Researchers analysed thousands of laboratory-made plasmids and discovered that nearly half of them had defects, raising questions of experimental reproducibility.
Phantom of Heilbronn Revealed!
Turns out this was all a terrible -- and sloppy -- mistake. The DNA linking “the woman without a face” to these crimes did not come from a diabolical criminal, but from a woman working for a German medical supply company that provides the swabs used by the police in their investigative work. At some point, she must have contaminated them, leading her DNA to be “found” at multiple crime scenes.
Understandably, the police officers involved in this investigation are quite embarrassed. But this case raises broader issues about the ways in which human error can create false leads that, when combined with the public perception of its infallibility, can lead to grave injustices. Fortunately, nothing was lost here except police time and institutional credibility. But it’s easy to imagine a scenario where the outcome could have been much worse.