ZB ZB
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

Professor slams human tissue test in Lundy trial

Author
Laura Dooney ,
Publish Date
Wed, 11 Mar 2015, 2:09PM
Mark Lundy (Getty Images)
Mark Lundy (Getty Images)

Professor slams human tissue test in Lundy trial

Author
Laura Dooney ,
Publish Date
Wed, 11 Mar 2015, 2:09PM

Updated 8.27pm: A scientist says DNA found in stains on Mark Lundy’s shirt is highly likely to have come from his wife.

The stains on Lundy’s shirt – and what is or isn’t in them – has been the focus of Lundy’s trial for murder in the High Court in Wellington today.

Lundy’s accused of killing his wife Christine and daughter Amber in August 2000.

ESR scientist Susan Vintiner took the stand in his trial this afternoon.

In 2000, she carried out tests on the two small stains found on a shirt in Mark Lundy’s car.

She found DNA that was four hundred and fifty thousand million times more likely to come from Christine Lundy, than an unrelated, random person.

“This DNA evidence provides extremely strong scientific support for the proposition the DNA originated from Ms Christine Lundy.”

Ms Vintiner says tape lifts of a polo shirt in Lundy’s car were also analysed, early in 2001, and a female DNA profile obtained.

“The profiling results are 19 million times more likely to occur if the DNA’s from Amber Lundy, rather than someone else,” she says.

Earlier jurors heard a test used to identify human tissue in a stain on Mark Lundy’s shirt wasn’t fit for purpose.

This came from Stephen Bustin, a professor of molecular medicine who was recalled to the stand.

The test he referred to was carried out by Dutch scientist Laetitia Sijens to work out whether central nervous tissue, brain or spinal cord tissue from a human, was found on Mark Lundy’s polo shirt.

Defence witness, and expert in molecular medicine Professor Bustin was questioned on what he thinks is wrong with the technique Ms Sijens used.

He says one part of the process was open to contamination.

Professor Bustin says the technique used is out of date, and he doesn’t use it anymore.

He says the way the tests were carried out, were fundamentally flawed.

Earlier Seattle based pathologist Dr Allen Gown told the court that testing he did on slides created from the stains on Mark Lundy’s polo shirt were positive for brain or spinal cord tissue.

Yesterday jurors heard, from pathologist Dr Rodney Miller, that slides made from the stains on Lundy’s shirt tested positive for central nervous system tissue, tissue from the brain or spine.

Today Dr Gown has outlined testing slides from the same stains he did last year, which produced the same results.

“My opinion is that the tissue unequivocally represents central nervous system tissue,” he says.

Under cross examination Dr Gown agreed the nature of the tests means it's not possible to say if the tissue came from a human.

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you