DNA experts take the stand in Dillon Whitehawk trial

The trial of Dylan Whitehawk for the murder of Keesha Bitternose continued Friday, with the Crown calling two DNA analysis experts to the stand.

Whitehawk is accused of first-degree murder in the death of Keesha Bitternose on Jan. 2, 2020.

Megan Clark is a forensic scientist with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police based in a lab in Edmonton. She has been called to court as an expert witness over 30 times across various courts in Western Canada.

The RCMP assisted the Regina Police Service (RPS) in the DNA analysis in this case, which Clark was a part of.

“Once [the lab] receives the exhibits from the evidence management team, a search technologist examines the exhibits, reports findings, performs tests and then sends them further for DNA analysis,” she explained.

Clark analyzed six main exhibits for this case: a glove, a machete and a screwdriver as well as three swabbed exhibits from the crime scene.

The Crown focused its questioning on the glove found at the scene. Clark’s lab took six samples from the glove: two swabs from various locations on the glove as well as four tape samples.

Four separate samples in Clark’s analysis found multiple times where there was, “more than two DNA samples found.” According to Clark, this means at least three separate DNA samples may have been in a single swab or tape.

All four of those times, one of the DNA samples matched that of Keesha Bitternose while there was trace amounts of “at least one male’s” DNA. However, because of the limited amount of DNA, Clark says she could not create a profile for the other found sample.

The other two exhibits in Clark’s analysis were said to be a mixed sample from male origin. She also said it was possible Bitternose’s DNA was in these samples, but there was no way to confirm based on the amount found.

In defence’s cross examination, lawyer Thomas Hynes argued DNA is easily transferable. He asked Clark if her analysis was to simply show that DNA existed in a sample, rather than to figure out how it got there. She responded with, “yes.”

Hynes pointed out that the wording in her reports indicated there were more than two people’s DNA found in some samples, to with Clark added that meant she could conclusively say there were at least three people’s DNA recorded.

Clark then added that when trace amounts of male DNA is found amongst the copious amounts of female DNA, there are further tests that focus on pulling the DNA’s unique data from the male origin. She did not perform those tests.

The Crown then called upon a second expert witness in DNA analysis to take the stand in the afternoon.

Gregory Litzenberger is a Technical Operations Leader at the Edmonton lab. He tested male-only chromosomes from the samples by a process called YSTR testing which ignores female DNA in a sample.

Litzenberger also found multiple male originated DNA on some of the exhibits. However, on a portion of the glove, he found a mixed sample where one male’s DNA was the majority of the sample.

This allowed him to create the profile referred to in court as “Male A.” Regina Police then took known samples from the accused persons and sent them to the lab: sample “KT” and sample “DW”.

Litzenberger then tested the 27 areas of genetic code with the two samples. Sample KT did not match Male A’s DNA but the sample labeled as DW did. However, men’s DNA is passed on paternally. meaning fathers have the same DNA as their sons or brothers.

Litzenberger clarified in his report, “Neither the accused or his male-paternal relatives can be excluded from the result,” because he could not “definitely say if it was his or his father’s or even son’s.”

The DNA was then cross-referenced with a database of over 29,000 men. Litzenberger said he did this to see how rare or common this certain genetic code was. He found there to be no matches to “Male A’s” specific genetic code in the base.

DNA analysis only tested what was left on an object and cannot tell how the DNA got there.

Court is scheduled to resume Monday at 10 a.m.