The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is finalizing a contract with a Wisconsin startup to evaluate its forensic lab after former medical examiner Yvonne “Missy” Wood was found to have manipulated DNA test results on more than 800 cases.

The CBI told lawmakers it would cost nearly $7.5 million to retest DNA sample testing and potentially retry affected cases.

Here’s what we know so far:

Who is Yvonne “Missy” Woods?

Woods spent 29 years as a CBI forensic pathologist. She has been involved in several high-profile cases in Colorado, including 2003 investigation into late basketball player Kobe Bryant on accusations of rape and murder of University of Colorado student Susannah Chase.

Bryant’s case was dropped after the accuser refused to testify. Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in 2020, settled with the accuser in a civil trial in 2005.

Diego Alcalde was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree sexual assault and second-degree kidnapping and was sentenced to life without parole in the 2009 Chase case.

Woods has received numerous accolades for his work at the CBI.

CBI opened a Internal Affairs Investigation on October 3, 2023 and Woods was placed on administrative leave.

She retired from the CBI before the internal investigation was completed. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) assisted in the internal investigation. The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation opened a criminal investigation into Woods on November 7.

Why did the CBI open an investigation into Woods’ work?

An internal research project assigned by the management of a CBI laboratory revealed anomalies in its tests.

The intern discovered that some data was missing from the test result records. The intern was researching historical data in CBI Forensic Services cases involving DNA. This discovery meant that Woods had manipulated data during the DNA testing process, leading to incomplete test results in some cases.

This gave rise to an investigation.

As of August 27, 2024, authorities have identified 809 cases dating back to 2014 in which Woods participated.

Colleagues told investigators that Woods had a reputation for taking shortcuts. A colleague questioned Woods’ testing of evidence in one case and raised concerns with a technical manager 10 years earlier, in 2014.

Woods was charged with data manipulation in 2018. She was removed from her position and assigned to other duties pending a review of the charge, but was later reinstated. The results of the examination were not forwarded to the CBI Director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety. In interviews with her colleagues, they described Woods as shady and manipulative.

The internal affairs investigation found that Woods did not falsify DNA matches or fabricate DNA profiles. She deviated from standard protocols and took shortcuts.

So, what will happen to the cases where Woods saved money?

According to state budget documents, it will cost CBI nearly $7.5 million to retest Woods’ falsified DNA samples. It will cost $3 million to retest 3,000 cases at $1,000 each.

Nearly $4.3 million will cover review and post-conviction processes such as reimbursing district attorneys across the state and other legal costs.

Since November 7, CBI has been working to finalize a contract with Forward Resolutions, LLC, to conduct evaluations of its forensic laboratories. According to documents requested through CORA by CPR, the Wisconsin-based startup won the bid over other organizations from Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC. The company was founded by Jennifer Naugle and Nicole Roehm in 2019.

Forward Resolutions’ bid price of more than $777,000 was the second lowest among bids ranging from $417,000 to $9.5 million, which would have been above the budget submitted by CBI to the Colorado legislature earlier this year.

What are people saying about this mishandling of DNA evidence that has been going on for years?

Two monitoring groups, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the Korey Wise Innocence Project from the University of Colorado Law School sent a joint letter to the CBI for clarification on the Woods investigation on Wednesday. The resolutions put forward have been carbon copied on the letter.

Both organizations said they investigated how the CBI let Woods’ misconduct go unchecked for so long. They said CBI was not complying with federal funding requirements.

“The CBI allowed Missy Woods to tamper with forensic evidence for years. This misconduct calls into question the entire forensic operations of the CBI, and a thorough and independent audit, followed by full disclosure of the findings to stakeholders and the public, is essential,” said Emma Mclean-Riggs, Attorney at Law. of the ACLU of Colorado, in a press release.

The federal funding in question is Paul Coverdell Grant for Enhancing Forensic Sciences. The program provides grants to states and local government units to help improve forensic pathology, medical examiner and coroner services.

The letter questions whether the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office – listed in the request as an investigative entity – has a “process in place” to conduct independent external investigations at the CBI and whether it has been informed that the entity appeared on the grant application.

Both organizations encouraged the CBI to use an external entity for the evaluation of its forensic laboratories. But it should be noted that the audit only covers a two-year period, from 2022 to 2024.

“External investigations and audits of state crime laboratories are critical to identifying system-level root causes of past misconduct to create safeguards that can reduce the risk of future misconduct,” the letter states. “We raise these concerns with you because a strong, transparent and high-quality forensic system will be essential to restoring public trust.

Both organizations requested a response by December 3.

Have any cases been canceled thanks to Woods’ work?

Lawsuits regarding mishandled DNA are ongoing. Some cases involving Woods have been affected.

In June, 9News reported that Boulder County prosecutors accepted a plea deal in Garrett Coughlin’s 2019 murder conviction. A jury found him guilty of killing three people in a home in 2017. Coughlin was originally convicted to life behind bars without the possibility of parole. But as a result of the plea deal, he was sentenced to 42 years in prison.

Colorado Politics reported in August that the Colorado Court of Appeals overturned an attempted murder conviction due to prosecutors’ failure to establish a chain of custody for the defendant’s DNA and fingerprints. Forensic analysts had linked Vigil to a gun used to shoot a victim in Adams County in August 2019. Woods testified in the case. But the decision depended on the CBI scandal. A three-judge panel determined that the forensic evidence likely influenced the jury’s verdict and that the trial judge should have barred the experts’ testimony. A judge wrote that Vigil’s fingerprints on file were not considered before testing at the CBI.

More recently, the Gazette reported that the The Boulder County District Attorney’s Office requested additional testing in the case of a defendant convicted of murder, which was largely due to Woods’ forensic analysis. Michael Clark was convicted in 2012 of the 1994 murder of Marty Grisham in Boulder. He is currently serving a life sentence without parole.