S2E36: Literally Hanging on by a Fingernail

It’s seen as probably the most crucial piece of evidence the prosecution have to try and prove Bradley Edwards as being the Claremont Serial Killer - Ciara Glennon’s fingernail clippings.

Anna-Marie Ashley, the forensic scientist who extracted the DNA from those fingernails spent her second day on the stand, detailing how the DNA was extracted, and whose DNA they found.

Just as crucially, she was also asked about how the evidence was stored, and as Tim Clarke and Alison Fan explain, these are the type of details the defence will try and draw out, to try and show if there was any moment during this mammoth investigation the samples from the Karrakatta rape victim and Ciara Glennon’s fingernails could have been cross contaminated.

When one of Ciara’s fingernail clippings taken from the middle finger on her left hand - which were labelled AJM42 - were tested, initially they only showed her DNA.

It wasn’t until the fingernail clippings, along with the Karrakatta rape victim’s samples were sent to the UK for further testing that a male DNA profile was found.

That was later found to be the DNA of Bradley Edwards, after police retested other exhibits from then-unrelated cases which brought up his fingerprints, then tailed him and tested a sprite bottle he left behind after a trip to the movies in 2016.

Join Tim Clarke, Alison Fan and Natalie Bonjolo as they discuss week eight of Western Australia’s trial of the century.

For more on the Claremont serial killings trial, head to thewest.com.au, and if you have any questions about the trial for the podcast team or any of their guests, send in your questions to claremontpodcast@wanew.com.au

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