NYPD Hopes New Technology Will Help Crack Unsolved Murder Cases
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The NYPD hopes a new, high-tech process will help solve old murders.
The process, called Phenotyping, uses a victim's DNA to approximate his or her face -- even if their body is found without a head.
The department is using the new technology for the first time in an effort to identify the victims in two unsolved homicides from 2005 and 2015.
"Still requires a lot of old fashioned gum shoe detective work," Assistant Chief Patrick Conroy said Wednesday. "These are just leads that help us go in the direction we need to go."
In the 2005 case, a human torso was found on July 26 at Cooper Transfer Facility on Maspeth Avenue in Brooklyn. Days later, a human skull was found in a garden on Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn. It's believed the body was placed in a dumpster on Gates Avenue, then moved to the transfer facility, police said.
"The torso is missing its head and hands and the lower extremities," said Deputy Chief James Luango.
The victim is believed to be a black or Hispanic man, between the ages of 17 and 23 years old, approximately 5 feet 5 inches to 6 feet tall and 130 to 200 pounds.
In the 2015 case, dismembered partial human remains were found in Calvert Vaux Park on January 1 and March 22.
The victim is believed to be a woman between the ages of 20 and 45 years old.
