This story has been in the news for a number of years. Currently, there is civil litigation going on which brings us more information.
Police control of forensic science screams throughout this article at The Watch about a retired DNA crime labber who, in 2012, became a ‘cold’ murder suspect in a 30 year old case. The facts of his DNA arriving in a more advanced test took the police to his door with tragic results.
One reason the police persisted was the San Diego crime lab boss saying contamination of the murder DNA by the lab employee was impossible. I would say the boss was CYA through and through relating to the lab’s sketchy history of contamination since the 1980’s.
Below is a related article from the San Diego Union Tribune in 2014 which leads one to think the media swallowed the police story hook line and sinker and ignored the error history of this particular police crime lab. Of course that would have demanded the journos to talk to some criminal defense attorneys in San Diego.