DNA expert whose methods were flawed was paid $2.79m

Sam Strangeways

Created: Dec 02, 2025 08:44 AM (Updated: Dec 02, 2025 08:44 AM)

Forensic scientist Candy Zuleger, left, pictured in 2009 with crime scene analyst colleague Jan Johnson (File photograph)

A discredited forensic scientist who analysed DNA evidence for the Crown in hundreds of criminal cases received almost $2.8 million of public funds, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

The Bermuda Police Service disclosed that Florida-based Trinity DNA Solutions was paid $2,798,926 between 2006 and 2016, in response to a request for the amount from The Royal Gazette.

The BPS said the company, owned and run by Candy Zuleger, worked on about 450 cases for the police during that time. Ms Zuleger appeared repeatedly as a prosecution witness before the Supreme Court.

A police spokesman added last night: “All costs associated with Trinity DNA Solutions would be included in the number provided, including travel and accommodations.

“However, a more specific breakdown is not available, as some of the costs were incurred more than ten years ago.”

The Gazette has confirmed that Trinity was an accredited laboratory in the United States, although a BPS spokesman said: “There is no requirement for the Bermuda Police Service to possess an accreditation certificate of a professional services vendor.”

Earlier this year, another forensics expert hired by the Crown described Ms Zuleger’s methods in a court document as “bad science” and “not allowed in any reputable and accredited forensic DNA laboratory”.

Problems with her techniques for analysing DNA evidence from crime scenes came to light in 2024 after a man jailed for life for murder and attempted murder, Julian Washington, had his convictions quashed by the Privy Council because of inaccurate evidence she gave at his trial.

Owing to the miscarriage of justice, he served ten years in prison for a crime he had always denied.

Julian Washington, who was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for murder and attempted murder, because of inaccurate DNA evidence from Candy Zuleger (Photograph supplied)

A British charity, the Death Penalty Project, which took on his case, obtained fresh evidence to challenge Ms Zuleger’s forensic evidence on the basis that it was “flawed, unbalanced and wrongly implicated him”.

That prompted Cindy Clarke, the Director of Public Prosecutions, to launch a review of 273 cases in which Trinity DNA Solutions had provided analysis since 2006.

Her review was completed in August, with two more cases involving convictions potentially “tainted” by Ms Zuleger’s faulty analysis having been identified: those of Anwar Muhammad and Kofi Dill.

The Death Penalty Project and Bermuda Equal Justice Initiative have called for an independent review of all cases involving Trinity but Andrew Murdoch, the Governor, said in September that he had no concerns about Ms Clarke’s investigation.

The BPS told the Gazette that they first hired Trinity DNA Solutions in 2006 after becoming aware of the company through another Florida-based company, Forensic Pieces.

Jan Johnson leaving Supreme Court in 2008 (File photograph)

Forensic Pieces was led by crime scene analyst Jan Johnson, who, like Ms Zuleger, was a former employee of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The late Ms Johnson gave evidence about blood stains and gunshot residue at a number of criminal trials in Bermuda.

The Gazette asked the BPS about Trinity’s accreditation and whether it was checked annually when it held contracts with the police.

The spokesman said that after 15 years any records were unavailable.

Jana Zabinski, from the American National Standards Institute, said Forensic Quality Services was the initial accrediting body of Trinity DNA Solutions.

FQS was acquired by ANSI’s affiliate, the ANSI National Accreditation Board, in November 2011, when “ … the accreditation of Trinity DNA Solutions transferred to ANAB”.

Ms Zabinski added: “Trinity DNA Solutions voluntarily withdrew its accreditation from ANAB in 2018.”

Trinity’s work for the BPS ended in 2016. The spokesman said police issued a request for proposals for DNA services that year, leading to Helix Genetic and Scientific Solutions being selected as the contractor.

According to records from the Florida Division of Corporations, Trinity DNA Solutions was incorporated in 2003 and seems to have been dissolved by Ms Zuleger, its president, around 2022.

Candy Zuleger, founder and president of Trinity DNA Solutions, voluntarily withdrew the company’s accreditation in 2018, according to the accrediting body in the US (Photograph from Law&Crime Network)

Ms Zuleger set up another limited liability company in Florida, called Trinity DNA, in 2021.

That company is still listed as active and it filed a 2025 annual report but efforts to reach Ms Zuleger by the Gazette and media colleagues in Florida have failed.

Ms Zuleger’s LinkedIn profile lists her as a consultant for Trinity DNA, providing “consulting services to law enforcement and attorneys on previously worked forensic DNA cases”.

Criminal DNA database not Trinity’s doing

Trinity DNA Solutions was awarded a contract worth almost $1 million in 2009 to set up a new DNA database — but it is not the one now in use by the Bermuda Police Service.

The three-year contract for $987,000 was awarded to the Florida-based firm after the Police and Criminal Evidence Act was enacted in 2008, allowing officers to take samples from every person arrested for a “recordable offence”; ie one which could result in a jail sentence.

It came three years after Trinity began providing DNA analysis services for the BPS.

Paul Wright, then a superintendent, told The Royal Gazette the project opened up the “possibility of using DNA evidence in more general volume crime” beyond serious offences such as murder.

Forensic scientist Candy Zuleger, the head of Trinity, said then that the contract involved buying the hardware and software needed to create the database, as well as compiling statistics on Bermuda's general population to use for analysis.

A BPS spokeswoman said last week: “The Bermuda Criminal DNA Database is not the same database that Trinity DNA Solutions set up and was using in 2009.

“The methods used for the Bermuda Criminal DNA Database are different than those used on crime scene samples.”

He said two reviews were completed before the new Bermuda Criminal DNA Database, on the SmallPond LLC platform, was validated. The spokesman said it has been in use since 2016.

“It should be noted that the Bermuda Criminal DNA Database and the Bermuda DNA Population Database are different databases,” he added.

“It is the Bermuda DNA Population Database that has not been peer-reviewed and/or published.”

The crime database is managed by Acting Detective Sergeant Jewel Alex Hayward, the supervisor of the BPS’s forensic support unit.

According to the Privy Council ruling in the Julian Washington case, Acting Sergeant Hayward conducted the DPP’s review of the criminal cases involving DNA evidence from Trinity.

In March this year, the anonymous Gazette columnist Behind the Walls, a prisoner at Westgate, wrote: “How can someone who, in their professional capacity, was not only part of the collection of evidence, but provided trial testimony, be allowed to be anywhere near a review of [the] cases where DNA evidence [from Trinity] was found?

“ … Now, I am not stating that there is any bias involved by Officer Hayward — and by extension, the DPP — but there is certainly a conflict of interest.”

The BPS “respectfully declined” a request from the Gazette for an interview with Acting Sergeant Hayward.

Adley Duncan, the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, said last week that the department was “satisfied that we conducted the review fairly and, in any event, within the terms of the methodology outlined to and implicitly approved by the Privy Council”.