PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "Addressing the judge on Tuesday, assistant district attorney Kafka went through details of 10 cases from around the state, from Westminster to Colorado Springs to Larimer County to Bent County, and gave examples where Woods randomly changed DNA results — and subtracted numbers from quantitative analysis — that affected cases in favor of potential defendants. The cases included several sexual assault cases, but also a homicide, a cold case, an invasion of privacy case and motor vehicle theft. He told the court these were only a smattering of cases — and ultimately vulnerable victims — affected. Kafka noted that of the 41 cases of sex assault where she manipulated DNA, they affected either women or children. He also noted that even in cases where there was a successful conviction, her data manipulation is now grounds for those people to appeal."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "In presentations to the court on Tuesday, attorneys on both sides went deep on science and quantitative analysis. They talked about the crucial work in crime labs that often have no second checks. They talked about the levels needed to meet a threshold for sex assault charges and the depths of responsibilities scientists had in testing and re-testing samples for police departments in investigations. While prosecutors talked about the arrogant and confusing nature of Woods’ conduct, her attorneys painted a life of an increasingly overwhelmed forensic scientist — particularly after state lawmakers passed a law in 2013 that required all sexual assault samples be tested no matter what."
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Woods addressed the judge ahead of the sentencing on Tuesday, saying she feels “remorse every day. She acknowledged that the mounting work eventually got to her. “I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t taking care of myself, I would be up at 2, 3 in the morning and thinking about cases and dreaming about them and it just got to be like an obsession,” she said, tearfully. “My burnout turned into overdrive … This job can wear on you. You’re traumatized indirectly and dealing with death and blood and all of the bodily fluids. And you have knowledge of these cases.” After she was sentenced on Tuesday, Woods was handcuffed by a sheriff’s deputy and led off into custody in her blue suit. Supporters and family of hers were tearful. People who believe they are victims of wrongful DNA testing in her cases walked out of the courtroom, uttering, “liar, liar, liar!""
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STORY: "Former state scientist sentenced to prison for falsifying DNA samples in hundreds of cases," by Alison Sherry, published by CPR (Colorado Publishing Radio) on September 8, 2026. (Allison Sherry is reporter for CPR News covering immigration and criminal justice. Allison joined Colorado Public Radio after reporting in Washington D.C. for the Denver Post and Minneapolis Star Tribune.)
GIST: A former state forensic scientist on Tuesday was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after altering more than 1,000 samples in labs that prosecutors say could have disproportionately affected sexual assault victims over many years.
Yvonne Missy Woods, 66, “brazenly” altered DNA samples in her lab that may have affected dozens of sex assault cases for women and children between 2008 and 2023 by manually altering - and always reducing - the amount of DNA on sex assault investigation swabs, prosecutors said.
State officials say more than 400 cases of the 1,100 affected by Woods’ altering of data were sex assaults.
District Court Judge Andrew Poland said this case has weighed on him since the former scientist pleaded guilty.
“At its core, it’s about trust,” Poland said. “For decades Ms. Woods occupied a very important part of Colorado’s criminal justice system … she also understood that others depended on her accurately and honestly. That dependence is what makes this case so serious.”
Prosecutors say they are unaware of any unjust convictions from those cases and say the vast majority of those seemingly protected attackers — or did not change the disposition in the case. Woods’ defense attorneys agreed with this assessment in court.
Because of this, her behaviors over more than a decade are completely confusing, Jefferson County assistant district attorney Darren Kafka told Judge Poland.
“I find it to be impossible to comprehend,” said Kafka, who told Poland that before he went to law school, he worked as a lab scientist. “There seems to be no purpose behind them. She appeared to work more hours than anyone at CBI; she was applauded in how many cases she pushed through. She was not lazy. Some will say she did it just because she could. She knew the very things to change to avoid detection. Maybe she wanted to use the power she was given for destructive ends.”
Tom Ward, one of Woods’ defense attorneys, told the judge that Woods has acknowledged the harm she caused and was ready to accept responsibility.
But he downplayed Woods’ impact on the actual number of cases, and he said of the 1,045 cases affected by her actions, as estimated by state investigators, almost 900 cases have “no evidence of sample testing altered.”
