Analyst: Scant chance anyone but Sharpe committed '84 rapes

Alex Wood, Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.
·3 min read

Oct. 28—There is less than a 1 in 7 billion probability that anyone but Michael M. Sharpe produced male DNA found in the Hartford-area homes of three women raped in 1984 and less than a 1 in 7.3 million chance in the fourth similar case, a retired DNA analyst testified Friday.

DNA EVIDENCE

ISSUE: With Michael M. Sharpe's DNA matching DNA extracted from crime-scene samples, what is the chance that someone else raped and kidnapped the four victims?

ANALYST'S ANSWER: Less than 1 in 7 billion in three cases and less than 1 in 7.3 million in the fourth.

DEFENSE RESPONSE: DNA statistics are based on a hypothesis that can't be tested

The analyst, Patricia Loso, was the final prosecution witness in the trial of Sharpe, 71, who was arrested in November 2020 at his Marlborough home after Loso and her coworkers at the state Forensic Science Laboratory concluded that his DNA matched samples found in victims' homes.

The intruder committed a number of crimes against the victims, including sexual assault, burglary, and robbery. But Sharpe is charged only with first-degree kidnapping because legal time limits for prosecution of the other crimes have long since expired.

Connecticut's kidnapping law doesn't require moving a person from one place to another. It can apply to confining a person in a given place, which is what happened in the four cases at issue.

Sharpe is facing two kidnapping counts in each incident, but the separate counts reflect different subsections of the statute that prosecutors allege he violated, not separate conduct. He could be punished for only one kidnapping in each incident, prosecutor John Fahey said.

Still, with a maximum prison term of 25 years for first-degree kidnapping, Sharpe, who has been free on a promise to appear in court since his arrest, could face up to a 100-year prison sentence if convicted in all four incidents.

In the Hartford Superior Court trial, Sharpe is accused of committing similar late-night attacks on four women in their apartments or condominiums in Bloomfield, Middletown, Windsor, and Rocky Hill in June and July 1984.

In the Bloomfield case, where one of the genetic markers usually used in the testing couldn't be detected in the crime-scene sample, Loso calculated the chance that someone other than Sharpe produced the sample at less than 1 in 7.3 million.

In the other three cases, with more complete DNA samples available, Loso said the chance that the DNA came from someone other than Sharpe was less than 1 in 7 billion. That was once the lowest probability DNA labs would report, even if their calculations produced an even smaller probability, because the world population was about 7 billion at the time.

In cross examining Loso, Public Defender R. Bruce Lorenzen raised questions about the validity of DNA statistics.

Under his questioning, Loso conceded that the probability figure generated by DNA analysis "is a prediction."

"The only way to test the hypothesis would be to test every individual in the whole population," she said.

Later, with the jury out of the courtroom, Lorenzen's fellow public defender, Dana Sanetti, asked the judge to acquit Sharpe, as defense lawyers almost always do at the end of the prosecution's case. She said DNA evidence "amounts to an inference from a hypothesis that cannot be tested."

But Fahey replied that DNA evidence "has been relied on time and time again in this courthouse."

Senior Judge Frank M. D'Addabbo Jr. denied the motion for acquittal, citing Loso's DNA testimony as his basis for concluding that there was sufficient evidence to identify Sharpe as the perpetrator of the crimes.

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