Drenthe rape case has investigators looking for DNA Difference between identical twins
A rape case in Drenthe, in which the suspect blames his identical twin brother, had the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) trying to find a way to distinguish the DNA of identical twins. The NFI will present its findings in the court in Assen on Monday, RTV Drenthe reports.
In July 2019, a man raped a 76-year-old woman in the De Strubben-Kniphorstbosch nature reserve. The police arrested 28-year-old Rick K. from Zuidlaren based on DNA found on the woman’s clothing. But K. insists that his twin brother is the culprit. In August 2020, the court postponed the case, asking for DNA research to try and identify the culprit.
The NFI’s research took two years. The researchers looked for minute differences in the building blocks of the twins’ DNA. “Identical twins arise from one fertilized egg,” Arnoud Kal, DNA expert at the NFI, explained to the broadcaster. The egg divides into two different embryos, which then continue with their own cell division and copy the same DNA. “‘Reading errors’ can be made in the womb, and small differences can therefore arise.”
“The research took a long time because it consists of many steps. And each step depends on the result of the previous step. In addition, analyzes were repeated, and a statistical model hat to be created to explain all this,” Kal said to RTV Drenthe. He illustrated his point with 3,000 letters on one sheet of paper. “This is part of that code. In reality, the code is 3 billion letters long, which requires five pallets of paper.”
Two NFI experts will explain their findings in the court in Assen on Monday.
If the NFI managed to find a way to distinguish between the DNA of identical twins, it could have global consequences. Until now, criminal cases involving identical twins with only DNA as evidence always ended in acquittal because it was impossible to prove without a reasonable doubt that the twin wasn’t the perpetrator.
Rick K. was released in December 2020 after spending almost 1.5 years in pre-trial custody. He still denies that he raped the 76-year-old woman in the nature reserve. K.’s twin brother had an alibi for the day of the crime. K.’s alibi was that he was with friends fixing up a car. K.’s friends confirmed this but also said that K. had left for a while.
