Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman's Harrowing Quest for Justice

26. Vindicated?

26 Vindicated? Most human DNA is the same from one person to the next. The science of using DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) for identification purposes is based on finding genetic markers that show variation. In the early years of DNA testing, making matches was difficult and time consuming , although the results were highly accurate. A newer method, known as STR (short tandem repeat), can rapidly identify sequences of DNA from minute amounts of genetic material. In moving to embrace this method, the FBI in 1997 selected thirteen core genetic markers on which to reconstitute its national database , the Combined DNA Index System. CODIS uses two indexes that can be compared against each other. The first contains DNA pro- files from offenders in all fifty states. The second logs profiles from crime scene evidence. Because the national data system based on STR loci did not become operational until October 1998, DNA obtained from offenders under existing state laws was entered only belatedly, as time and resources permitted. Thus a biological sample obtained in mid-1996 from a particular convicted Wisconsin sex offender was not analyzed for an STR profile and put into the database until five years later, on May 29, 2001. On June 11 special agent Liz Feagles was contacted by Marie Varriale , a forensic scientist at the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory. Varriale informed Feagles that DNA from semen found on Patty’s bedsheet matched that of Joseph J. Bong. It was what’s known as a “cold hit.” Bong, then twenty-five, was serving an eighteen-year prison sentence for armed robbery and false imprisonment stemming from events 193 on September 12, 1997, eight days after Patty was raped. Also arrested in connection with this crime was Bong’s cousin Alonzo “Lonnie” Elvord, a suspect in Patty’s assault. The pair’s preliminary hearing took place October 1, the day before Woodmansee obtained Patty’s confession. According to the police reports and testimony at this hearing, Bong and Elvord used a sawed-off shotgun to rob a hotel and abduct the female manager and her boyfriend, who happened to be present. Elvord drove the car, the boyfriend beside him in the front seat. Bong, holding the shotgun, sat in the back with the manager. Suddenly Bong grabbed her hair and pulled her head down toward his groin, just as Patty’s assailant had done, and began fondling her breast. The hotel manager screamed. The boyfriend lunged at Bong and managed to pry the gun away. In the ensuing struggle, the hostages fled the car and the cousins drove away. Within a week Dane County sheriff ’s deputies tracked down and secured confessions from both men. Bong, in his statement, sought leniency for Elvord. “I talked Lonnie into doing the whole thing,” he said. “I got Lonnie drunk and high and he is not the type of person to do this.” Bong explained that the crime occurred after the two of them bought a quart of brandy and twenty dollars worth of marijuana and polished off a twelve-pack of beer. He later summoned a deputy to his cell to amend his statement: the pair had not actually paid for the marijuana , he now said; they ripped the dealer off. Bong’s attorney, Mark Frank, tried to have his confession suppressed , saying his client, a diabetic, was questioned for more than four hours while authorities “failed to provide, refused to provide, or otherwise withheld insulin.” He said Bong had substance-abuse problems, a history of mental illness, below-average intelligence, and learning disabilities , “reading at approximately the second-grade level.” The deputies testified that he never said he was diabetic or asked for insulin. The judge declined to throw out the confession, and Bong pled no contest to one count of armed robbery and two counts of false imprisonment. The sex assault charge was dropped. At Bong’s sentencing, Frank was left grasping at such straws as, “Mr. Bong has never committed a crime sober.” Bong also spoke on his own behalf. “I’m a good person. I’ve just done a couple of dumb things in my life. And I realize that I have a drinking problem,” he told the 194 Against All Odds • court. “I want help and I want to be part of my family’s life and I know that I need to do some time and it isn’t...