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Genealogy Websites Were Key To Big Break In Golden State Killer Case (nytimes.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the needle-in-the-haystack dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report from The New York Times: The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims all across the state of California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data. But it was technology that got him. The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested by the police on Tuesday. Investigators accuse him of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders. Investigators used DNA from crime scenes and plugged that genetic profile into a commercial online genealogy database. They found distant relatives of Mr. DeAngelo's and traced their DNA to him.

"We found a person that was the right age and lived in this area -- and that was Mr. DeAngelo," said Steve Grippi, the assistant chief in the Sacramento district attorney's office. Investigators then obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called "abandoned" DNA samples from Mr. DeAngelo. "You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain," she said. The test result confirmed the match to more than 10 murders in California. Ms. Schubert's office then obtained a second sample and came back with the same positive result, matching the full DNA profile. Representatives at 23andMe and other gene testing services denied on Thursday that they had been involved in identifying the killer.

31 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. This is one side by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused. It's an awesome power and power is very corrupting. This needs serious regulation...ironclad. But of course that wont happen.

    1. Re:This is one side by Excelcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From a public safety and for the interests of the state, this is a good outcome. But for any particular individual contemplating sending their DNA in to one of those sites, there is no good side. In this case it's a serial rapist and murderer. Queue the ticker tape parade. But your personal interests can only be harmed. This is becoming more like Gattaca every day. If any piece of random sloughed off skin is public domain, then at some point everywhere I've been, everything I do becomes public domain. Which bodes ill if there is a rare book I happen to touch immediately before or after a serial killer. If, for example, it's known that a suspect touched this book, my DNA on it suddenly puts me in the running for man of the hour. This is just one example, and an unlikely one to be sure, but I honestly can't think of any use of my randomly shed DNA in correlation with these genetic genealogy sites that serves my self interest.

    2. Re:This is one side by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused.

      While the end result is positive for society, this is already abuse.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    3. Re:This is one side by goose-incarnated · · Score: 2

      This is the good side of DNA databases. This data can also be abused. It's an awesome power and power is very corrupting. This needs serious regulation...ironclad. But of course that wont happen.

      Yeah, the bad side is that people making judgements using DNA as evidence are bad at at stats. DNA evidence only "works" due to limited number of suspects. When you're comparing DNA to the entire population you're going to get quite a thousand false positives. When you have 10 suspects and one of them as a "match" (and I use that term loosely) then you can be pretty sure he's the one.

      When you compare against a database of 300m, you're going to get tens of thousands matching close enough.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    4. Re:This is one side by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      Presumably they used the familial matches to get probable cause to compel an actual sample from the man himself.

      There's a legitimate Facebook-style privacy concern in that the actions of my family members can provide personal information about me, but unless California has some pretty crazy laws regarding obtaining DNA from suspects and admissibility in court, there shouldn't be any complaints on that end.

  2. In this case, they catch a killer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    but what about other cases, where the state desperately wants to hunt down someone (for whatever reason, not necessary for murder) --- will they employ similar tactic?

    Looks like the West is not that far behind China, or North Korea, or Russia, in terms of BIG BROTHERHOOD

    1. Re:In this case, they catch a killer by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dubai and Estonia are actually leading.

  3. Not so fast! by SirAstral · · Score: 2, Insightful

    https://www.theguardian.com/co...

    There is growing concern over stuff like this. DNA tests often only test a small subset of information which means that false positives are possible and when you have a whole database to match against the greater that chance of a false positive happening.

    We already know that law enforcement is sloppy, lazy, and corrupt. Until accuracy and better controls on this data have been instituted then this is going to result in more innocent people getting fucked over while the real criminals get of Scott free with society ignorantly believe it has its man.

    1. Re:Not so fast! by nonBORG · · Score: 2

      Don't worry they can beat a confession out of him now. Seriously do you think he would not be able to find an alibi for however many rapes and murders if he was innocent. They don't just have the DNA here. More scary is witness testimony where it is basically he said she said. DNA may be a little off sometimes but it will rarely work out to the only evidence once they find who it is and investigate.

      --
      You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
    2. Re:Not so fast! by omnichad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They did at least compare his actual DNA with crime scene DNA. The guy is a loner, prone to sudden outbursts to neighbors. At least he fits some sort of profile rather than being taken in on DNA matching alone. That doesn't mean that other cases will fare so well, but there is a lot of evidence to comb through on this guy so it's likely we'll see some sort of successful proof one way or the other.

    3. Re:Not so fast! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      The guy is a loner, prone to sudden outbursts to neighbors.

