The Weld County District Attorney’s Office will not file charges against a former forensic scientist with the sheriff’s office over anomalies discovered in her DNA casework, officials announced Thursday.
Chiara Wuensch was fired from the Weld County Sheriff’s Office in March after abnormalities were discovered in her DNA casework during the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s examination of the ongoing, multimillion-dollar problem surrounding Yvonne “Missy” Woods’ flawed lab results.
At the time, the sheriff’s office said they planned to pursue criminal charges against Wuensch over the problems with her work, but the Weld County DA said Thursday that was not the case.
“A review of Ms. Wuensch’s work revealed only five anomalies among thousands of DNA data entries,” the DA stated in a news release.
The abnormalities fell into three categories: the alleged deletion of data indicating a small amount of male DNA, the alleged addition of the word “undetermined” to a cell in a spreadsheet and the alleged alteration of values related to potential contamination, according to the release.
Wuensch denied intentionally altering or deleting data, attributing any discrepancies to potential mistakes in using Excel, the release stated.
“After a comprehensive review of all the evidence and circumstances, it is clear that the anomalies found in Ms. Wuensch’s work do not meet the legal threshold for criminal charges,” Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke stated in the release. “The evidence does not support a finding of criminal intent, and therefore, it would be inappropriate to pursue charges in this matter.”
According to the DA’s office, the anomalies could be seen as intentional acts to avoid additional work and testing required by CBI’s standard procedures.
However, there was no reason for Wuensch to intentionally change the data, as she still performed the extra DNA amplification required by those procedures, the DA’s office said.
CBI agreed, confirming the anomalies did not impact any DNA identification or elimination in criminal cases, the release stated.
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Originally Published: June 13, 2024 at 11:57 a.m.
