As DNA was tested, suspect struck again
Two burglaries, sexual attacks fit criteria for expedited lab work
HOLLYWOOD — A man sneaked into a Hollywood home through a window in December and molested a 13-year-old girl.
It took seven weeks for the Broward Sheriff ’s Office to analyze the DNA from the case — long enough for the assailant to strike again.
While that DNA was being tested, the suspect broke into another house in January, just two streets away from the girl’s home, and sexually assaulted a 50-year-old woman, police said.
When the sheriff’s crime lab finally delivered the DNA findings, the results pointed to a neighborhood felon with more than 40 arrests.
Police arrested Andre Brian McGriff, 35, and charged him with sexual battery, burglary, false imprisonment,
molestation and petty theft.
Local and national forensic-evidence experts say it is not unusual for DNA testing to take many weeks or even months. But it can be done far more quickly, they say, and this crime — a stranger breaking into a home and molesting a child — fits the criteria for high-priority status.
“In my experience, if something like that happens that would absolutely be expedited,” said Tiffany Roy, who teaches forensic DNA analysis at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach and formerly worked at a state crime lab in Massachusetts. “They have the capability to bring them through very quickly if it’s a priority.”
She said an urgent case could take a week or two.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel repeatedly asked the Hollywood Police Department if detectives asked the crime lab to expedite testing of the DNA from the teen’s case. The department would not say.
“The Hollywood Police Department worked quickly to submit the evidence to the BSO Crime Lab,” said the agency’s spokeswoman, Miranda Grossman.
The evidence “was processed fairly quickly” by the lab, she said. “I know that the detectives are really happy with how it went, with the process.”
The Broward Sheriff’s Office also would not say whether a rush was put on the DNA from the teen’s attacker.
The crime lab works all sexual assault cases “in a timely manner” and tries to keep up with numerous requests for expedited testing, including for homicides, violent crimes and court requests, said Keyla Concepcion, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff ’s Office.
The lab’s DNA unit has a backlog of 4,758 cases waiting to be processed, she said. About 86 percent of those are thefts and burglaries.
“There is no specific timetable for DNA analysis,” Concepción said.
Records and interviews show:
■ The girl was attacked Dec. 4.
■ The next day, Dec. 5, Hollywood Police delivered DNA samples, collected from a windowsill and window frame, to the sheriff ’s crime lab.
■ On Jan. 11, the 50-year-old woman was assaulted.
■ The following day, on Jan. 12, police submitted DNA from a broken windowpane in the woman’s kitchen door.
■ On Jan. 23, the crime lab returned its findings in the teen’s case: a “hit” on McGriff.
■ Two days later on Jan. 25, the crime lab reported results from the woman’s attack, also pointing to McGriff. That DNA review was completed faster — in two weeks.
■ A day later, on Jan. 26, police arrested McGriff and charged him in both cases.
Police think McGriff might be responsible for other burglaries in the area. They are combing through past cases to see if they can make connections.
On the day of the woman’s assault in January, police said the same intruder was likely responsible for a third incident — a November break-in. McGriff has not been charged in that case, though the parallels are striking.
That case, Grossman said, is still under investigation. She would not specify whether DNA was found in that incident, only that “physical evidence was collected from the scene.”
The November, December and January break-ins occurred within a compact eight-block radius between Washington Street and East Pembroke Road and between Federal and Dixie highways, police said.
Each time, a glove-wearing masked intruder broke into the homes in the early morning, surprising the victims — two of whom were sleeping. He shoved them into another room and ordered them to touch themselves sexually, records show.
“Bitch, where is the gold?” he demanded of the 50-year-old woman. He covered her head with a Tshirt and fondled and penetrated her with a gloved finger. He threatened to “f--her up” if she called police.
McGriff lived two blocks away.
In a news release on the day of the woman’s assault, Hollywood police said the November and December crimes were burglaries in which the culprit made “sexual threats.” Records later revealed that both of those crimes involved sexual attacks.
Police have released very little information about the November incident, other than that the man touched the victim and made her touch herself. Records show the December breakin involving the teen was far more serious than a burglary: The man took nude photos of the girl and rubbed her vagina with a gloved hand. He said he lived nearby and would come back and kill her if she contacted police.
McGriff was no stranger to police. Only six months earlier in May, Hollywood police caught him crouching in a dark alley, peeping into apartment windows in the same neighborhood where the attacks occurred, records show.
His lengthy rap sheet shows more than 40 arrests, the first when he was 12, state records show.
McGriff served two stints in state prison for burglary and selling cocaine and has been in and out of the Broward County jail at least a dozen times, according to the state Department of Corrections and local booking records.
Hollywood police took a proactive approach after the teen was assaulted, the agency’s spokeswoman said. They canvassed the neighborhood, warned residents and asked them to be alert for suspicious activity. Officers also went door to door looking for video cameras at surrounding homes, she said.
The department put more plainclothes officers in the area and more highvisibility patrols “targeting the area to try to catch this guy,” Grossman said. Detectives focused on known predators and sexual offenders living in the area.
But at least a dozen residents who spoke to the South Florida Sun Sentinel in January said they were unaware that a possible serial molester lurked in their neighborhood. They said they had received no police warnings.
Police worked diligently to make an arrest, Grossman said.
“They found him. They arrested him. He has an extensive criminal history. And this guy’s now off the streets.”