DNA findings in more than 1,000 criminal cases in Colorado are now “in question” due to data manipulation by former Colorado Bureau of Investigation DNA scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods, state officials announced on Friday when they unveiled the findings of an internal investigative report into Woods’ work.

The internal CBI investigation found that Woods deviated from standard protocols in her work and tampered with DNA results, omitting material facts in official criminal justice records.

The CBI issued a press release summarizing the internal investigative findings into the work of the 29-year veteran of the CBI crime lab but still has not released the actual internal investigative report. Officials there cited an ongoing criminal investigation into Woods as the reason why they will release no further information to the public.

The South Dakota’s Division of Criminal Investigation is conducting the criminal investigation into Woods on Colorado’s behalf to avoid a conflict of interests.

Anomalies identified in Woods’ work prompted the CBI to ask state legislators in January to provide the state agency an additional $7.5 million to support the review and retesting of an estimated 3,000 DNA samples by an independent third-party laboratory and to pay for post-conviction reviews and potential retrying of criminal cases.

Her testimony was key in the first-degree murder trial of Alex Christopher Ewing, accused in the brutal January 1984 hammer killing of an Aurora family. Bruce and Debra Bennet and their daughter, Melissa, were murdered inside their Aurora home and Ewing’s DNA was found inside.

Woods was the prosecution’s final witness in the case. 

In April 2022, Ewing was given three life sentences in the triple killing.

“A thorough internal investigation initiated in September 2023, has revealed that Yvonne ‘Missy’ Woods manipulated data in the DNA testing process, posting incomplete test results in some cases,” the Friday press release from the CBI stated. “This discovery puts all her work in question, and CBI is in the process of reviewing all her previous work for data manipulation to ensure the integrity of all CBI laboratory results.”

An analyst employed by the Weld County Sheriff’s Office at the Northern Colorado Regional Forensic Laboratory “may have also manipulated DNA testing data,” according to the release. The CBI referred that analyst — Chiara Wuensch, whose work is separate from Woods’ work — to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office for further investigation. Wuensch was terminated from her position in February.

CBI officials placed Woods on administrative leave on Oct. 3, 2023. She retired from the agency on Nov. 6, 2023.

In an email, Woods’ lawyer, Ryan Brackley, said his client is cooperating with the ongoing investigation into her work.

“While the allegations resulting from the internal investigation point to Ms. Woods deviating from standard protocols and cutting corners in her work, she has long maintained that she’s never created or falsely reported any inculpatory DNA matches or exclusions, nor has she testified falsely in any hearing or trial resulting in a false conviction or unjust imprisonment,” Brackley stated in the email.

The Office of the State Public Defender released a statement blasting CBI officials for a “lack of transparency” about Woods’ work.

“One of the most pressing questions is whether any person has been wrongly convicted as a result of misconduct,” the public defender’s office stated. “CBI and other law enforcement should be immediately forthcoming with the public and the people directly impacted by the misconduct and possible crimes committed by the DNA analysts they employed.”

The CBI’s internal investigation was conducted with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. CBI’s quality management team also has been reviewing Woods’ work. So far, “data manipulation” has been found in 652 cases Woods handled from 2008 and 2023, according to the CBI statement.

The internal investigation found Woods:

• Omitted material facts in official criminal justice records.

• Tampered with DNA testing results by omitting some of those results.

• Violated CBI’s code of conduct and CBI laboratory policies ranging from data retention to quality control measures.

The CBI “did not find that Woods falsified DNA matches or otherwise fabricated DNA profiles,” but that “she instead deviated from standard testing protocols and cut corners, calling into question the reliability of the testing she conducted,” the CBI said in a statement.

“Public trust in our institutions is critical to the fulfilment of our mission,” CBI director Chris Schaefer said in a prepared statement. “Our actions in rectifying this unprecedented breach of trust will be thorough and transparent.”

Additional review of Woods’ work from 1994 to 2008 is also underway, according to the CBI.

A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of James Hunter, now 64, claimed that Hunter was wrongly convicted of second-degree burglary and sexual assault, and that he remains wrongly imprisoned. The lawsuit contends Woods was the lead scientist on Hunter’s criminal case. The lawsuit claims the “DNA evidence was unreliable due to it being fabricated and planted.”

That lawsuit further claimed that fingerprints and palm prints found from the point of forced entry into the victim’s home and inside the residence likely would reveal the true perpetrator of the crime. The suit claims that “it has been discovered by parties assisting Mr. Hunter that there is no report of any (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) database search.”

The Innocence Project, which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people, has unsuccessfully sought to have the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office retest the DNA and have the palm prints and fingerprints processed through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

Woods, through her lawyers, has asked a federal judge to dismiss her from the lawsuit, which also names prosecutors and other law enforcement officials as defendants.

Questions surrounding Woods’ work will not have an impact on cases prosecuted in Denver. Denver never used Woods’ expertise as an analyst or as an expert witness, because Denver County established its own crime lab in 1994.

In Boulder, 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty said, “The prosecutor’s mission is justice. So any time an issue arises involving the integrity of the evidence or the credibility of a witness, we take it seriously.”

He said prosecutors “around the state have waited anxiously for information because of the impact on victims, the accused and our ability to do justice.”

“We have 15 open cases and 55 closed cases with Missy Wood as an endorsed witness in our system,” Dougherty said. “We have one filed petition for post-conviction relief based on this issue that is pending, and another one that was previously pending and is now on hold. To be clear, those numbers are for cases in which she was/is endorsed as a witness – – not cases with anomalies from the State Lab.”