By Pat Reavy
Deseret Morning News
SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah — Over the past four years, Sorenson Forensics has gained a reputation among law enforcers as the place for groundbreaking work in forensic technology and for solving cold cases using sophisticated DNA identification procedures. Now, Sorenson is passing on its knowledge to other police departments around the world.
Since January, three officers from Nigeria’s national police force have been in Utah learning how to collect and process DNA evidence. The goal for Sorenson officials is to travel to Nigeria in the fall and help that country build its first DNA forensics facility.
Benedict Agbo, a police supervisor for Nigeria’s 330,000-member police force, said learning about DNA technology would be greatly beneficial for working homicide and missing person cases in his country. Recently, it would have also been useful for identifying victims in a plane crash they had in the area, he said. While teaching Agbo and his crew about how to collect and process DNA evidence, samples from real Nigerian police cases were flown to Utah to be used as part of the training. During that process, police were able to identify a suspect in a high profile cold case, said Rich Barlow, director of sales and marketing at Sorenson.
Sorenson Forensics and its multimillion-dollar laboratories launched in 2006 and the demand for its advanced DNA identification services from law enforcement agencies throughout the world exploded.
In January, Salt Lake police announced a murder charge was filed in the 1998 death of 10-year-old Anna Palmer, one of the city’s highest profile cold cases. In 2007, the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office was able to file charges in a 33-year-old homicide involving a BYU coed in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Within the first few months that Sorenson Forensics, an expansion of Sorenson Genomics, opened, Salt Lake police solved three cold cases in one week.
In 2008, Sorenson set up the first DNA laboratory in Senegal, western Africa. It was based on its recommendations that Nigeria police found Sorenson. Agbo said the plan to develop the use of DNA forensics in his country was a “long-term project” that he predicted would eventually be used in all the “nooks and crannies of the nation.”
Copyright 2010 The Deseret News Publishing Co.