This morning's bizarre story of a DNA link between a 2004 unsolved murder and an Occupy Wall Street protest may be the result of a spectacular screw-up in the Medical Examiner's office.

Authorities said today that a chain used to hold open a subway door in a March Occupy Wall Street-affiliated protest was found to have DNA that matched a portable CD player found near murdered Juilliard student Sarah Fox in 2004. But now, the New York Times suggests the match was "the result of a laboratory error at the city Medical Examiner's office."

""The O.C.M.E. tainted the samples and it was the O.C.M.E. supervisor's whose DNA was on both," a source told the Times.

Jesus. Isn't not contaminating the sample the first thing you learn in forensics class? Honestly, I believed that even the NYPD would not be so eager to smear Occupy Wall Street as to come out with a story this outlandish without getting their facts straight. Lesson learned.

[Image via AP]