California governor Jerry Brown has ordered new DNA tests in a decades-old murder case, the Associated Press reports.
To be tested are a T-shirt, a towel, and a hatchet from a 35-year-old quadruple murder in Chino Hills, California, the AP adds. It notes that Kevin Cooper was convicted in 1985 of killing Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica, and their 11-year-old neighbor Christopher Hughes. Cooper's lawyer says Cooper's blood was planted on the T-shirt and that more sensitive testing could tease out genetic material from another individual.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney, meanwhile, tells the AP that previous tests have indicated Cooper's presence at the Ryens' house as well as in their stolen station wagon.
In his order, Brown wrote, according to the AP, that he took "no position as to Mr. Cooper's guilt or innocence at this time, but [that] colorable factual questions have been raised about whether advances in DNA technology warrant limited retesting of certain physical evidence in this case." He added that if testing does not uncover anything new, the "matter should be closed."