A former forensic scientist who worked on some of the state’s most high-profile cases throughout her decadeslong career with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was charged this week with 102 felonies on allegations she mishandled DNA testing, court records show.
Yvonne “Missy” Woods, 64, faces 52 counts of forgery of a government-issued document, 48 counts of attempting to influence a public servant as well as one count each of carrying out cybercrimes and perjury, according to court records.
She turned herself into the Jefferson County jail Tuesday, a spokesperson for the county sheriff’s office said. She is being held on a $50,000 bond, online jail records show.
Woods’ attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.
The charges are tied to 58 separate instances of alleged criminal misconduct committed between 2008 and 2023 during which she worked at two laboratory locations in Jefferson County, a spokesperson with the 1st Judicial District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
Among those were more than 30 sexual assault cases in which Woods allegedly deleted specific values in samples and submitted reports to agencies that reflected “No Male DNA Found,” when in fact small amounts of male DNA were present or possible contamination was present and additional troubleshooting and retesting was required, the office said.
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The criminal investigation into Woods began November 2023 by the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, at the request of CBI. South Dakota investigators then turned their findings over to the district attorney’s office in December.
The investigation showed instances where Woods altered and deleted quantification values, re-ran entire batches of DNA multiple times without any documentation and concealed possible contamination, the district attorney’s office said.
Twenty four law enforcement agencies around the state received fraudulent reports by Woods, the district attorney’s office said.
In an interview with investigators, Woods said the discrepancies in the work were partly the result of haste.
“It was a rush batch and I was trying to get data out, and that’s how it happened,” Woods said, according to an arrest affidavit. She said she didn’t have a “good reason” as to why she manipulated the data.
Later in the interview, she told investigators: “I don’t sleep at all at night. Every night I dream but I don’t dream about stuff that I didn’t do stuff on. It’s almost like, it’s like, oh, I made that go away and therefore it just went away.”
“I got to put out seven cases that day instead of five. I don’t know,” she added.
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Part of her process involved “cutting and pasting” data onto an Excel spreadsheet to help organize them better, even though she was told she should not have needed to “cut and paste” anything, she said. Some of the data may have been too large to fit into a smaller cell and could have appeared missing, she said, according to the affidavit.
“So, I don’t know if they were all intentional, they’re possibly, but I don’t know if they were all intentional,” she told investigators.
When investigators suggested that the data was likely intentionally deleted, and not removed by accident, she nodded her head and said, “You’re probably right.”
A prior internal investigation found that Woods deleted data, tampered with DNA testing results and cut corners during her 29-year tenure at CBI, casting doubt on hundreds of cases. Prosecutors worry that more than 1,000 convictions could have relied on dubious evidence.
The probe into Woods’ work was launched in September 2023 after a coworker reported anomalies in her test data at the lab and found that she manipulated data in the testing process, and in some cases, posted incomplete test results.
Woods retired from the agency, in lieu of termination, before the internal investigation was complete.
The fallout from Woods’ errors will cost the state millions as DNA samples must be re-tested and criminal convictions that relied on the now-questionable evidence must be reviewed. Nearly all of the incarcerated people affected are expected to challenge their convictions and an untold number could go back to trial
The Joint Budget Committee last year approved a $7.5 million addition to this year’s state budget to address the fallout and taxpayer costs are likely to grow, budget documents show.
Through the end of 2024, the CBI estimated that the fiscal costs tied to Woods’ alleged misconduct was $11,071,486.
In June, a 31-year-old man pleaded guilty to lesser charges in the killings of three people in 2017in the first prosecution in the state believed to be impacted by Woods’ work.
Prosecutors gave Garrett Coughlin the chance to make the plea partly because they were unable to call Woods to testify in a case that relied mostly on circumstantial evidence.
Woods is scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning.