Poachers caught with DNA expert's help

updated 10:08 a.m. ET Aug. 10, 2007

CALDWELL, Idaho - Dr. Karen Rudolph didn't have much time.

Investigators had turned to the DNA expert after finding a knife with traces of blood in a suspect's truck. A few hairs were discovered at the crime scene hundreds of miles away, and authorities wanted to know if there was a link.

Two days later, working on delicate equipment in a state lab, Rudolph had an answer: The DNA on the knife was a match to the hair strands.

The suspect was arrested and charged — with poaching.

As the state's only wildlife DNA specialist, Rudolph handles evidence for many of Idaho's animal-related cases.

Rudolph's job requires her to identify an animal based on a hunk of tissue, wayward tuft of hair, bone chip or dried splatter of blood.

In many cases, her work has helped prosecutors win convictions and encouraged defendants to plead guilty without going to trial, officials said.

24/7 poaching
"Idaho poachers, until recently, were kind of your average Joe Bad Guy out in the woods doing small-fry things," said Rudolph.

"But now many of them literally hunt every day and night — looking for antlers to sell so some rich guy in Jackson Hole can have an antler chandelier, or ingredients to make some strange alternative medicine or to get a trophy for bragging rights. It's become commercial."

That means more high-stakes court cases, she said, with defendants hiring top-dollar attorneys and juries expecting high-tech evidence.

In one recent case, Gary Lehnherr and Ronnie Gardner both pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally killing a trophy mule deer in Lincoln County with a high-caliber center fire rifle.

Rudolph matched DNA in blood and hair found at the kill site — in an area where only muzzleloader hunting was allowed — with DNA from the deer's antlers, found in Lehnherr's home.

DNA also helped crack the case of a man who was suspected of trying to poison wolves in Wyoming and Idaho with pesticide-laced meatballs. No wolves were found dead, but the tainted meat was suspected in the death of more than 20 pet dogs.

First, DNA from some meatballs found at a crime scene was matched to DNA found in blood in a garage owned by a man named Tim Sundles. Sundles was headed for trial but pleaded guilty after more DNA evidence turned up.

Investigators had taken samples of yellow snow found at the crime scene that day, and suspected that the person who left the meatballs had relieved himself at the site. They were right, Breitsameter said — DNA from human cells found in the urine was a perfect match for Sundles.

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