VENTURA – THESBNN.COM asked Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten about the state DNA lab’s milestone.

The Richmond lab reports 12,000 crime scene DNA samples have been matched to violent offenders and other suspects, including a high profile Ventura County case.

Mr. Totten shared the following:

The Department of Justice DNA Data Bank has already proven itself as an indispensable tool in solving heinous crimes and thereby protecting countless people from never becoming victims.

In 2001, for example, when Crystal Hamilton’s nude and battered body was found, conventional investigative techniques were exhausted rather quickly.

(Kyle Duke punching buccal samples at CA DNA database/PHOTO-CA.gov)

She had last been seen alive over 16 miles away from where her body was found, and her killer, convicted rapist Douglas Dworak, was a complete stranger to her.

Dworak’s prior rape victim had testified against him, sending him to prison for nine years.

When he was paroled into Ventura County, he tried to silence his next rape victim, Crystal, by killing her.

But the DNA he left behind, when submitted to the Department of Justice DNA Data Bank, told law enforcement – and the jury – who Crystal’s killer was.

When nothing else could, that evidence spoke for her.

Because of the power of the DNA evidence we had in that case, in 2005, Douglas Dworak was sentenced to death for his rape and murder of Crystal Hamilton.

(California DNA Database in Richmond/PHOTO-CA.gov)

In Ventura County, we’ve had other successes catching criminals based solely on the DNA Data Bank.

In 1996, a vicious rape occurred at a laundromat in the city of Oxnard.

The victim was attacked, tied up, and forced to lie face down and not look at her masked rapist while he assaulted her.

She never saw who brutalized her.

Ten years later, DNA from that crime scene was matched by the Department of Justice through their DNA Data Bank to the rapist: Willie Clark.

Clark lived 2 blocks away from that laundromat, but without the DNA hit, law enforcement never could have solved that crime.

In 2008, Clark was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility after 37 years.

The technology of DNA testing and the commitment of California law enforcement to maintain the DNA Data Bank allows us to keep trying to solve, and actually solve, cases years – even decades – after the crimes occur and conventional investigative leads fail.

Our victims never forget the crimes they endure.

The DNA Data Bank gives law enforcement the ability to say to them, “We won’t either.”