Ward told the judge that the vast majority of her data altering was done to move the cases along faster at the behest of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Ward also echoed Kafka’s characterization that his client wasn’t lazy. She worked weekends and nights and was in the lab all of the time, he said. When caseload skyrocketed given new requirements made by state lawmakers, Woods dug deep and worked harder, Ward said.
He noted she only took two weeks off after a cancer surgery, and her sister said that Woods’ work was her “identity.”
Ward also pointed out that her misconduct was not spread out evenly over her 29-year career at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Of the original 102 counts she was charged with, 69 of them happened in 2017 alone.
“It is serious, and it’s concentrated and the most serious part is the smallest part,” Ward told the judge. “The court is entitled to know why … the record shows her answer was being able to report the case and move it forward, move it along quickly … I believe her ultimate motivation was that CBI was getting answers out and she was processing cases as fast as she could.”
In statements Woods gave to investigators in 2024 and played in court on Tuesday, the scientist seemed to be confused as to why she did what she did over several years.
“I wouldn’t even remember that I did that,” Woods said, in video of her shown in a police interview room with her lawyer present. “This is my disconnect; it wasn’t until the cases were shown to me that day when it really occurred to me, oh, oh, if you were doing that then how long have you been doing that?”
The investigator asked her about the word “disconnect.”
“The disconnect was make it go away, make it go away, make it go away,” Woods replied, tapping a table nearby, between each statement. “I don’t know why I was doing it.”
Addressing the judge on Tuesday, assistant district attorney Kafka went through details of 10 cases from around the state, from Westminster to Colorado Springs to Larimer County to Bent County, and gave examples where Woods randomly changed DNA results — and subtracted numbers from quantitative analysis — that affected cases in favor of potential defendants.
The cases included several sexual assault cases, but also a homicide, a cold case, an invasion of privacy case and motor vehicle theft. He told the court these were only a smattering of cases — and ultimately vulnerable victims — affected.
Kafka noted that of the 41 cases of sex assault where she manipulated DNA, they affected either women or children. He also noted that even in cases where there was a successful conviction, her data manipulation is now grounds for those people to appeal.
In June, Woods pleaded guilty to four felonies connected to altering DNA results and perjuring herself in court. Prosecutors say the extent of her crimes could be much larger than was charged — mostly because sex assault suspects went uncharged after her data manipulation.
In court on Tuesday, Woods wore a blue suit and sat between her attorneys, as she took notes occasionally and kept her gaze on the screen or the desk in front of her. Before the proceedings, she hugged some supporters, who sat in the back of the courtroom.
Ahead of her sentencing, Matt Hanagan, a former Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office cold case investigator, testified on her behalf, saying she was among the most thorough scientists he’d ever worked with.
“She is the kind of person who shows up to evidence reviews,” Hanagan said, who has recently retired from law enforcement. “She looked for things to be retested. She knew more about the cases than I did, and they were my cases. Her willingness and determination and her needing to help is something spectacular.”
A family friend also testified on her behalf, telling Judge Poland that Woods was not a danger to the community. Woods has spent the last two years awaiting disposition of her case, volunteering in the community and helping friends and family members.
In presentations to the court on Tuesday, attorneys on both sides went deep on science and quantitative analysis.
They talked about the crucial work in crime labs that often have no second checks. They talked about the levels needed to meet a threshold for sex assault charges and the depths of responsibilities scientists had in testing and re-testing samples for police departments in investigations.
While prosecutors talked about the arrogant and confusing nature of Woods’ conduct, her attorneys painted a life of an increasingly overwhelmed forensic scientist — particularly after state lawmakers passed a law in 2013 that required all sexual assault samples be tested no matter what.
The vast majority of those samples went to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation lab because they got extra funding for it — whereas, for example, the Denver Police Department’s crime lab did not, Ward said.
Woods went from analyzing no Denver sex assault cases in the mid 1990s to testing more than 650 a year from law enforcement agencies statewide in 2015 and 2016.
The lab was clearly overwhelmed, Ward said, and she was trying to get cases back to invstigators as quickly as she could. As caseloads skyrocketed, Woods had anxiety and depression, and Ward said Woods suffered from breast cancer and took only two weeks off from surgery.
