>From
http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies ... helton.htm
DNA Testing of Danny and Brandy Shelton and [minor's name removed]
Will the Results have ANY validity?
by Lorraine Day, M.D.
Posted 5/1/09
On Wednesday, April 29, 2009 I met Danny and Brandy Shelton in the parking lot of the Benton, Illinois Post Office to collect DNA specimens for Paternity testing of
[minor's name removed], the daughter of Brandy .... Shelton.
It should be noted that we were first scheduled to meet in the parking lot of the public school in Thompsonville, Ill. Danny Shelton subsequently asked if we could move the meeting place to the county Courthouse in Benton, Illinois – a few miles up the freeway north of West Frankfort, Ill (West Frankfort/Thompsonville, Ill is the location of the headquarters of 3ABN).
I agreed. But just minutes before we were to meet, Danny called me on my cell phone and asked to change the location again, to the Post Office in Benton, Ill.
Court-approved, legal DNA testing requires:
1. a picture to be taken of the one tested
2. fingerprinting of each person who is tested
3. the social security number of each person who is teste
4. examination of 2 pieces of government issued I.D., such as a Driver’s license and a Passport.
This court-approved, legal, DNA testing is done in an accredited laboratory. Home testing units are available but the DNA test results are not legally admissible in a court of law.
To travel several hours to and from a certified DNA testing laboratory would have been a major imposition on the Sheltons, including the child,
[minor's name removed], who would have missed a day of school.
To make it as convenient as possible for the Sheltons, I traveled from California to Southern Illinois at my own expense, and brought along two DNA testing kits obtained from certified, AABB (American Association of Blood Banks) licensed DNA testing laboratories, with the goal of obeying all the other rules for legal DNA testing results, to make it as official as possible without the travel inconvenience for the Sheltons.
I asked Danny to have each person bring the two required pieces of U.S. government approved Identification (usually a passport and a government issued I.D. card or Driver’s license). I brought fingerprinting equipment, a still camera for picture taking of those being DNA tested and to photograph the original identification documents, as well as a video camera to videotape the actual taking of the DNA specimens, plus I had two people with me to run the cameras (a still camera and a video camera).
My crew and I were in the parking lot of the Benton, Illinois, Post Office at 10:30 A. M. on Wednesday morning, April 29.
A few minutes later, Danny arrived driving his truck with Brandy in the passenger seat. There was no visible evidence that the child,
[minor's name removed], was with them. No one could be seen sitting in the back seat of the truck.
Brandy was belligerent, hostile, aggressive, and very discourteous
Danny got out of the truck, we said “Hello” and he began to sign the consent for DNA testing. Brandy refused to get out of the truck at first, or even to look at us, or acknowledge our presence. She was clearly angry, even though she (apparently) had willingly signed the consent to be tested and have
[minor's name removed] tested. I say “apparently” because the signature on the DNA testing agreement that is alleged to be Brandy’s looks very different from her signature on the license of her marriage to Kevin ...., her second husband, and different from her signature on her passport.
If indeed Brandy signed the original DNA testing agreement on April 1 – an entire month before the testing took place – as the document shows, why was she angry now? But if she did not sign the agreement and someone else signed her name without her knowledge, her quarrel should be with that person – not us!
Finally, Brandy did get out of the truck, but as the videotape will show, she was furious. She accused me of harassing her family, something that was totally untrue, as will be shown below. She called me “un-Christian” for asking Danny to sit down with Linda to try to conclude their marital financial settlement without expensive lawyers.
Even though Danny and I agreed that the testing would be video-taped, this made Brandy angry. She belligerently got out her own video camera and started videotaping me –putting her camera almost in my face, while continuously berating me.
She even rudely accused me of having Alzheimer’s. Why? Because I have said that I worked with Brandy at 3ABN when I was there in June of 1999. I said this way back in 2005 – innocently - not even knowing that Danny and 3ABN were saying that Brandy did not arrive at 3ABN until November of 2004. In addition, I had no idea in, at first, that Brandy had any children.
I learned in 2008 that Brandy had a child,
[minor's name removed], who was born in February of 2000. That would mean that the child was conceived in May or June of 1999,
My working with Brandy at 3ABN in June of 1999 places Brandy in the West Frankfort area at the time she became pregnant. That fact, by itself, does not prove that Danny is the father of
[minor's name removed], but it does establish opportunity.
