Catching Serial Killers in the Spotlight

By Janice Castro

How can police in towns separated by hundreds of miles tell when a roaming serial murderer or rapist is at work? The FBI will soon provide a key with its new Combined DNA Identification System (CODIS). The computer program provides a universal registry of DNA traces found in the blood and semen samples the attackers often leave behind. All forensic labs in the U.S. will be asked to use the FBI's system, so that no matter where a person's DNA is tested, the record will be uniform. Using CODIS, authorities can tell if a faceless criminal has been detected elsewhere.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart