Seven-week wait for DNA results gave alleged molester time to strike again

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 alleged assailant to strike again.

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 quicker, they say, and this crime perfectly 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.

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 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.

Police think McGriff may 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 if 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.

Each time, a glove-wearing masked intruder broke into the homes in the early morning hours, 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 T-shirt and fondled and penetrated her with a gloved finger. McGriff lived two blocks away. Police have released very little information about the November incident. Records show the December break-in 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. His lengthy rap sheet shows more than 40 arrests, the first when he was only 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.