A forensic analyst who reviewed DNA evidence in the strangulation death of University of Texas student Haruka Weiser gave erroneous courtroom testimony in the criminal case of Weiser's attacker, Meechaiel Criner, according to an investigation commissioned by her employer, the Texas Forensics Science Commission.

Jody Koehler, who was a senior scientific adviser for the commission, resigned from her post Aug. 5, two days after an outside panel released a 60-page report accusing her of professional negligence for incorrectly testifying in a pretrial hearing that Criner could be excluded from a DNA sample taken from Weiser's thigh.

“Ms. Koehler provided inaccurate testimony as to the results and conclusions of the DNA analysis in Criner," the report reads. "This erroneous testimony impacted the criminal case by substantially affecting the integrity of the results and conclusions presented.”

Weiser, a UT freshman dance major from Portland, Ore., was walking down a dimly lit path along Waller Creek in April 2016 when Criner approached from behind and strangled her with a tow rope, prosecutors have said. Criner, who is serving a life sentence in prison after a Travis County jury convicted him of capital murder last summer, also was accused of sexually assaulting Weiser.

Koehler testified at a June 20, 2018, pretrial hearing that Criner's defense lawyers called to discuss the admissibility of DNA evidence. Koehler, at the time, was working for the Forensics Science Commission, but her testimony was related to testing she had done with her previous employer, the Texas Department of Public Safety, where she held the title of DNA manager for the crime laboratory.

Neither Koehler nor the DPS responded to messages requesting comment Friday.

Ten times, according to the recent report, Koehler testified that Criner's DNA could be excluded from being present in sample that also contained Weiser's DNA. That finding was incorrect, and Koehler's explanation for the error in May 2019 was unsatisfactory, according to the report.

"In her written response to the panel, Ms. Koehler wholly failed to address this discrepancy or provide a reason for her inaccurate testimony beyond repeatedly saying 'I misspoke,'" the report states. "While 'I misspoke' might be appropriate if this was an isolated instance during testimony and the bulk of her testimony supported the true conclusion, repeating or agreeing with an unsupported conclusion 10 times and offering an explanation of 'I misspoke' is simply unacceptable."

The review panel theorized that Koehler inadvertently wrote down the wrong conclusion.

The hearing ended with state District Judge David Wahlberg tossing out most of the DNA evidence in the case, but not because of Koehler's testimony, which was not known to be false at the time. Rather, Wahlberg found that Koehler, through her own testimony, did not follow the Department of Public Safety's multistep standard operating procedure for new DNA-testing software she used to review her manual interpretation of the samples.

Criner's defense attorney, Darla Davis, said Friday she has known Koehler for many years and called her "a consummate professional."

"No matter if I was a prosecutor or a defense attorney, she never had a problem telling me something I didn't want to hear," Davis said. "She never would shade anything to be more favorable to the state or to the defense. She was just a straight-up scientist."

The three-person panel that investigated Koehler's false testimony consisted of Dawn Boswell, chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit for the Tarrant County criminal district attorney’s office, and two employees with the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification: Christina Capt, technical leader of the Forensic Casework Division, and Michael Coble, associate director.