And I am not the only one who knows that Brandy was in the Thompsonville/West Frankfort area long before November of 2004. There is a witness who was privy to a conversation Danny Shelton had with Brandy's mother long before 2004, telling Danny that Brandy was coming out for a job interview. That witness was not even in Thompsonville in November of 2004, so the job interview clearly took place long before that time.
There are also two witnesses who have knowledge of Danny Shelton looking for housing for Brandy, and purchasing a washer and dryer for Brandy, many months before November of 2004, the month Danny says he first met Brandy as an adult.
Brandy’s behavior during the DNA specimen collection was an embarrassment to everyone, including Danny, as he tried first to calm her down. But when that was unsuccessful, he repeatedly tried to stop us from videotaping her temper tantrum.
Now Danny has attempted to put a good “spin” on her very bad behavior by saying she has "every right to be angry." Well, if Brandy has a right to be “angry” she should turn her anger either on herself for willingly signing the DNA testing agreement in the first place, or on Danny, as he is the one who brought up the subject of the paternity of
[minor's name removed]. And he is the one who offered to be DNA tested – but only if I would put up $10,000.00.
Who WAS the child presented for testing?
I asked to see the government-approved Identification documents, including the passports for Danny, Brandy and
[minor's name removed]..
But no one had brought them. Instead Danny handed me Xeroxed copies of the documents (a picture of one page of the passports for Danny and Brandy and
[minor's name removed], and Driver’s licenses for Danny and Brandy).
But Xerox copies of identification documents are NOT acceptable. They can be altered easily in the process of copying. A different picture or signature can be superimposed on any document, something that would completely invalidate it.
In addition, I was not allowed to videotape or even take a still picture of
[minor's name removed], something the DNA testing laboratory requires. Danny and Brandy vehemently refused to allow “
[minor's name removed]” to be photographed. Obviously it was not for security reasons, because on the special holiday programs at 3ABN, Danny has his whole family on camera, including all of his grandchildren even when they were babies and young children.
Nor was I allowed to have the Social Security numbers for any of them, something that is required by the DNA testing companies.
So why would Brandy and Danny refuse to allow a picture of “
[minor's name removed]”?
In addition, I was not allowed to take fingerprints of “
[minor's name removed]” nor of Danny or Brandy.
And “
[minor's name removed]” was at all times kept out of sight in the truck, lying down on the back seat, “under a blanket” according to Brandy. The child was never allowed to sit up in the back seat of the truck where she could be seen. Nor was she allowed to stand on the ground when she was brought out of the truck for 30 seconds so I could swab the inside of her mouth. Danny held her in his arms the whole time she was out of the truck. She was not given an opportunity to stand on her own so it was impossible to tell how tall she was. The “
[minor's name removed]” to be tested is reported to be 9 years old. This child looked and acted about 6 years old.
It is highly unusual for a 9-year old to stay quietly - under a blanket in the back seat of a truck - never looking out the window or wanting to watch the commotion going on right outside the truck window. Nine-year olds want to be "grown up" - not carried around like a baby. They usually are very curious to see what is going on around them. But that was not the case with this child.
I have purposely put the name “
[minor's name removed]” in quotation marks, because I have no way of knowing if the child presented for testing was actually
[minor's name removed]. Since I had never seen
[minor's name removed], and Danny knew that, I was expected to take Danny and Brandy’s word for it – with no objective documentation whatsoever to prove the child’s identity.
So, to summarize: I do not know the identity of the child who was tested. I have no idea if that child was
[minor's name removed].
I was not allowed to take her picture, or take her fingerprints, or to examine her identification documents directly. I was not allowed to see her stand up by herself. She never spoke a word, and she was kept lying down on the back seat of the truck – under a blanket, according to Brandy – for the whole time we were all together (close to an hour) except for the 20 seconds or so that it took to swab the inside of her cheek.
WHY?
Why was I not allowed to photograph, fingerprint, or examine the identification documents for this child?
Why did Danny and Brandy keep this child hidden under a blanket for almost the entire time we were together?