      You must be tragically stupid if you think the above matters with respect to a person being convicted. Of course, in the corridors of your tiny little
      mind, a person who is a loner MUST somehow be capable of heinous crimes also, right ? And then there are those sudden outbursts ... yeah,
      anyone who does that must be a serial killer.

      You're a dumb shit.

    4. Re:Not so fast! by Ichijo · · Score: 2

      Two unrelated people can have a matching set of DNA markers, so false positives are entirely possible. For that reason, all DNA can do is give you some leads, then you still need real evidence to prove that you have the right person.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    5. Re:Not so fast! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      DNA tests often only test a small subset of information which means that false positives are possible

      The DNA test matched the database on the subset, which identified a suspect. They then did a more exhaustive DNA comparison with the criminal evidence, and came up with an exact match. There is plenty of non-DNA evidence as well. They already suspected the perp was a cop (not sure why they suspected that, maybe something he said or did to one of the victims that survived). He was also in many of the locations on the dates that the crimes occurred.

    6. Re:Not so fast! by SirAstral · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yea, still not a good thing, look at how society reacts to just being a suspect, you are now mostly guilty until proven innocent. Wives will divorce husbands, working fathers will be fired from good jobs, people that know them will ostracize and avoid them, they could lose access to their own children.

      People are so hell bent on getting the bad guy they will happily grind up innocent people along the way with little remorse. This is not even considering things like this...

      https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u...

      20,000 convictions dropped. Heck people have gone to jail over donuts!
      https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

      Lets face it... law enforcement and quality testing are just not friends. They happily rely on shoddy results and questionable evidence to go full assault on someone in their pursuits to apprehend "the innocent criminals."

    7. Re:Not so fast! by SirAstral · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As long as there is other matching evidence I am more agreeable with the testing, but if the only evidence is DNA match that is just not enough.

      While the chances of false positives are low, reality is just too following case of a person being arrested for looking like and having the same first name of a criminal..

      https://nypost.com/2017/06/12/...

      or this one...

      https://www.theguardian.com/us...

      there are 8 billion people on the planet and a lot of people share a lot of similar genetic information name and other identifying information. It is also shocking how much law enforcement is happy to put an innocent person in jail because at least they have someone to arrest just so they can call it a case closed.

      There is a reason we need to make Law enforcement jump through hoops and get warrants to exercise power. They are humans like the criminals they go after. An open database of DNA they can use to scan people with is going to end badly for a lot of people.

      Just becoming a suspect in a case like this will leave an impact and possibly wreck their life! It has happened all too often!

    8. Re:Not so fast! by another_twilight · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're looking at this the wrong way.

      There is certainly a problem with false arrest and conviction, and a culture that treats an arrest as though it were a conviction.
      None of that gets worse because there's a new vector that might point at someone. Sure, now there are people that may not have previously been brought in, and there will certainly be some people who are arrested, even convicted, on poor quality DNA 'evidence', but if the system is broken, it's going to find a scapegoat, regardless of what it relies on.

      This is one more tool to differentiate between the three different suspects you are holding. This is a way to exculpate the poor bastard held for 20 years.

      More information, more accurate information means a greater possibility for more accurate results.

      Demand more of your police. Hold them to higher standards. Denying them better tools for fear that they won't use them well, or may abuse them leads nowhere.

    9. Re:Not so fast! by SirAstral · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nope, looking at it completely the right way.

      The problem does not even approach false arrest and conviction... the problem starts at just becoming a suspect. And your none of that gets worse because of a new vector is not represented in the math. The more suspects the police can create the more they get to put in jail. This also has knock on effects for people with past convictions... sure just one more on the pile won't hurt, and you surely will not get into trouble if you happen to still be on probation while being falsely suspected either huh?

      Stopping the police from going database shopping for DNA like this IS trying to hold them to a higher standard. I am not denying them better tools, I am denying them a bad tool that they definitely won't use well and will definitely abuse.

      Like you said...
      "More information, more accurate information means a greater possibility for more accurate results."

      This is what I want to demand!

    10. Re:Not so fast! by The+Cynical+Critic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      DNA tests not being absolutely 100% accurate has been known since law enforcement started using it as a tool to solve crimes. Anyone raising alarm right now is either decades late or just trying to stir up manufactured controversy.

      The reason why DNA testing is so popular is that a false positive is a literally a one-in-a-million type scenario, which makes it several orders of magnitude more accurate and less likely to provide a false positive than any other investigative tool law enforcement has at it's disposal. There's a reason why a large part of the people who have been convicted and then found innocent in cases from before the use of DNA evidence became widespread have been done so using DNA testing.

