CBI DNA Analyst Sentenced to 10 Years for Manipulating Test Data

Overview

• Yvonne “Missy” Woods was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty in June to perjury, forgery, a cybercrime and attempting to influence a public servant, with dozens of other counts dismissed under a plea deal.
• Investigators say Woods altered, omitted and deleted DNA test entries, failed to document troubleshooting steps and changed data to close cases faster, actions that can erase signs of lab errors and make results unreliable.
• The Colorado Bureau of Investigation identified more than 1,000 cases linked to Woods’s work and estimated related costs near $11 million, spanning homicide, sexual assault, robbery and other serious charges.
• Concerns about Woods’s testing trace back to 2014, she was temporarily removed from DNA casework in 2018, an intern flagged missing information in a 2018 file in September 2023, and Woods was put on leave in October 2023 before retiring.
• The sentence closes one phase of the scandal but leaves ongoing fallout: prosecutors are reviewing and retrying cases, at least one murder conviction was overturned and released in 2025, and victims and defendants face years of legal review and uncertainty.