Former Colorado forensic analyst sentenced to 10 years for DNA data manipulation

Yvonne “Missy” Woods pleaded guilty in June to perjury, attempting to influence a public servant, forgery and committing a cybercrime. Dozens of other counts were dismissed as part of a plea agreement. State district judge Andrew Poland imposed the sentence in Golden, Colorado. Woods had faced between eight and 16 years in prison before the hearing.

Authorities said problems with her work surfaced in cases involving homicide, sexual assault, robbery and other crimes. Prosecutors were forced to review hundreds of cases, and at least one murder conviction was overturned as a result of her misconduct.

Woods resigned in 2023 after a decades-long career. Authorities accused her of altering data to conceal tampering, deleting data that showed she failed to troubleshoot issues within the testing process and not thoroughly documenting tests performed in case records.

The investigation into her conduct began in September 2023, after an intern at the bureau discovered missing information in a 2018 case that Woods had handled. According to an arrest affidavit, Woods at one point told investigators she changed data to complete cases more quickly.

In the overturned murder case, Michael Clark was released from prison in 2025 after his lawyers argued that DNA evidence was mishandled by Woods. Prosecutors said they would seek to retry him. In two homicide cases, defendants received lesser sentences under plea deals than they could have faced at trial because prosecutors were concerned that Woods’s involvement could lead to acquittals. Other convictions have also been challenged in courts across Colorado.

The Denver Post reported that Woods apologized during Tuesday’s hearing but said saying sorry would not undo the harm she caused. “For many years I was entrusted with evidence that could have profound consequences for defendants, victims, families and the courts. I failed that responsibility. I am deeply sorry for that failure,” she said.

A Colorado Bureau of Investigation internal affairs report in 2024 revealed that concerns about Woods’s work first surfaced more than a decade ago. As early as 2014, a worker questioned her testing of evidence, and in 2018 she was temporarily removed from working on DNA cases after being accused of data manipulation, the report said. State officials have said the response to Woods’s actions could end up costing more than $11 million.