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Defense challenges DNA in 'cold case' trial

The prosecution alleges that the killer of Cheryl Hanible in 1989 left behind "touch" DNA when he removed the lace from one of her sneakers and used it to strangle her.

Rudolph Churchill is charged in two deaths.
Rudolph Churchill is charged in two deaths.Read more

The prosecution alleges that the killer of Cheryl Hanible in 1989 left behind "touch" DNA when he removed the lace from one of her sneakers and used it to strangle her.

And that DNA, Philadelphia police DNA analyst Bryne Strother testified Wednesday, almost certainly came from 54-year-old Rudolph Churchill of Paulsboro.

But could Churchill's DNA have somehow, accidentally, been picked up by Hanible's sneaker without his ever touching it?

That was the hypothetical question posed by defense attorney Gina Capuano in questioning Strother during Churchill's Common Pleas Court trial on rape and murder charges in the stranglings of Hanible and Ruby Ellis.

Capuano used the example of someone spitting on the ground - leaving DNA - and another person walking on it and picking up the microscopic remains on the sole.

"Isn't it possible that this could be secondary transfer?" Capuano asked of the DNA found on the heel of Hanible's sneaker.

"It's a possibility," conceded Strother, who was to return to the witness stand Thursday for additional questioning by Capuano.

Earlier Wednesday, under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Gwenn Cujdik, Strother testified that the DNA on Hanible's left sneaker came from up to three people, at least one of whom was male. Strother said that based on a sample of Churchill's DNA, he was 629,800 times more likely to have deposited it there than any other unrelated African American male in the general population.

Strother said Churchill's "alleles" - one or two genes on a particular DNA chromosome - were consistent with 15 out of 16 tested DNA segments from the sneaker. The one inconsistent allele, which was why Strother concluded that at least three individuals were in the DNA mixture, could have been a testing error and might still belong to Churchill, Strother said.

Capuano has challenged the integrity of the procedure by which the DNA evidence was collected and analyzed. Capuano has had her own DNA expert in court and is expected to call him as a witness when the defense case begins.

Ellis, 19, was discovered dead March 17, 1989, in an abandoned car in a lot near 15th and Thompson Streets. On April 23, 1989, the body of Hanible, 33, was found in a burned-out abandoned bar in the 1200 block of West Girard Avenue. Both women were addicted to drugs and became prostitutes to feed their habits.

The case was unsolved until 2013, when Philadelphia police, testing for DNA in cold-case homicides under a federal grant, came up with a match for Churchill in a federal DNA database. Churchill had been required to give the DNA sample when he was released from a Georgia prison in 2007.

Strother said testing showed that Churchill was a match for DNA on two pieces of evidence: a bloody paper towel found in the car near Ellis' body, and Hanible's sneaker.

Both Capuano and Cujdik have acknowledged problems confronting the investigation that led to Churchill. Both the victims died in places frequented by drug users and where prostitutes met customers for sex.

Both women were found in places littered with trash, crack pipes, used condoms, and other debris left by any number of men and women.

jslobodzian@phillynews.com 215-854-2985 @joeslobo

www.philly.com/crimeandpunishment