She worked around the clock, Ward said.
Prosecutors countered, though, that Woods’ personal issues aside, she has crippled the state of Colorado’s faith in science and that a higher-end prison sentence was warranted given the millions of dollars of liabilities the state faces in the future.
“Our court needs to defend victims … and science to anyone who would follow after her,” assistant district attorney Kafka said. “We need to thoroughly and unquestionably condemn these actions.”
Woods addressed the judge ahead of the sentencing on Tuesday, saying she feels “remorse every day.”
She acknowledged that the mounting work eventually got to her.
“I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t taking care of myself, I would be up at 2, 3 in the morning and thinking about cases and dreaming about them and it just got to be like an obsession,” she said, tearfully. “My burnout turned into overdrive … This job can wear on you. You’re traumatized indirectly and dealing with death and blood and all of the bodily fluids. And you have knowledge of these cases.”
GIST: A former state forensic scientist on Tuesday was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after altering more than 1,000 samples in labs that prosecutors say could have disproportionately affected sexual assault victims over many years.
Yvonne Missy Woods, 66, “brazenly” altered DNA samples in her lab that may have affected dozens of sex assault cases for women and children between 2008 and 2023 by manually altering - and always reducing - the amount of DNA on sex assault investigation swabs, prosecutors said.
State officials say more than 400 cases of the 1,100 affected by Woods’ altering of data were sex assaults.
District Court Judge Andrew Poland said this case has weighed on him since the former scientist pleaded guilty.
“At its core, it’s about trust,” Poland said. “For decades Ms. Woods occupied a very important part of Colorado’s criminal justice system … she also understood that others depended on her accurately and honestly. That dependence is what makes this case so serious.”
Prosecutors say they are unaware of any unjust convictions from those cases and say the vast majority of those seemingly protected attackers — or did not change the disposition in the case. Woods’ defense attorneys agreed with this assessment in court.
Because of this, her behaviors over more than a decade are completely confusing, Jefferson County assistant district attorney Darren Kafka told Judge Poland.
“I find it to be impossible to comprehend,” said Kafka, who told Poland that before he went to law school, he worked as a lab scientist. “There seems to be no purpose behind them. She appeared to work more hours than anyone at CBI; she was applauded in how many cases she pushed through. She was not lazy. Some will say she did it just because she could. She knew the very things to change to avoid detection. Maybe she wanted to use the power she was given for destructive ends.”
Tom Ward, one of Woods’ defense attorneys, told the judge that Woods has acknowledged the harm she caused and was ready to accept responsibility.
But he downplayed Woods’ impact on the actual number of cases, and he said of the 1,045 cases affected by her actions, as estimated by state investigators, almost 900 cases have “no evidence of sample testing altered.”
Ward told the judge that the vast majority of her data altering was done to move the cases along faster at the behest of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Ward also echoed Kafka’s characterization that his client wasn’t lazy. She worked weekends and nights and was in the lab all of the time, he said. When caseload skyrocketed given new requirements made by state lawmakers, Woods dug deep and worked harder, Ward said.
He noted she only took two weeks off after a cancer surgery, and her sister said that Woods’ work was her “identity.”
Ward also pointed out that her misconduct was not spread out evenly over her 29-year career at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Of the original 102 counts she was charged with, 69 of them happened in 2017 alone.
“It is serious, and it’s concentrated and the most serious part is the smallest part,” Ward told the judge. “The court is entitled to know why … the record shows her answer was being able to report the case and move it forward, move it along quickly … I believe her ultimate motivation was that CBI was getting answers out and she was processing cases as fast as she could.”
In statements Woods gave to investigators in 2024 and played in court on Tuesday, the scientist seemed to be confused as to why she did what she did over several years.
“I wouldn’t even remember that I did that,” Woods said, in video of her shown in a police interview room with her lawyer present. “This is my disconnect; it wasn’t until the cases were shown to me that day when it really occurred to me, oh, oh, if you were doing that then how long have you been doing that?”
The investigator asked her about the word “disconnect.”
