Authorities want to do more forensic tests to establish another DNA link between a Virginia ex-Marine — who is accused of murder and convicted of rape — and the slaying of two young girls near Chicago in 2005.
Jorge A. Torrez, a former Marine corporal, has been linked through DNA to the 2005 slayings of 8-year-old Laura Hobbs and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias in Zion, Ill., where he used to live. Now, federal prosecutors in Alexandria have asked a judge to force Torrez to give a DNA sample to see if it matches another type of DNA profile that a laboratory analyzed when examining evidence in the Illinois killings.
Torrez was indicted in May on charges of killing Petty Officer 2nd Class Amanda J. Snell in her barracks room while both were stationed at Fort Myers-Henderson Hall in 2009. He is also serving five life sentences for raping and abducting one woman and trying to rob another in separate Arlington County attacks.
Last year, a hit from the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, linked a DNA sample recovered from semen on the body of one of the girls to Torrez, according to the motion seeking his DNA.
After that match came to light, prosecutors in Lake County, Ill., dropped murder charges against Laura’s father, Jerry Hobbs, who had spent five years in jail awaiting trial in the girls’ deaths.
The motion says a laboratory that analyzed the forensic materials developed a Y-DNA profile from “several places,” including the semen on the girl’s body. Y-profiles are of DNA from the Y, or male, chromosome. CODIS didn’t have a Y-DNA profile for Torrez, so the two were never compared.
Officials now want to determine if that Y-DNA profile also matches Torrez, who has not been charged in Illinois.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, wrote in an email that “the Illinois murder forensic evidence contains a Y-profile that has not been compared to Torrez, and we are filing a motion to obtain his DNA to compare his Y-DNA profile to the Y-profile found in that case.” He said he couldn’t comment further.
Prosecutors also want to get a hair sample from Torrez to compare it with a hair found in the room where Snell was killed, the motion says.
An attorney for Torrez and Illinois prosecutors didn’t return calls for comment.
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for July 15.
