BAR HARBOR — If Maine had had a DNA database when 18-year-old Lisa Garland’s body was discovered in an Alton gravel pit, her murder might have been solved immediately and a 15-year-old York girl might have escaped the horror of being raped, stabbed and left for dead by Garland’s killer.

Without the technology, however, David Fleming was able to elude police for eight months, during which time he attacked and nearly killed the York teen.

Law enforcement officials and prosecutors hope new technology on its way to Maine, combined with legislation requiring most convicted felons to donate DNA samples to the state’s crime lab, will help to avert such a recurrence.

DNA experts from the FBI and the director of Maine’s crime lab addressed state prosecutors Wednesday about DNA technology and the implementation of a DNA data bank in Maine that reduces the amount of time investigators must wait for crucial criminal evidence.

DNA evidence taken from blood, skin, semen or other bodily fluids or tissues can link a suspect to a crime scene or exonerate suspects.

Construction began earlier this month on a new DNA laboratory at the Maine Crime Lab in Augusta. The $300,000 construction phase of the project is expected to be completed after the first of the year. Staffed by four people, the DNA lab will allow the state to conduct its own DNA analysis. Currently, investigators may wait as long as 16 months to receive a DNA analysis from the FBI lab in Washington, D.C.

Funding from a variety of federal sources will help the state equip the lab, which director Michael Harriman hopes to have operational within a year.

By having the capability to analyze its own DNA evidence, state investigators could receive crucial information about certain crimes within two days, Harriman said.

In addition to analyzing DNA evidence, the state also will establish a DNA data bank that will be filled with deposits provided by convicted felons.

A state law that passed virtually unnoticed in July 1995 mandates that anyone convicted of committing one of 13 of the most serious or violent felonies after Jan. 1, 1996, deposit a vile of blood to the data bank.

The blood sample will undergo a DNA analysis, from which a genetic profile will be logged into the state’s database. The only way for a person to withdraw a deposit is to have the felony conviction overturned by the court.

The 13 applicable crimes are murder, felony murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, aggravated assault, gross sexual assault, sexual abuse of a minor, unlawful sexual contact, criminal restraint, burglary, robbery, arson and aggravated criminal mischief.

Those already incarcerated for those crimes committed after January 1996 also will have to make a blood deposit before being released from prison. Juveniles convicted of those crimes will be subjected to the DNA sampling.

When new DNA evidence is collected from a crime scene, it will be entered into the data bank in search of a match. Such DNA data banks are considered by many law enforcement officials around the country to be the most important identification tool since fingerprinting.

FBI officials on Wednesday said such technology established or being established in 43 states has proven effective, especially in identifying sex offenders, which are among those criminals with the highest chance of repeating a crime after having been released from prison.

Sampling in Maine has not yet begun because the state has not established a method of storing the samples. Harriman expects to begin drawing the blood of felons by the fall of 1997.

Eventually, Harriman said, Maine’s DNA data bank will become part of a national data base known as CODIS (Combined DNA Index System.) CODIS currently is being established by the FBI to enable states to search for suspects nationally.

Harriman hopes it may help solve some of Maine’s unsolved crimes in which investigators have been able to preserve DNA evidence.

DNA isn’t going to be the only new tool available to the state’s prosecutors. Dr. Barry Brown of the FBI provided an overview Wednesday of the agency’s Drugfire program, which soon will be installed in the Maine Crime Lab. Drugfire is a computer technology that matches firearms evidence, bullets, casings and test fires from guns in investigations involving firearms.

It was developed a few years ago by the FBI in an effort to counteract drug and gang shootings related to the introduction of crack cocaine in the United States. The program has expanded rapidly across the country to a national network applicable to any form of crime involving firearms.

Currently, 20 states are using Drugfire, and the goal is to have all states connected so investigators can compare firearm evidence nationally.

When Maine’s system is established, possibly in 30 days, it will be connected to systems in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. Since guns, like fingerprints, leave one-of-a-kind marks, investigators in Maine will be able to determine if a gun used in a Maine crime could be connected to any other investigation in one of those three states.

Also, Maine officials are looking forward to the development of a computerized fingerprinting system that is expected to be established within a year.

The new system will allow investigators to match fingerprints within minutes. Maine police also will have access to fingerprint databases in New Hampshire and Vermont, Harriman said.

The state’s 200,000 sets of fingerprints now are stored on cards. Police say they use the cards mostly to confirm or exonerate a known suspect because finding a match in other cases takes too much time.