Bicycle Thief Tied to Crime Through DNA Evidence

By Chuck Sudo in News on May 4, 2011 8:40PM

What kind of world do we live in where DNA evidence can tie someone to a bicycle thief? A pretty cool world, truth be told. That's exactly what happened with Jose Bautista of Berwyn, who is being charged with stealing a bicycle from a River Forest garage last July because police had the sense to test a bloodstained drape from where Bautista broke in to the garage.

Berwyn Police sent the evidence to the Illinois State Police crime lab for testing. Ten months later, they got a hit on Bautista and arrested him on April 20. River Forest Interim Police Chief Gregory Weiss said the long time to get results is due to the low priority nature of the crime and that, if this were a major crime like a murder or rape, the testing would have been prioritized. Still, using DNA to catch a bicycle thief is pretty cool.