Authorities in Ohio are crediting DNA taken from a dog's mouth in helping to nab a man accused of violent robbery and home invasion, Fox 8 reported.
Police in Barberton responded to calls about a violent home invasion on Oct. 6, during which one of the intruders assaulted the resident.
"One of the subjects had a gun, he assaulted one of the residents in the house, and as they were fleeing, they had a pit bull at the house that went after the suspect and bit him in the arm and leg," Barberton patrolman Marty Eberhart told the station.
Investigators said one of the three men pulled out a gun and shot the dog.
"When officers got there the dog was deceased. They did a DNA swab of the dog’s mouth after finding out that the dog had bit a suspect," Eberhart said.
Detectives sent the DNA sample to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, according to the station. Two months later, authorities learned that the DNA matched that of 24-year-old David Stoddard.
While police were making arrangements with the man's attorney for him to turn himself in, Stoddard was arrested and charged with shooting a woman and teenage girl inside a home in Akron on Jan. 6. The 16-year-old victim, who was pregnant, died, the station reported.
Police say without testing DNA from the dog's mouth, they may have never solved the case.
“We were just as amazed, too, that it actually worked when we did the DNA swab and that it came back to a positive match, so we were pretty shocked by it because we didn’t have any leads on the investigation,” Eberhart told the station.
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