The Smoking Strand: Why trial of Allison Feldman's suspected murderer could change everything

Phoenix, Arizona: On Thursday, the Arizona Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in a landmark case involving familial DNA evidence. The case centers around the 2015 murder of Allison Feldman, a 31-year-old woman slain in her Scottsdale home. But it wasn't until April 2018 that the police finally announced that they had arrested one Ian Mitcham. 

In a press conference, Scottsdale Police Assistant Chief Scott Popp revealed that Mitcham was identified through a familial DNA test—the first of its kind to be successful in Arizona. The police had already conducted several DNA tests with voluntary contributions from Feldman’s neighbors, but to no avail. They eventually turned to familial DNA testing—a technique only used in 12 other states and explicitly prohibited in the federal DNA database.

The search revealed that the DNA left at the Feldman scene came from a close male relative of a convicted offender, Mark Mitcham, who was in prison for an unrelated offense. Mark had two male relatives in Phoenix, including Ian Mitcham, who lived nearby at the time and had been arrested for a DUI in January 2015, only a few miles from Feldman’s home. During his arrest for the 2015 DUI, Mitcham had consented to blood testing and gave two vials of his blood to the Scottsdale police. Despite a Destruction Notice that stated the blood would be destroyed after ninety days, the department held onto the vials containing Mitcham’s blood.

After getting the results of the familial DNA test and without a warrant, Scottsdale Police Lieutenant Lockerby, used the 2015 blood sample to generate Mitcham’s DUI profile and compare it to the DNA recovered from the Feldman crime scene. When this comparison resulted in a match, Mitcham was arrested. Upon his arrest, police took a subsequent DNA sample.

During pretrial hearings in Maricopa County Superior Court, Lt. Lockerby testified that he believed no warrant was needed to test Ian Mitcham’s DNA. However, in December 2022, the judge suppressed the DNA evidence collected in 2015 and 2018, ruling that Mitcham’s Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful searches had been violated. Mitcham had only consented to blood testing for drugs and alcohol in 2015, not for DNA testing. The judge concluded that the DNA testing required a warrant, making its use improper.

The State argued that the evidence should still be admissible under the "good faith" exception, which allows evidence obtained through police misconduct if officers acted reasonably. However, the trial court rejected this, finding Lt. Lockerby’s actions reckless, leading to the exclusion of the DNA evidence. The State appealed the decision.

The Arizona Court of Appeals later reversed the lower court's ruling, allowing the DNA evidence. The court acknowledged that DNA testing of Mitcham's blood constituted a search but decided it did not require a warrant given the specific circumstances. The court argued that probable cause existed to arrest Mitcham due to a familial DNA match and his proximity to the crime scene. Furthermore, because Mitcham had pled guilty to other felonies in 2022, his DNA would have been legally collected eventually. Mitcham’s case was sent back to the Superior Court for trial.

Harley Feldman, Allison's father, told ABC15: "You've lost your child. You've lost your future with them, and there's no way to get that back."

It is important to note here that Mitcham has consistently denied the accusations, and his defense team has questioned the legality of the investigative methods used. In a statement issued Tuesday, Mitcham said, "We all have the right to be free from unwarranted intrusion into the most private areas of our lives. The Arizona Supreme Court's decision will either ensure our individual freedoms or deteriorate them."