Hennepin County Sheriff's Office says 75 DNA samples potentially contaminated

Hennepin County authorities are clarifying what happened after the Sheriff's Department reported that 75 DNA samples at their lab have been potentially contaminated.

Investigators say the problem with the samples was discovered last month. At that point, all DNA analysis was curtailed says Hennepin County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Pat Enderlein.

"We believe this to be part of, or be caused by, a product, a consumable product used in the DNA testing process," Enderlein explains. "So most importantly, we want everybody to know this has nothing to do with charges, convictions. This would not have caused any impact to that. It's a consumable product, we believe at this point and we're working to resolve it."

According to Enderlein, they are updating an outside organization that will investigate at a later date. He told WCCO's Adam and Jordana that while they don't know the source of the contamination, they do know that it came from an unknown sample, meaning no criminal charges or convictions could have resulted from it.

"We call it sporadic DNA contamination, and (it) really has a negative ring to it," Enderlein said Tuesday. "But it just means they're seeing a DNA profile that they didn't expect to see."

He adds there is a lot of DNA to get through.

"They do about 10,000 DNA samples a year. So far they've reviewed about 50,000 of those samples and they've identified about 75 of them, just that they want to take a closer look at," Enderlein says.