      In other words, like any of the investigative tools available to law enforcement, DNA testing is not absolutely 100% accurate, but it is several orders of magnitude more accurate than any other tool available to law enforcement meaning that if you're going to raise alarm over it's accuracy, you ought to raise an even bigger alarm over every other tool they have at their disposal.

      --
      "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
    11. Re: Not so fast! by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Informative

      The Innocence Project exonerated thousands of men unjustly imprisoned. The #1 crime they were falsely accused of? Rape.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    12. Re:Not so fast! by gweihir · · Score: 2

      In other words, an ideal guy to take the fall, even if innocent.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. Such good access by whoda · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So geneology websites are secretely feeding their data to the government? They make it sound like they simply put his data into a 'DNA search engine' on the internet and got a match.

    How distant was the 'distant relative' that they got the original DNA hit from I wonder?

    1. Re:Such good access by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

      How distant was the 'distant relative' that they got the original DNA hit from I wonder?

      It was Lucy.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:Such good access by omnichad · · Score: 5, Informative

      They used an ancestry-type DNA service and submitted it as if they were a consumer. These sites match you up with potential relatives already. The government didn't really need anything other than the DNA service's risky privacy policy.

    3. Re:Such good access by Dorianny · · Score: 2, Insightful
      They are not so secretly selling access to their data to anyone that is willing to pay! Why do you think they are so eager to analyze your spit so cheaply. Match it up with other big data and it's marketers dream, imagine being able to identify targets that fit the genetic profile of people predisposed to poor impulse control.

      Most likely the investigators simply bought access in order to avoid getting one of those pesky search warrants

  5. Sorry, I don't think so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, it's pretty nice they finally nabbed a guy whom they think is the killer. Still have to give him a fair trial, as is due.

    But no, this is already very, very disturbing. To wit: "You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain" the goverment official says. Yes you do, everywhere, involuntary. Meaning that to have any privacy left you can't go to any public place. In fact, if you want to have any privacy left, you can't have any relative, even a distant one, go to any public place, ever. This "a public place" starts right at your door. Hey, even your airco's exhaust is public, and it will contain your dna, so... etc.

    So while I don't disagree it's nice to have finally found a very likely suspect in the case (but still only a suspect, not convicted yet!), to do it they had to destroy all privacy forever. "Only for murder cases" you say. I have seen in other cases and fully expect to see here that it won't stay that way. Soon it'll be for everything, down to getting loans, or even China style, for getting on the bus. So no.

    I don't think destroying all privacy forever to nab a suspect is such a good idea.

    1. Re: Sorry, I don't think so by rogoshen1 · · Score: 2

      If the government was to create a database of every citizen's DNA (or realistically due to network effects; some fraction of the population) people would be justifiably horrified.

      If a private company starts down that road, it's the reaction of a Luddite to find that disconcerting?

      The problem is that in the current US political and technological landscape. The line between what the government *WANTS* and what it can do *ITSELF* is utterly irrelevant:

      "Hi Mr. 23 and me CEO? Hi yes, i'm so and so from the DOJ; I'm calling because we're going to need full access to your customer data on an ongoing basis. Unless you want to be strung up for obstructing justice. Yes of course you'll have our total discretion. Thank you."

      And this is before any backdoors are built into networking equipment and the like. Don't be naive, if it exists electronically and/or is on US soil, anything a private company can build, the government with the right rubber stamped document can access.

    2. Re:Sorry, I don't think so by Rakarra · · Score: 2

      I'm pretty sure my cats, who are indoor only and have never been outside the house (except to the vet) have their DNA all over the city at the places I visit by now.

  6. DNA is a perfect match, however... by tomhath · · Score: 2

    If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit.

  7. Ah, geneology sites... by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're the genetic counterpart of Facebook. Even when you explicitly don't sign on for that crap, you're still swept up in it. It's good that they caught the guy and all; but it's going to be bad when insurance companies and potential employers use genealogy databases to deny coverage and jobs to blood relatives of those who have 'undesirable' or 'risky' something-something-somethings.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  8. Criminal twin by Caerdwyn · · Score: 2

    I have a twin brother who is a criminal with a lengthy record; the only reason he's not still a guest of the State of Washington is changes in Washington's Three Strike laws.

    Like HELL I'm going to let these websites set me up for false accusation for his crimes.

    By the way: if the government falsely accuses you of a crime and it costs you a six figure legal bill to defend yourself, too bad. You're out the money, and no prosecutor in the world gives a damn about that or has any incentives to not do so. Had to sell your house? Too bad.

    --
    Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
  9. This time it's different by eric_harris_76 · · Score: 2

    The first guy they matched that way turned out not to be the one, on examination of his own DNA. Oopsie!

    --
    There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.