Male DNA found on York student’s body: 1st-degree murder trial told
TORONTO – A forensic biologist is telling a York University student’s murder trial that male DNA found in several places on the woman’s body matched to a high probability to the accused killer.
Qian Liu, 23, was found dead April 15, 2011 in her off-campus basement apartment, mostly naked and face down on the floor.
Brian Dickson, who was a tenant in the same building, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, but his lawyer has told the jury he’ll be urging a finding of manslaughter.
Melissa Kell, a forensic biologist with the Centre of Forensic Sciences, is testifying today that semen was found on Liu’s abdomen and groin area and male DNA was found under her fingernails and on her breasts.
Dickson could not be excluded as the source of the semen and DNA, with astronomical probabilities that a random person would match the same profile.
Kell says blood was also found on Dickson’s T-shirt and Liu could not be excluded as the source, with a random match probability of 1 in 140 quadrillion.
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