VINDICATION

The DNA that the New York State crime lab extracted from the victim’s nightshirt contained a mixture of DNA from the victim and another person who was male. Analysis showed that this male DNA, however, did not match Roy Brown’s. DNA evidence excluded him as Kulakowski’s murderer.

Additional testing eventually linked that DNA evidence to Barry Bench. After Bench’s suicide, of course, he couldn’t provide DNA directly. So lawyers pursued the next best option: a DNA sample voluntarily donated by Bench’s biological daughter, Katherine Eckstadt. Because we all receive one set of chromosomes from our mother and one set from our father, half of Katherine Eckstadt’s DNA would have come from her father, and therefore would show great similarity to his. The test yielded dramatic results—a 99.99% probability that the man who deposited his saliva on sabina Kulakowski’s nightshirt was Eckstadt’s father, Barry Bench.

To clinch the case, cayuga county prosecutors eventually agreed to have Bench’s body exhumed for DNA tests—which matched the DNA from the saliva stains.

“We’ve had a lot of crazy cases,” says Nina Morrison, the Innocence Project attorney who handled Brown’s case, “but this is really up there with the best of them…The client solving his own case…it’s insane.” Brown was cleared of all charges and is now putting his life back together.