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	Posted on Mon, Jun. 27, 2005
	UP FRONT | CRIMINAL JUSTICE Author, technology help put face on homicide New forensic technology is reopening a decade-old Hollywood homicide, thanks in part to best-selling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, author of The Body Farm. BY WANDA J. DeMARZO wdemarzo@herald.com With purse and package in hand, Mildred Weiss walked out of her Polk Street apartment in Hollywood, on her way to exchange a gold blouse, a present she had bought for her niece. It was around 9 a.m. March 9, 1994. The killer struck in the elevator, dragging the white-haired, 5-foot, 90-pound woman to a second-floor laundry room, bashing the frail Weiss with a bottle and slamming her head against a concrete wall. By the time residents of the Town Gardens Apartments found Weiss, moaning and bleeding on the stone floor, it was too late. Rescue workers rushed her to Memorial Regional Hospital, where she died on the operating table. She died six days before her 86th birthday. The case has baffled and haunted Hollywood crime-scene investigator Sue Courtney and others for years. Now, thanks to the help of best-selling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell and cutting-edge forensic technology, police have a sketch of the suspect in the slaying of the former legal secretary who emigrated to the U.S. from the Polish-Russian border region when she was 5. Courtney and other investigators meticulously gathered evidence from the laundry room -- blood spatters on the floor and walls, a pair of white blood-stained shorts, and a sliver of a finger in a rolled up sports section of The Herald, stuffed in a corner bucket. They believe the suspect sliced off a tiny piece of his finger with a box cutter while cutting open the package Weiss carried. Residents gave cops a description of someone they had seen hanging around just before the murder: a young black man of medium build, wearing a black baseball cap, a black T-shirt, white cut-off shorts and white sneakers. A general description, not much to go on. Detectives say a young homeless man had taken refuge in the building's meter room. They found a grocery cart with old newspapers in there. They figured the man killed Weiss, then cleaned up in the laundry room, changed and left behind his bloodied white shorts. From eyewitness accounts, detectives obtained a composite of the suspect, but got nowhere. Until now. A REGULAR VISITOR One day earlier this year, Courtney chatted with Cornwell. The well-known crime novelist had become a regular visitor to Hollywood police headquarters. The women first met several years ago at the National Forensic Academy in Knoxville, Tenn., where Cornwell occasionally teaches. They instantly hit it off. Cornwell, a former crime reporter for The Charlotte Observer newspaper, ended up adopting the Hollywood Police Department, spending time in the crime lab and riding with Courtney to crime scenes. It was all part of the research Cornwell does to give authenticity to her dozen or so novels. She even gave the department a $118,000 Hummer H1, customized to hold evidence bags, fingerprint kits and other equipment. Courtney, who has been with the department for 21 years, talked to Cornwell about the frustration of the Weiss murder, a case she has often thought about for 11 years. ''This particular homicide is that one case that stays with you as one you just hope will end with an arrest and conviction,'' Courtney said. ``The victim was elderly, and, although I never met Mildred before her death, with her being so petite and fragile -- I can only imagine the horror she went through that morning.'' As Weiss lay dying, the killer rummaged through her purse, smearing blood on her wallet, leaving behind credit cards and overlooking two bank envelopes with $70. He fled with a handful of change. ''The killer showed a total disregard for life. Weiss died for a couple of dollars, if that much,'' Courtney said. The department had no strong leads. Cornwell, who had learned of new DNA technology developed by a Sarasota group, suggested Courtney submit samples to the facility. The company, DNAPrint Genomics, had developed a test that can create a genetic sketch of what a suspect might look like. From DNA left at a scene, the $1,000 test can tell what percentage of a person's genetic makeup is likely to be European, Asian, African or Native American. That could quickly help police narrow down a list of suspects. Then, DNAPrint Genomics can consult a book of mug shots -- submitted by volunteers worldwide who have had their own DNA screened. ''It's like a fuzzy photo of someone,'' said scientist Tony Frudakis, founder of DNAPrint. ''It's our feeling that really, what we're doing is placing an eyewitness at the crime scene, just by looking at the DNA,'' Zach Gaskin, the company technical coordinator of forensics, told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in December. ``If a guy is 95 percent sub-Saharan African, you know you're not looking for someone who is Caucasian, East Asian or Hispanic.'' Frudakis said the test is accurate to within a few percentage points. AUTHOR'S DONATION Intrigued by the Weiss case, Cornwell donated the $1,000 to cover the cost of the test. She also chartered a private plane May 20 to fly Courtney and herself to Sarasota, carrying a DNA sample from the Weiss killing. ''This technology had been used in several high-profile cases and with good results,'' Cornwell said recently. The test is credited with assisting in the arrest of a serial rapist and killer in Louisiana and, most recently, in a case involving a woman's allegation she found a finger in a bowl of chili at a California Wendy's, Cornwell said. ``It's cutting edge, a different type of profiling, but one based on science, not fortune-cookie profiling.'' The DNA sample from the Weiss killing revealed the suspect was, indeed, black. On June 1, the company submitted its findings to Hollywood police. ''The DNA matches the composite we have,'' Hollywood Sgt. Scott Pardon said. ``We are now calling the man in the composite a suspect.'' Hollywood had entered the suspect's DNA in state and federal databases. But so far, they've had no hits. Investigators believe he may have been arrested on misdemeanor charges like vagrancy, trespassing, or disturbing the peace. They need a name. Detectives are planning to check local homeless shelters and other places to see if anyone knows the suspect. 'Somewhere out there, a cop is going to see the sketch and hear the suspect has a missing fingertip and think to himself: `I know who that is, I arrested him once,' '' homicide detective Billy Ferguson said. ``It's going to be a police officer who breaks this case for us one day. I know it.'' Weiss' niece, Lynn Shapiro, 50, of New York City, waits for that day. ''My aunt had no children, so my older sister and I were like her children,'' she said. ``I still have a postcard she mailed me the day before she was murdered. She was just the sweetest person.''