRmix can\u2019t tell you when the DNA was deposited, and it can\u2019t tell you how it was contributed, whether it was blood, saliva, semen or skin,\u201d Miller testified.<\/p>\n

Miller told Bogan that further analysis showed 84% of the DNA sample from the coffee table came from Mark Redwine and 16% came from Dylan Redwine.<\/p>\n

All the tests conducted were from minute samples collected using chemical techniques to find the presence of blood that can\u2019t be seen by the naked eye.<\/p>\n

The first of several rounds of samples were obtained from Mark Redwine\u2019s house 10 days after Nov. 19, 2012 \u2013 the date Dylan was reported missing by his father.<\/p>\n

It is hard to interpret the percentage of DNA from various contributors from a DNA sample, Miller said on the stand.<\/p>\n

The contribution of DNA to a sample, she said, could depend on if one person was at the site of its collection more frequently than the other person.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more likely you sit in that chair the more likely we\u2019ll find DNA in your chair,\u201d Miller said in response to a question asked by a juror.<\/p>\n

The amount of DNA collected at a site also could be degraded by cleaning, by the length of time it had been deposited, by bacteria, ultraviolet light and a host of other factors, she said.<\/p>\n

In addition, blood, semen and saliva would have left behind more DNA than skin, sweat or hair cells, she said.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Strub, who first analyzed DNA in the case back in late 2013 and early 2014 when she was working at a CBI forensic lab in Pueblo, also testified Friday.<\/p>\n

Strub\u2019s testing was the first to confirm bones found along Middle Mountain Road in June 2013 were DNA matches to Dylan.<\/p>\n

Strub also conducted DNA tests on dozens of items collected in October 2013 at Mark Redwine\u2019s Vallecito house, including a shoe, shirts, pants, shoelaces and underwear.<\/p>\n

The October 2013 collection of items for DNA testing also included dozens of household items, such as fireplace tools, a tire iron, a duffel bag, speakers, a kitchen table rug and the wooden front door threshold.<\/p>\n

The tests all came back negative except for a partial DNA profile of Dylan on a pair of Dylan\u2019s underwear, Strub said.<\/p>\n

Strub\u2019s DNA analysis of the coffee table, indicated there was strong support that both Mark Redwine and Dylan contributed DNA to the coffee table sample.<\/p>\n

Her analysis also showed that DNA from Hall, Stone and Cory Redwine all could be excluded from the coffee table sample.<\/p>\n

Strub said when she conducted her DNA analyses, they looked at 16 different areas of the DNA strands located in every human cell. Now, tests like STRmix are looking at 24 different spots on DNA strands that are located in the nucleus of the cell.<\/p>\n

Strub concurred that DNA analyses have limitations \u2013 as Miller also pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you whose DNA profile is in a sample. I can\u2019t tell you how or when it got there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Strub said Dylan\u2019s DNA could not be excluded from a number of positive tests in Mark Redwine\u2019s living room, including a love seat cushion, a couch cushion, the floor in front of the love seat, the coffee table and the floor under a rug beneath the coffee table.<\/p>\n

When prosecutor Michael Dougherty asked Strub if the inability to exclude Dylan\u2019s blood from multiple positive tests in the living room meant it was likely Dylan bled in the living room in multiple places, she offered a simple answer: \u201cThat is correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story erred in reporting Dylan Redwine\u2019s DNA was found on Mark Redwine\u2019s underwear. The boy\u2019s DNA was found on his own underwear.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genetic markers of father, son found throughout living room<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[519,28,131,4531,525],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dylan-redwine","tag-headlines","tag-homicide","tag-mark-redwine","tag-trials"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86737,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46064\/revisions\/86737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46064"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}