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DNA evidence possibly found at murder scene

Rock County investigators think they might have DNA evidence from the triple homicide discovered Friday morning just south of Janesville.

Sheriff Bob Spoden received assurances from the director of the State Crime Laboratory that an analyst has been re-assigned from another case to give the local investigation priority.

"We think these items should have DNA evidence," Spoden said this morning.

He added that the lab was expected to soon give the sheriff's department a timeline on analyzing the potential DNA evidence. On all other aspects of the case, Spoden continued to keep details confidential.

The funeral for the three slain members of the Lentz family has been scheduled for Saturday.

Three matching hearses will carry the bodies of Danyetta Lentz, 38, and her teen-age children, Nicole Lentz and Scott Lentz, said Brian Hansen of Hansen Funeral Home.

Caskets will be open for the visitation, which is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the church. The caskets will be closed for the funeral service, which is scheduled to start at 2 p.m.

First Lutheran Pastor James Melvin offered his church for the services and will officiate at the funeral.

There will be no procession after the service. The hearses will take the bodies to Milton Lawns Memorial Park & Chapel Mausoleum for cremation.

The remains will be buried in one grave at Oak Hill Cemetery, probably with a private graveside service sometime next week, Hansen said.

An obituary appears on Page 2B of today's Janesville Gazette.

The sheriff's department planned to release today the Lentzes' mobile home in Janesville Terrace on Highway 51, Spoden said. The trailer had been sealed as a crime scene to allow three different searches by detectives and crime lab investigators.

Thirteen detectives from several jurisdictions are working the case, he said, and so much evidence has been collected that the sheriff's department this morning was creating a separate secure evidence holding room.

Nicole maintained a Web page on MySpace.com, and that is just one area of the family's communication that investigators are examining, Spoden said.

"We are looking at Internet, telephone or cell phone communications," he said. "We are looking at whomever they were talking to in the last few weeks of their lives."