Imagine the frustration of returning to your home that not only it redeemed, but also the offender took many bites from the lovely sausage you were saving (not something sacred?) This is exactly what happened to a homeowner in Rochelle, Gevelsberg, Germany in 2012.
Nine years later, police finally found the culprit to prove their guilt, which easily sealed with a sausage bite. Following the theft in 2012, officers at the scene discovered an unconditional pattern while taking DNA from a half-eaten sausage. The sausage-infected person, who was aware that they had not entered it themselves, was able to confirm that the bitemark could only be the owner of the thief. A press release from the police did not specify exactly what kind of sausage it was, but it would prove to be solid edible evidence.
Sure, forensics were able to extract DNA from the sausage bite mark, but the search found no match, and the guilty party was acquitted took by the end, an automated piece of tech was able to find a match for the 2012 Great Sausage Case of the Year, a 30-year-old Albanian national.
Unfortunately, for victims of theft, the statute of limitations thwarted any possibility of extradition of the offender for trial in Germany and set them free to bite the sausage once more. The case may sound ridiculous, but randomly paraphernalia has presented key evidence in several major criminal cases. In 2005, the DNA of a discarded napkin used to confirm that Jerry Westrom was responsible for the murder of Johnny Ann Children.
It took 12 years to find the killer after submitting original crime scene samples to a private online genealogical organization (identical people use to know about their family history) and Westrom was identified as an interested person. The search has drawn a partial resemblance to Westrom, but that alone was not enough to convict him. Without alerting him to the investigation – to get the DNA samples they needed – undercover officers followed Westrom to a hockey match where he ate a hotdog and threw a napkin. They were able to rescue it from the rubbish and a DNA sample taken from a napkin matched the crime scene.
