155
submitted 10 months ago by ediculous@feddit.nl to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 247 points 10 months ago

For years there was the "Phantom", a notorious criminal, haunting all of Europe. DNA testing revealed that it was a female and her crimes ranging from petty theft to murder were seemingly unrelated to each other. That each of them were done in different countries didn't make solving the case any easier.

But eventually they did solve it. They found the woman working in a cotton swab factory. Turned out many police departments were using the wrong type of swabs. So there seem to be more than one way to incorrectly use cotton swabs.

[-] Stanwich@lemmy.world 55 points 10 months ago

MOVIE IDEA!! imagine a movie that takes you all over Europe following a killer and thief . Stumping the best cops. I'm thinking sort of following a cops career looking for this person until it ruins his family and life. Like destroys him slowly until he has nothing left . Kills himself. Through out the movie is close up shots of all the times cotton swabs were used in testing DNA. Randomly scattered. Ending shot of some factory . Camera flies in to assembly line. Two women side by side packing cartons. One look over and says. ''You'll end up in the office if they catch you without gloves again''.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago

The hell was she doing on the factory line to get her DNA on all the swabs?

[-] Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 52 points 10 months ago

Probably packing them with her bare hands.

[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 31 points 10 months ago

Existing. People shed DNA all over. Most of the dust in your house is human skin and hair (or that of your pets). Non-sterile swabs are probably just packed with bare hands, by someone in their regular clothing.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Right, but there would be many people packing swabs in the plant. Unless she has psoriasis, the amount of skin she sheds at one time wouldn't contaminate all of the swabs she touched with her hands, much less all of the swabs in the factory.

[-] OurTragicUniverse@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Sweaty hands while sorting the cotton fibres would do it.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Not even close. Sweat barely contains any DNA, and while theoretically a person could sweat enough to leave behind enough dna to be identified, it hasn't ever happened and would require copious amounts of concentrated sweat. Her hands would have to be constantly dripping with sweat, and this happened several times in several countries between 2001 and 2008. Maybe sweaty hands could contaminate one or two cotton swabs, but all of them over the course of several years? No.

[-] OurTragicUniverse@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

I did not realise sweat contained so little dna!

[-] errer@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

She was shoving each and every swab up her ass. Her ass swabs she called them. In conversations it gave her the upper hand. Check your bathroom, inside? Her ass swabs. Something in your ear had been up her ass!

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 5 points 10 months ago

Is she married to the "ass pennies" guy?

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Probably not all the swabs. Maybe just packaging. That way her DNA would've only gone to some swabs and thus making it take longer to find the error.

[-] MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk 11 points 10 months ago

What was she doing? Just creating the best alibi ever.

Criminal mastermind.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Actually that's brilliant. Like the plot of a Law and Order: SVU episode.

[-] hallettj@beehaw.org 9 points 10 months ago
[-] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

Case file do an episode on it. Well, she appears in an episode in chasing that killer

[-] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago

Now that's some serious incompetence there, and it's sad that it took so many cases to figure it out.

[-] Songar87@eviltoast.org 7 points 10 months ago

That makes me think the based an episode of CSI:NY after this. An almost identical plot.

this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
155 points (89.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43490 readers
1937 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS