The doctor who anticipated DNA testing

Dr. Rudiger Breitenecker

Age: 78

Profession: Forensic pathologist. Founding director of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center’s Rape Care Center, assistant medical examiner for the state of Maryland and a University of Maryland associate professor. He now works as a consultant.

Achievements: Honored in June by GBMC, county and state officials for his pioneering work in collecting semen from rape victims decades before technology existed for DNA identification. Samples he saved at GBMC are still being analyzed for prosecutions.

Served as a consultant for the U.S. Defense Department in the investigation of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana in 1978; took part in autopsy of the community’s leader, Jim Jones.

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Q. When did you begin collecting semen samples from rape victims? 

A. I began that in the late 1970s at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center’s Rape Care Center. There I had created the form that police later used statewide for rape investigations.

Q. Were the samples only from rape victims?

A. Yes. We never collected from the men because the police never brought them in.

Q. How were the samples stored? Are special conditions necessary?

A. We deep-froze them for all these years.

Q. Who, if anyone, did you tell of your idea when you began the collection?

A. Nobody.

Q. To whom and when did you offer the samples to legal authorities?

A. After I retired, when DNA typing became more popular with law enforcement agencies, in the late 1990s. I offered them to the Baltimore County Crime Lab. … It’s a complicated test that takes time. Now they’ve done most of them [after completing tests of a backlog of many other samples]. They have a separate area just for this work.

Q. What do you think of Maryland’s revised DNA law, which allows collection of cells from suspects?

A. Basically I’m in favor of it, of course. I would liken it to collecting fingerprints. I don’t know of a reason to oppose it.

Q. Do you remain active in forensic pathology?

A. Yes, I do. I’m semi-retired. I’m still consulting with lawyers about forensic cases and working with the Public Defender’s Office and with the State Attorney’s Office when they need me.