Richard J. Schmidt

Richard J. Schmidt is an American physician who was involved in an unusual case which marked the first time in forensic history where viral DNA was used to prove a link between two people with HIV or AIDS in a criminal trial. It has been shown that in 1994 Dr. Schmidt took a vial of blood from one of his AIDS-infected patients to infect his girlfriend with the virus. Six months later the girlfriend was diagnosed with HIV and was convinced that the doctor had infected her. HIV is a fairly fragile virus, and lasts for only a few hours outside the human body. Detectives examining hospital records found that Dr. Schmidt had taken blood from one patient that night, but had never sent the blood to the lab. The forensic challenge at that point was to match the DNA from the virus itself from the patient to the victim, something that had never been done before. HIV DNA was collected from the ex-girlfriend, from the putative patient source, and from thirty-two other unrelated, HIV-positive individuals living in the same metropolitan area. Scientists concluded that of all the samples they tested, the two viruses' DNA from the victim and the patient matched almost exactly, even with HIV's potential to mutate very rapidly.

In 1998 Dr. Schmidt was sentenced to 50 years hard labor for second degree attempted murder.

Trivia

* This case was shown on the television series "Forensic Files".

References

*Michael L. Metzker, David P. Mindell, Xiao-Mei Liu, Roger G. Ptak, Richard A. Gibbs, David M. Hillis. (2002) " [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/22/14292 Molecular evidence of HIV-1 transmission in a criminal case.] " "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences". 99(22):14292-14297.