DALLAS — It all started the same way for the victims: a hole drilled into their locked door, followed by burglars who took their most valuable belongings.

It's a burglary case that extends across North Texas, and News 8 has learned that important DNA evidence in that case could be in jeopardy because of a botched search warrant.

In all, 30 burgalries have been linked to the crime spree — six from apartments in Uptown Dallas.

The burglars who hit Uptown liked to make themselves at home by eating and drinking food inside apartments as they committed the crimes.

Dallas police obtained a search warrant for DNA to compare it to the suspect, Dustin Kienzlen. But there were big mistakes in the warrant that was written by Detective Mike Walton, who is also the president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

"Does it need to be accurate? Yes. Is it a mistake that needs to be corrected? Yes," said Dallas police spokesman Lt. Vernon Hale.

Walton wrote the Uptown warrant using a sample from an unrelated sex assault case, but he failed to remove statements related to the sex assault.

That means there was false information in the warrant, including facts about taking swabs from underwear to check for DNA.

"Certainly detectives and officers make mistakes every day," Lt. Hale said. "Do we want information to be as accurate and clean as possible? Certainly."

The district attorney's office tells News 8 that Detective Walton's warrant will most likely be tossed out, but other good evidence remains. The DA doesn't believe the Uptown burglaries case is in jeopardy.

"I'm the FOP president. That's why it's being made a big deal," Detective Walton said in a statement. "I made a mistake and we're rectifying it now."

But mistakes on warrants can be critical. In 2005, three alleged drug dealers were set free because of a mistake on a warrant.

In that case, police had seized millions of dollars in drugs and money and had to throw out the case.

Detective Walton is not permitted to work on any new cases until he's had more training.

E-mail rlopez@wfaa.com