Unflushed Toilet Dooms Alleged Burglar

Police were able to get a DNA match
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Aug 8, 2017 4:44 PM CDT
Unflushed Toilet Dooms Alleged Burglar
This undated booking photo provided by the Ventura County Sheriff shows Andrew David Jensen, 42, of Ventura, Calif., who was arrested on July 28, 2017. on suspicion of committing a burglary.   (Uncredited)

A man accused of burglarizing a Southern California home took a bathroom break and left DNA evidence in the toilet that led to his arrest, an investigator said Tuesday. The suspect "did his business and didn't flush it" during the October break-in in the city of Thousand Oaks, said Detective Tim Lohman of the Ventura County Sheriff's Office. That allowed investigators to collect evidence to conduct a DNA profile, the AP reports. It matched another profile in a national database and detectives tracked down the suspect at his home in the nearby city of Ventura. Andrew David Jensen was arrested July 28 on suspicion of first-degree residential burglary, a felony.

Lohman said it's the first DNA burglary match case he knows of with fecal evidence collected from a toilet. "When people think of DNA evidence, they usually think of hair samples or saliva," Lohman said. Jensen, 42, was scheduled to make his first court appearance Wednesday. (More weird crimes stories.)

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