TBI granted $3.3 million

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) for the analysis of no-suspect DNA cases. The one-year award is for $3,369,813,00. This grant will allow local law enforcement agencies throughout the state to inventory their evidence rooms for cases that meet the NIJ’s definition of a no-suspect DNA case, which is defined as “…one where law enforcement has not developed a suspect, or cases in which a suspect has been eliminated through testing or other investigative means.” Such evidence could have the potential of assisting law enforcement agencies across the state, where DNA technology can be a valuable tool in solving older violent crimes. With written approval of the local District Attorney General, agencies can submit evidence to the TBI. TBI will accept evidence from cases dated December 31, 2001 to August 15, 2003. The TBI will outsource the analysis of cases submitted under the grant but continue to enter the profiles into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). To date, there have been fifty-nine confirmed profile matches since TBI began entering DNA profiles into CODIS in February of 2002.