New Episode Of Gimlet's Crime Show: “An Unlikely Suspect”

"Stories of crimes, told by the people who lived them. Every two weeks." 

That's the tagline for Gimlet/Spotify Crime show podcast. This week, the podcast released a new episode titled, “An Unlikely Suspect.”

 The podcast is hosted by Emma Courtland, and this latest episode offers an unsettling examination of a case in which a man’s DNA implicated him in a crime it became increasingly unlikely that he had actually committed.  

In 2012, a man named Raveesh Kumra was killed during a fatal home robbery in Monte Sereno, CA, a quiet town where no murders had occurred in almost 40 years. 

The events shocked the community and launched an investigation that pointed prosecutors to Lukis Anderson, an unhoused man with prior charges and a history of alcoholism and mental health struggles. 

His DNA had been found underneath the fingernails of the victim and he was charged with murder, but little else appeared to add up. After hospital records proved a rock-solid alibi for Anderson, the question was raised: how did his DNA get on the victim? 

 It was determined that Anderson’s DNA had experienced “secondary transfer” - transmitted by an EMT who had responded to the murder scene and had also taken Anderson to the hospital earlier that day. 

This occurrence not only proved Anderson’s innocence, but as Courtland explores, also brings to light deeply unsettling notions about our criminal justice system on a larger scale and its reliance on DNA evidence. 

If even this science is not infallible, how many other innocent people have potentially been convicted of crimes they did not commit?

You can listen to today’s episode HERE.