Daily Campus Reporter Cannot Track Down the Researchers Studying Adam Lanza's DNA

If you had the opportunity to pick up a copy of The Daily Campus today or stopped by our home page, you would have noticed that our lead story is a topic that many news outlets have writing about since mid-December: the Sandy Hook shooting. 

CNN, The Associated Press and the LA Times reported last month that UConn geneticists would be studying Adam Lanza’s DNA. 

Oddly enough, the UConn genetics department does not seem to know that.

Senior Staff Writer Loumarie Rodriguez reported today that Linda Strausbaugh, director of the Center for Applied Genetics and Technology at Storrs, is not involved in the study and does not have any information about it.

This piqued Rodriguez’s interest. She did not understand how the director of UConn genetics could be unaware about such a highly publicized study.

She then contacted the UConn Health Center in Farmington, as CNN reported that is where the research will take place. Faculty members and representatives from their department had no answers for Rodriguez.

“It was just getting stranger and stranger by the minute,” Rodriguez said.

Daily Campus news editor Kim Wilson originally pitched the story to Rodriguez. Wilson thought it was odd that the university was not publicizing the research, as the Sandy Hook shooting has been a national story. UConn Today 

When Rodriguez told her no one seemed to know about the research, Wilson thought that was an important story in itself.

“I feel like the fact that there are no updates on it is newsworthy,” Wilson said.

Wilson and Rodriguez both said it is possible the research is not even happening. They said it might be a rumor that took off.

Since turning in the story, Rodriguez has found additional information. She will be writing a follow-up soon.