IN 1995, Steve Fortin pleaded guilty to a savage attack on a woman in Maine, in which he broke her nose, bit her, strangled her into unconsciousness and raped her. So when it was discovered that Melissa Padilla, a mother of four from New Jersey, had been found murdered with similar injuries years before, police linked Fortin to the case.
He was convicted, but the New Jersey Supreme Court later overturned the conviction on the grounds that linkage analysis – the technique of connecting serial crimes by similarities in the criminal’s behaviour – lacked sufficient scientific reliability and should not…
