Gov. Susana Martinez says the expansion of a DNA testing law named for a slain New Mexico college student has helped authorities connect hundreds of suspects arrested on felony charges to other unsolved crimes in the past five years.
Martinez says a 2011 expansion of Katie's Law has linked 339 New Mexico suspects to 344 other cases, including more than a dozen homicides and 40 sex crimes.
The governor says only 407 suspects would have been connected to 420 other cases if the expansion weren't in place.
The decade-old law is named for Kathryn Sepich, a New Mexico State University student whose killer was identified with DNA evidence after he was convicted of another crime.
The original law required DNA samples from suspects arrested for violent felonies. The 2011 revision extended the testing requirement to all felonies.
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