20-Mar-2024

Pennsylvania Prosecutors Use TrueAllele in Homicide Guilty Plea

Allegheny County Courthouse © Dllu, CC BY-SA 4.0

In January 2023, the body of Kenneth Lennex was found in a wooded Pittsburgh area, shot eight times in the head. Police discovered blood and bullets at a suspectʼs home on Kingsboro Street. A Taurus pistol and a revolver were tested for DNA. The crime lab reported, “Due to the data being uninterpretable, no comparison can be made to the reference samples.”

Cybergenetics reinterpreted the labʼs “uninterpretable” DNA data. TrueAllele computing connected the pistol and revolver to defendant LeʼJuane Powell, finding DNA match statistics of 2.32 trillion and 746 trillion, respectively. In March 2024, the defendant pleaded guilty to third- degree murder. Powell was sentenced to 22 to 44 years in prison.