DENVER — An internal affairs report shows a star DNA scientist at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was allowed her to keep her job for years despite several complaints about the reliability of her testing.
CBI said Yvonne "Missy" Woods, who had worked at the agency for 29 years, altered or omitted test results in more than 600 cases. A review of her work from 1994 to 2008 is still ongoing.
The internal affairs report says colleagues raised concerns about her work in 2014 and again in 2018. The agency allowed her to stay on the job until 2023, when an intern found problems during a research project. Woods retired in November, before the investigation could be completed.
CBI said it's investigating how the accusations in 2018 were handled. A statement from the agency said the results of a review in 2018 were never shared with the former CBI director.
The Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD) said the report on Woods' conduct shows it could have been stopped years ago, but it wasn't.
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In a statement shared on Friday, OSPD called the revelations "outrageous" and "shocking." The office believes CBI's "failure to address these issues" means there are likely hundreds of clients who were given intentionally manipulated data and who were prosecuted with unreliable evidence.
OSPD said it does not believe CBI is being transparent enough.
"A lab scandal like this can only be fairly addressed if clients and their lawyers receive timely, complete transparency from CBI, which is still not happening," the statement said.
As media obtained copies of the 94-page internal affairs report, CBI shared an extensive statement about the findings.
Anomalies were reported in Woods' work in September. She was placed on administrative leave in October. In 2014, a coworker questioned her testing in a case and reported those concerns to a technical leader. In 2018, Woods was accused of manipulating data. She was removed from case work and was later reinstated. The results of the 2018 review, CBI said, were never shared with the former CBI Director or CDPS leadership. CBI has launched an investigation into how the accusations were handled in 2018.
“Following the discovery of Woods’ actions in manipulating DNA analysis data in 2023, CBI is meticulously reviewing all of its testing protocols,” said CBI Director Chris Schaefer. “Not only is Woods’ caseload being reviewed, but we are auditing the results of all current and previous DNA scientists to ensure the integrity of the Lab.”
CBI said it has made policy changes to address the specific vulnerabilities exploited by Woods.
Criminal defense attorneys feel left in the dark. Nine months after the internal investigation began, some say they still do not know whether their client's cases have been impacted.
"It is exceedingly frustrating," said Casey Krizman, who works in Denver. "We have people’s lives at stake. People have been negatively impacted, and we are not being spoken to."
Krizman said his clients took plea deals based on the DNA testing by Woods.
"These people are currently walking around as convicted felons and are bearing the brunt of that scarlet letter while we don’t know if the evidence for which they were convicted upon is any good," he said.
A case in Boulder County was the first test to show how Woods' conduct could impact the criminal justice system. This week prosecutors entered into a plea deal in a triple homicide case where Woods deleted data. The defendant Garrett Coughlin received a lesser prison sentence because the evidence was mostly circumstantial and the reliability of the DNA analyst on the case had been compromised. Instead of spending the rest of his life behind bars, Coughlin was sentenced to 42 years for killing three people.
District Attorney Michael Dougherty said he believes this was the right outcome based on what they know now, but the experience has been painful for the victims' loved ones.
"I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire career and he hopes he never has to again," Dougherty said. "In reality, there are hundreds of other cases that have been impacted by Missy Woods’ conduct, and I hope CBI continues to look into why this happened, how it happened and the impacts of what has been revealed thus far."
In Colorado Springs, District Attorney Michael Allen said his office has been working to notify defendants on particular cases.
"How did something like this happen? How did internal systems fail?" he asked.
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