Texas lab’s advanced DNA testing helped Iowa City investigators break 1992 case

Without advanced DNA testing developed by a Texas lab, Iowa City Police investigators may not have been able to identify an infant found in 1992 in an Iowa City landfill because the DNA tissue sample was “degraded and contaminated.”

The advanced testing helped investigators identify the “Johnson County John Doe (1992),” as he was initially known in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, after using genealogy to piece together a familial connection, Michael Vogen, director of case management at Othram in The Woodlands, Texas, told The Gazette.

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The Iowa Attorney General’s Office reached out to Othram in 2021 for help on this case. Othram developed the advanced DNA testing — forensic-grade genome sequencing — in 2018.

“Kudos to those investigators,” Vogen said. “They were eager to utilize every tool in the toolbox to identify the baby. It wouldn’t have been possible with traditional DNA testing.”

The results led investigators to the infant’s mother, Cindy Sue Elder, 58, formerly known as Cindy Sue Eckrich, who was living in Clever, Mo. Investigators believe she disposed of the baby in 1992 shortly after giving birth in Iowa City. She was 26 at the time.

She was arrested last week and will be charged with first-degree murder when she is extradited from Missouri to Johnson County.

Vogen said this 33-year-old unsolved case was a “little tricky” because any time there is a chemically treated sample, it tends to breakdown into fragments. The sample of the baby’s tissue was preserved in 1992 in paraffin. The infant also had been exposed to environmental elements of a trash receptacle and then disposed of in a landfill.

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Vogen has seen paraffin embedded DNA samples submitted to the lab in the past. Sometimes they also receive blood and tissue in other forms and have bones that have been boiled to extract DNA but that also destroys DNA. It’s not uncommon for the forensic lab to encounter some roadblocks, but they usually have something to work with, he said.

Othram’s specialized process was able to produce a comprehensive “beautiful” DNA profile of the infant, Vogen said. The advanced process goes beyond the traditional DNA process of STR — short tandem repeat — testing that looks at 24 markers of DNA. Those are typically uploaded into the FBI CODIS database and used to identify suspects by matching DNA found at crime scenes to convicted offenders.

Vogen said those 24 markers have a limitation because they can only match DNA to a close family member’s DNA, but with Othram’s process they look at “half a million” or more markers, which collect “infinitely” more DNA data. It can detect back to a sixth or seventh cousin for a genealogist to build a family tree, giving investigators more possible connections to build back to the family line where the DNA originated.

Othram has a genealogy department that can help law enforcement, but many investigators are familiar with the process and don’t need the company’s services for that piece of it, Vogen said. In this case, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and the Iowa City Police Department had that knowledge and conducted their own investigation after Othram provided the testing data, he said.

Vogen said the process of building the profile varies, depending on the DNA samples they receive, but it usually takes their lab about three to 12 weeks.

This case was challenging, but the lab has had more difficult ones, including unsolved cases dating back more than 33 years, Vogen said. Othram’s oldest case, so far, was from 1850. In that case, the bones of a teacher were discovered.

The advanced testing has been used on thousands of cases since it was developed, producing about 500 publicly named cases with results, Vogen said.

All the testing is done in-house and the company works strictly with local, state, federal and some international law enforcement. It also works with coroners and medical examiners on unidentified human remains or suspect DNA. The lab doesn’t conduct any medical testing or research.

Mother told police she didn’t want to be a parent

In the Iowa City has, a full-term infant — a white male with brown hair and blue eyes — was found in an Iowa City landfill Dec. 21, 1992 by workers, according to Othram’s information and Iowa City Police. The baby had been unknowingly picked up by a trash collector from a receptacle near an apartment building at 712 Fifth St. in Coralville.

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The baby had extensive blunt force injuries that appeared to happen after his death. The placenta was still attached and wrapped around the child’s neck, according to the criminal complaint.

When the baby was found, an autopsy showed the cause and manner of death were ruled undetermined because the “the lack of known circumstances surrounding the labor and delivery of this infant make it impossible at this time,” the complaint stated.

After the DNA testing led to Elder in 2022, she told police she didn’t want to be a parent and hid her pregnancy from everyone, including the father of the baby. She never went to a doctor for prenatal care and attempted to induce a miscarriage by punching herself in the stomach, according to the complaint.

She gave birth to the baby in the basement of an Iowa City residence and told police the baby was born alive and crying, the complaint stated. She “did something” to keep the baby quiet so no one in the house heard any crying. She then put the baby in a bag and dropped off the bag in an outdoor trash receptacle near her father’s apartment at 712 Fifth St. in Coralville.

The father of the infant told police he wasn’t aware of Elder’s pregnancy or that she had given birth.

Trish Mehaffey covers state and federal courts for The Gazette

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com