Killer Convicted with Evidence from DNA Database ... of Cats!

Convicted by DNA evidence is nothing new, but this is: David Hilder, 47, was the first person convicted of manslaughter, partly on DNA evidence left by his cat.

So forget human DNA database, here comes the brave new world of cat DNA database:

In the latest case in Britain, investigators tapped the same lab to identify the cat hair discovered around the dismembered torso of David Guy, 30, who was found hidden in a trash bag on a British beach in July 2012. Detectives matched the hair to a cat belonging to the man's friend, David Hilder, but because the genetic material was mitochondrial DNA — which can be shared among large number of animals — the strength of the match couldn't be known.

That's where the cat DNA database came in.

Wetton — who had previously helped to set up a similar database for dogs — worked with doctoral student Barbara Ottolini to create a repository of cat DNA for the Hilder case. They gathered samples of mitochondrial DNA from 152 felines across England over a six-week period.

"Only three of the samples obtained matched the hairs from the crime scene," Wetton said, suggesting that while the match wasn't perfect, it was still a pretty good indication the hairs on the torso came from Hilder's cat.

Read the full article over at SFGate.