Yvonne “Missy” Woods, a former DNA analyst for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to manipulating laboratory information used in criminal investigations.
And what she did is especially serious: for years, she altered or deleted data from her analyses so that some results appeared to show there was not enough genetic material to continue testing. In other cases, she entered false information into laboratory records to conceal the problems.
One of the most sensitive examples involved investigations into sexual assaults. According to prosecutors, Woods went so far as to modify results related to male DNA, making it appear that not enough material had been found to continue the analysis.
A review by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation identified 1.045 case files with some kind of problem related to her work. However, that figure does not mean Woods deliberately tampered with every one of them: the analysis itself distinguishes between data alterations, quality-control problems, incomplete documentation, and other irregularities. In 156 cases, alterations to evidence data were identified.
The scandal came to light in 2023, when an intern found missing information in a 2018 case file. A subsequent investigation determined that concerns about Woods’s work had existed since at least 2014.
Her analyses were linked to investigations of murders, sexual assaults, robberies, and other crimes. A murder conviction has already been overturned, and other cases were reviewed or altered because of doubts about the evidence.
During her sentencing hearing, Woods acknowledged that she had betrayed the trust placed in her. She was convicted of computer crime, perjury, forgery, and attempting to influence a public official.
Now Colorado faces the enormous task of reviewing the cases related to her work. The cost could exceed US$11 million.
The case leaves an unsettling question: how many investigations may have taken a different course because the person tasked with analyzing one of the most important pieces of evidence decided to alter her own results?