DNA faces challenges in the courtroom

A long-simmering murder case in northern New York connected to the strangulation of a 12-year-old boy is shaping up as an important legal test of a cutting-edge method of teasing DNA evidence out of microscopic amounts of biological matter.

The case involves the killing of the boy, Garrett Phillips, here in October 2011, a crime for which a former local college soccer coach, Oral Nicholas Hillary, has been charged, despite a seeming paucity of physical evidence.

Read more from The NY Times.