“The disconnect was make it go away, make it go away, make it go away,” Woods replied, tapping a table nearby, between each statement. “I don’t know why I was doing it.”
Addressing the judge on Tuesday, assistant district attorney Kafka went through details of 10 cases from around the state, from Westminster to Colorado Springs to Larimer County to Bent County, and gave examples where Woods randomly changed DNA results — and subtracted numbers from quantitative analysis — that affected cases in favor of potential defendants.
The cases included several sexual assault cases, but also a homicide, a cold case, an invasion of privacy case and motor vehicle theft. He told the court these were only a smattering of cases — and ultimately vulnerable victims — affected.
Kafka noted that of the 41 cases of sex assault where she manipulated DNA, they affected either women or children. He also noted that even in cases where there was a successful conviction, her data manipulation is now grounds for those people to appeal.
In June, Woods pleaded guilty to four felonies connected to altering DNA results and perjuring herself in court. Prosecutors say the extent of her crimes could be much larger than was charged — mostly because sex assault suspects went uncharged after her data manipulation.
In court on Tuesday, Woods wore a blue suit and sat between her attorneys, as she took notes occasionally and kept her gaze on the screen or the desk in front of her. Before the proceedings, she hugged some supporters, who sat in the back of the courtroom.
Ahead of her sentencing, Matt Hanagan, a former Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office cold case investigator, testified on her behalf, saying she was among the most thorough scientists he’d ever worked with.
“She is the kind of person who shows up to evidence reviews,” Hanagan said, who has recently retired from law enforcement. “She looked for things to be retested. She knew more about the cases than I did, and they were my cases. Her willingness and determination and her needing to help is something spectacular.”
A family friend also testified on her behalf, telling Judge Poland that Woods was not a danger to the community. Woods has spent the last two years awaiting disposition of her case, volunteering in the community and helping friends and family members.
In presentations to the court on Tuesday, attorneys on both sides went deep on science and quantitative analysis.
They talked about the crucial work in crime labs that often have no second checks. They talked about the levels needed to meet a threshold for sex assault charges and the depths of responsibilities scientists had in testing and re-testing samples for police departments in investigations.
While prosecutors talked about the arrogant and confusing nature of Woods’ conduct, her attorneys painted a life of an increasingly overwhelmed forensic scientist — particularly after state lawmakers passed a law in 2013 that required all sexual assault samples be tested no matter what.
The vast majority of those samples went to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation lab because they got extra funding for it — whereas, for example, the Denver Police Department’s crime lab did not, Ward said.
Woods went from analyzing no Denver sex assault cases in the mid 1990s to testing more than 650 a year from law enforcement agencies statewide in 2015 and 2016.
The lab was clearly overwhelmed, Ward said, and she was trying to get cases back to invstigators as quickly as she could. As caseloads skyrocketed, Woods had anxiety and depression, and Ward said Woods suffered from breast cancer and took only two weeks off from surgery.
She worked around the clock, Ward said.
Prosecutors countered, though, that Woods’ personal issues aside, she has crippled the state of Colorado’s faith in science and that a higher-end prison sentence was warranted given the millions of dollars of liabilities the state faces in the future.
“Our court needs to defend victims … and science to anyone who would follow after her,” assistant district attorney Kafka said. “We need to thoroughly and unquestionably condemn these actions.”
Woods addressed the judge ahead of the sentencing on Tuesday, saying she feels “remorse every day.”
She acknowledged that the mounting work eventually got to her.
“I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t taking care of myself, I would be up at 2, 3 in the morning and thinking about cases and dreaming about them and it just got to be like an obsession,” she said, tearfully. “My burnout turned into overdrive … This job can wear on you. You’re traumatized indirectly and dealing with death and blood and all of the bodily fluids. And you have knowledge of these cases.”
After she was sentenced on Tuesday, Woods was handcuffed by a sheriff’s deputy and led off into custody in her blue suit. Supporters and family of hers were tearful. People who believe they are victims of wrongful DNA testing in her cases walked out of the courtroom, uttering, “liar, liar, liar!""
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.cpr.org/2026/09/08/missy-woods-sentenced-prison/
https://www.cpr.org/2026/09/08/missy-woods-sentenced-prison/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
