Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 6, 1991 TAG: 9103061221
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FAIRFAX LENGTH: Medium
The testimony Tuesday contradicted the testimony of another FBI agent who had served as a key prosecution witness.
The testimony by Dwight Adams, a DNA analyst for the FBI, came just a day after the state rested its abduction case against Hughes, who is charged in the Dec. 3, 1989, disappearance of Melissa Brannen.
The girl was last seen at a Christmas party at her apartment complex.
Hughes, 25, of Woodbridge, could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Robert Grispino on Monday told jurors drops of blood on one of two yellow tissues "could have come" from Melissa. The tissues were found in a car Hughes was driving the night Melissa vanished.
The child has not been found.
Tuesday's testimony raised questions about the prosecution's case, which has relied heavily on circumstantial evidence. That evidence included clothing fibers and blood found on sneakers Hughes had worn to the party and on the two tissues found in Hughes' car.
Adams, who was working on the same case, under the same supervisor and in the same facility as Grispino, said the DNA test is a "much more specific" test than the ones performed by Grispino.
The DNA test was performed as part of the prosecution's case against Hughes, although Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Horan did not call Adams as a witness.
Hughes' attorney, Peter Greenspun, contends Fairfax County police targeted Hughes to the exclusion of others, then set about trying to prove a case against him.
In other testimony Tuesday, Ira Bloch, a expert in textile and fiber science, testified that fibers retrieved by the defense from Hughes' town house, in his opinion, were consistent with fibers found in the car Hughes was driving that night.
Horan has said that fibers found in Hughes' car were consistent with the outfit similar to the one Melissa was wearing when she disappeared and proved that Melissa was in Hughes' car.
by CNB