DNA matches murder accused, jury hears

DNA taken from the body of Phyllis Murphy - the young Kildare woman found raped and strangled in Co Wicklow over 22 years ago - matched DNA taken from John Crerar, the former army sergeant on trial for her murder, a jury has heard.

Dr Maureen Smyth of the State Forensic Science Laboratory told the Central Criminal Court that when she conducted a first set of comparative tests on the DNA profiles in 1999, the estimated chance of the same profile occurring in the rest of the population was one in 76 million.

When Dr Smyth carried out further comparative tests in the year 2000, using a more discriminating method of DNA analysis, she concluded that the estimated chance of the same profile occurring in the rest of the population was one in 1,000 million.

John Crerar (aged 54), a father-of-five of Woodside Park, Kildare, has denied the murder of Philomena Murphy (aged 23), who was known as Phyllis, on a date unknown between 22 December 1979 and January 18 1980 within the state. At the time of her death, Phyllis Murphy was living in digs in Rathangan, Co Kildare.

The prosecution allege that DNA from semen samples extracted from the body of Phyllis Murphy matched DNA from a blood sample voluntarily given by John Crerar to gardai.

The case continues before Mr Justice McKechnie.