Results Released in Girl’s Request for DNA Evidence of Santa

Thanks to Forensic Magazine for this:

A young Rhode Island girl has finally figured out how to determine if Santa Claus is real—DNA.

Last week, the Cumberland resident sent a partially eaten cookie as well as a couple of gnawed-on carrot sticks to the town’s police department to ask if they can be tested for DNA.

“I took a sample of a cookie and carrots that I left for Santa and the reindeer on Christmas Eve and I was wondering if you could take a sample of DNA and see if Santa is real?” the girl wrote. Her name and age were not disclosed.

Police Chief Matthew Benson said he forwarded the “evidence” to the state’s Department of Health Forensic Sciences unit for analysis.

“This young lady obviously has a keen sense for truth and the investigative process and did a tremendous job packaging her evidence for submission. We will do our very best to provide answers for her,” Benson said.

Well, the results are in.

On Monday, the Rhode Island Department of Health said it was not able to definitively confirm or refute the presence of Santa in the young girl’s home.

“Unfortunately, there were no complete matches to anyone in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) that is used across the country to help solve cold cases. Interestingly, there was a partial match to a 1947 case centered around 34^th street in New York City. Ultimately, we would need additional DNA samples from other known Santa encounters to make a more definitive match,” the department said on Twitter.

The department said scientists in the Genomic Sequencing Laboratory section took the lead on the analysis of partially eaten carrots and cookies, even though they are usually focused on analysis of bacterial and viral genomes in food.

Luckily, the lab found no evidence of any common foodborne illnesses in the cookies, but they did find something curious.

“The lab was able to modify their methods for testing the carrots in this important case. Curiously, they found presence DNA matching closely with Rangifer tarandus, more commonly known as reindeer,” the department tweeted.