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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.

6 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.
  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: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."

  4. 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.