Hairdresser’s blood found on teen’s training shoes

Tag : walking shoe
Hairdresser’s blood found on teen’s training shoes
Jul 3 2008 Western Mail
BLOOD from a hairdresser murdered while out walking her dog wasdiscovered on the training shoes of her alleged teenage killer dayslater, a jury heard yesterday.
Kelly Hyde, 24, of Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, was smashed to theground in an “explosion of violence” in a brutal attackwith a two-and-a-half kilogram barbell.
Her dead body was discovered face down in a stream off a localbridal path in September last year, three days after shedisappeared.
The defendant, a 17-year-old boy who cannot be identified for legalreasons, denies a single charge of murder.
A forensic expert told Swansea Crown Court blood was found on theteenager’s training shoes, including on the stitching.
Karen Alexander, a forensic scientist, said she used a DNA sampletaken from Kelly Hyde and found it matched blood on the trainingshoes. Blood from the murdered hairdresser was found on the laces,between the black stripes of the shoes and the interior tongue.
She told the jury the blood was a positive “matchprobability” to Kelly Hyde of one billion to one.
Asked to account for how blood could have got into the stitching ofthe shoes, she said: “That is typical of what you would seeif, for example, a shoe has been cleaned or wiped.”
Mrs Alexander said she had also carried out DNA testing on thebarbell and the dog lead Ms Hyde had used to walk her whippet,Scrappy. Previously the jury had been told the dog lead had beendiscovered by police in the attic space at the teenage boy’shome when it was searched.
Mrs Alexander said she was able to retrieve an almost complete DNAprofile of Kelly Hyde from blood on the barbell, with a one in 290million match probability.
Ms Hyde’s blood was also found on the dog lead.
Huw Davies, defending, cross- examined Mrs Alexander who agreed theblood on the training shoes was barely visible to the naked eye.
Mr Davies asked: “Are you saying that the shoes have beendeliberately cleaned so as to eradicate any blood?”
Mrs Alexander: “I would not use the word‘deliberately’ to imply an intent.”
The case continues.