Suspect’s DNA found on beer bottle at Aurora murder scene
By Janelle Walker For The Beacon-News January 30, 2013 6:42PM
Jaime Diaz, 33, formerly of Aurora, was convicted in January 2013 in the 1998 murders of Brendon Anderson of Geneva and Elias Calcano of Aurora.
Updated: March 2, 2013 11:39AM
ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP — Two DNA profiles were found on a beer bottle collected from the back seat of Brendon Anderson’s Cadillac — where he and friend Elias Calcano were shot to death in Aurora in March 1998.
One of those DNA profiles matched Anderson, Kelly Krajknik, a forensic DNA analyst from the State Police Crime Lab, testified in Kane County Court Wednesday.
The other came from Jaime Diaz, according to one of her lab co-workers, who tested a cheek swab from Diaz a decade later.
Diaz, 35, of Aurora, is on trial this week, accused of shooting the two men and attempting to cover up the crime by setting their bodies on fire 15 years ago.
Much of Wednesday’s testimony consisted of cross examination of Michael Dabney, a now-retired evidence technician for the Aurora Police Department.
Diaz’s attorney and Kane County prosecutors questioned why more evidence wasn’t collected from the crime scene and sent to the State Police lab for further testing — from blood found on the snow and inside footprints in the snow, to cigarette butts found around the scene.
While Aurora police did not collect every bit of possible evidence at the scene, Dabney said, officers did submit 30 different pieces of possible evidence for testing.
It is more typical to send four to six pieces of good evidence for testing, Dabney said.
“That is because of the backlog of evidence they (the State Police Crime Lab) have to test,” he said.
In some ways, Dabney added, Aurora is a “lucky” town because some testing, like fingerprinting and DNA swabs, can be done locally, instead of sending them out for to another lab.
In an attempt to get prints off of the beer bottle, the State Police lab at one point “superglued the bottle,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Greg Sams. In that process, Superglue fumes are used to bring out fingerprints that may not be found through normal measures.
That does not change DNA, but may make it harder to collect, Krajknik said.
The state is expected to wrap up its case against Diaz by early Thursday afternoon and the case could go to the jury by Thursday evening, officials said.
