DNA leads to arrest in 2004 case

By Denise Dick

NORTH LIMA — DNA evidence collected by Beaver Township police after a 2004 breaking and entering resulted in the arrest of a New Waterford man this month.

Police arrested James H. Crawford, 36, of Creek Road, last week on a warrant charging him with breaking and entering. He was released from the Mahoning County jail after posting bond.

He’s scheduled to appear Feb. 5 in Mahoning County Court in Canfield for a preliminary hearing.

“In 2004 when I was a patrol officer, we had a break-in at the Lake Front restaurant and golf course,” said Detective Eric Dattilo.

A window frame on the entryway had blood on it from the break-in, and Dattilo asked the detective to send it to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

“They checked, but nothing popped up,” the detective said.

In early 2009, though, police received notification from BCI that the DNA of Crawford, who was then in prison, matched the sample sent from the 2004 crime.

Crawford had been sentenced in October 2008 to state prison on a theft conviction out of Columbiana County Common Pleas Court, court records show. He was released late last year.

It’s the policy of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction “to collect a DNA sample from every offender convicted” of specific offenses and “who is sentenced or returned” to DRC custody, according to a DRC standard.

Holly Hollingsworth, a spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general’s office, said unidentified DNA profiles collected from crime scenes, referred to by the agency as forensic samples, are uploaded to the state’s Combined DNA Index System database, where they remain indefinitely.

The statute of limitations on a breaking-and-entering offense is six years, Dattilo said, and the crime occurred March 15, 2004. Police beat it by just a couple of months.

denise_dick@vindy.com