Why did Danny want to change our meeting location to a town other than Thompsonville or West Frankfort?
Could it be that the child who was tested was NOT
[minor's name removed], and any friend of Danny’s who might be passing by could point that out?
If this child WAS
[minor's name removed], why was I not allowed to photograph her (as a DNA lab requires for legal testing)?
If this child WAS
[minor's name removed], why was I not allowed to take her fingerprints (as a DNA lab requires for legal testing)?
If this child WAS
[minor's name removed], why was I not allowed to examine her identification documents – or the identification documents of Danny and Brandy (as a DNA lab requires for legal testing)??
Why was I given Xerox copies of the documents, copies that could easily have been altered?
Why the secrecy?
If the child tested was NOT
[minor's name removed] – who was she?
It is known that Brandy has several sisters. Could this child be the daughter of one of Brandy’s sisters? I don’t know. But it’s a question that must be addressed.
One more question: Danny brought up the fact that he and Brandy and this child – purported to be
[minor's name removed] – had all been DNA tested just several weeks before I came to Thompsonville on April 29, 2009. The testing was done with a home kit and not in the presence of a third party or at a certified DNA testing laboratory or with government identification documents.
WHY would they all get tested privately?
Obviously Brandy would know that she is the mother of [minor's name removed]. She wouldn't need to be tested to know that. And obviously both Danny and Brandy would know whether Danny is the father of
[minor's name removed].
So WHY would they all go through a “dry run” of DNA testing before the real DNA testing?
Siblings can often have fairly close DNA matches as they are often chosen as organ donors. All siblings of the same two parents obviously get their DNA from the same two parents. If the child presented for testing is NOT
[minor's name removed], but the daughter of one of Brandy’s sisters (she has apparently has at least two living sisters), it would be important for Danny and Brandy to perform a “dry run” up front, before I arrived on the scene in Thompsonville. They would want to make sure that Brandy’s DNA was close enough to this child’s DNA for Brandy to “pass” as the mother of this child?
If this child belongs to a sister of Brandy and (obviously) another man, naturally Danny would test negative as the father of this child presented for testing.
So the plain fact is this: I do not know the identity of the child who was tested. Without the direct evaluation of the proper original documents for identification, without pictures, without fingerprints, it is impossible to objectively prove she is
[minor's name removed].
So the DNA test results cannot be taken as proof that Danny is not the father of
[minor's name removed].
Important Factor Documented:
But one very important factor was documented: Both Danny and Brandy kept the child hidden, and kept all identification information about the child secret.
WHY, if this child was in truth
[minor's name removed], and Danny is NOT the father of
[minor's name removed], would they do that?
Why all the secrecy and intrigue?
The DNA specimen collection materials
I purposely did not open the DNA testing packets until we were all together so I could not be accused of tampering with the sample-testing equipment. When one of the kits was opened, it was found that the laboratory had sent one envelope marked “father” and two envelopes marked “Child” with no envelope marked “mother.” Since each packet contains 4 sealed sterile long-handled “Q-tips” for the mouth swab specimens, there is no problem with marking out the word “Child” and substituting the word ‘Mother” – which Brandy did, and then initialed the correction. This was all properly videotaped.
However, now Danny is accusing me of somehow being underhanded with the testing, because the lab sent the envelopes as noted above. Brandy and Danny watched as every specimen was placed in the container, then one of them personally sealed every container. Again, all this was videotaped and will be posted soon.
He is also suggesting that I chose an unaccredited lab “to save money.” Both labs I chose are fully accredited by the AABB, the acknowledged accrediting agency. The truth is that there are forty accredited DNA testing labs. I called the laboratory that does 85% of all DNA testing in the world to get a referral for another accredited DNA testing laboratory. I was told how to find the forty accredited DNA testing laboratories and I could arbitrarily choose one – which I did.
As I stated, I paid for all of my own expenses to go to Southern Illinois to collect the DNA specimens, and I am personally paying for all the DNA testing.
However, all my time and all my expenses have been largely wasted because Danny and Brandy would not allow me to verify the identification of the child who was presented for testing.
But that in itself – their secrecy about this child – speaks volumes!
It the child presented for testing really IS
[minor's name removed], and Danny Shelton is NOT her father, then why all the secrecy?