Reader’s Choice

Why Aren’t Police Solving

More Murders With
Genealogy Websites?
Science Writing by Adam Janos

Background
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • (t) ©Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock, (b) ©TEK Image/Science Source

This news article discusses an online DNA database, called

GED Match, that law enforcement is starting to use in
criminal investigations. These databases, which contain
genetic samples and information, are similar to genetic
databases people use to trace their genealogy, or family ancestors.

1
G enetic genealogy entered the public spotlight on April 24, 2018.
That was the day Joseph DeAngelo, then 72 years old, was
arrested for the crimes of “the Golden State Killer,” a serial murderer-
rapist who’d victimized dozens in California during the 1970s and ’80s.
2 Despite all the publicity those crimes drew, authorities had no
credible leads for decades. But that changed when investigators
uploaded crime-scene DNA from a rape kit onto GED Match—an
online DNA database, similar to the more widely known site
Ancestry.com. GED Match linked the perpetrator’s DNA to several
distant relatives. Using that information, investigators built a family

Why Aren’t Police Solving More Murders With Genealogy Websites? 1

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tree, which in turn brought them to DeAngelo. After surreptitiously1

collecting some of DeAngelo’s DNA through an item he had discarded,
they got an alleged match to their killer, and made the arrest.
3 In the many months since, crime-solving via genetic genealogy has
proliferated. In 2018 alone, investigators nationwide made more than
20 arrests in cold cases. But given that there are thousands of murders
in America every year, of which 40 percent go unsolved, it begs the
question: Why aren’t DNA databases being used to solve even more
crimes? Couldn’t those numbers be even higher?

A Matter of Resources
4 One of the issues slowing down the use of the technology is money,
says Jeff Dreher, chief investigator of the El Dorado County District
Attorney’s Office and the commander of the El Dorado Cold Case Task
Force.
5 Dreher’s task force helped solve two cold cases2 with genetic
genealogy in 2018, using GED Match to identify the late Joseph Holt
as the killer of Brynn Rainey and Carol Andersen, two young women
murdered in the late 1970s.
6 Solving those murders cost the task force $5,000, Dreher says—
money that went to Parabon NanoLabs, which used the DNA to create
a family tree for investigators, allowing them to narrow their focus
onto three brothers.
7 On the case-by-case level, that certainly represents a good deal,
Dreher says.
8 “When you talk about personnel hours that I’d be spending on
trying to develop a family tree, the cost is relatively cheap,” Dreher
says. Still, Dreher says his task force has 60 cold cases. Add in all of the
county’s active homicide cases, and the numbers quickly start to add
up.
9 “A lot of stuff comes back to budget,” he says. But Dreher doesn’t
think the finances are the main thing causing investigators to give
pause before using GED Match and genetic genealogy.
10 It’s more an issue of whether what they’re doing is legal or not.

Legal Challenges of Using DNA Databases

11 Many people who upload their DNA into online databases are
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

interested in knowing about their distant cousins, or what percentage

Cherokee they are. They aren’t trying to inadvertently rat their uncles
out to the cops.
12 David Kaye, a law professor at Penn State whose research focuses
on the law of evidence, genetics and forensic science, says there’s no
real historical precedent for a database that causes you to hand family
members over to the police.

1
surreptitiously (sûr- ∂p-t∆sh´∂s l∞): done by stealth or secret means.
2
cold cases: an unsolved criminal investigation.

Why Aren’t Police Solving More Murders With Genealogy Websites? 2

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13 “The analogy has always been to fingerprints,” Kaye says. But

that analogy is weak, he says, because “the analogy [should be to]
people who submit their fingerprints to a central repository.” Even
then, the comparison is imprecise, because fingerprints are only self-
incriminating. They don’t bring police to your relatives.
14 Presently, the use of DNA databases remains an unresolved legal
question. But just because Pandora’s box3 is open doesn’t mean it’ll
stay that way. There have been plenty of times when crime-catching
technology was scaled back by the courts.
15 Police around the country were doing a lot of electronic
eavesdropping in the ’50s and ’60s, but ultimately had to desist
when a Supreme Court decision ruled against warrantless telephone
surveillance in 1967. In 2018, warrantless monitoring of smartphone
GPS records to place criminals at the scene of the crime was similarly
struck down.
16 Given that track record, Dreher says his offices are careful not to
lean too heavily on DNA databases while that verdict hangs over them.
17 “This is so new that the public might not agree with us doing it,” he
says. “So for us, it’s a tool, but we should close out our other leads until
we get a court hearing and determine that it’s legal.”
18 But Dreher is quick to add: It should be legal.
19 “We’re using consented samples provided by individuals… We’re
not doing anything to covertly get information that wasn’t provided
voluntarily.”

Can the Bigger DNA Databases Provide More Clues?

20 While GED Match cooperates with authorities, subscription-based
websites like Ancestry.com have explicitly stated that they won’t share
their users’ information with law enforcement unless subpoenaed4 to
do so.
21 That curtails5 the strength of police DNA searches. Ancestry.com
is gigantic, with more than 20 million users having uploaded DNA
onto their database. GED Match, which allows police to access their
data, is comparably small, with approximately one million users—5
percent of Ancestry’s base.
22 It would be complicated for investigators trying to get access
to Ancestry’s more robust database. For one, the databases work
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

differently.
23 At GED Match, users upload DNA information. That means
investigators can take whatever DNA was left at a crime scene (e.g.,
blood, semen, skin cells) and use it as the basis for the match. With
Ancestry, users send in saliva samples, which Ancestry technicians
then analyze in their lab.

3
Pandora’s box: a source of many unforeseen troubles.
4
subpoenaed (s∂-p∞´n∂d): ordered by a court or other government body.
5
curtails: cuts short or reduces.

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24 But if investigators were somehow able to work around that

problem and get into Ancestry’s system, according to Kaye, that
“sneakiness” might not be illegal.
25 “They do undercover investigations,” Kaye says. “What’s the
difference?”

Is DNA Evidence from a Database Reliable?

26 But not all evidence is sound. As such, Dreher says his office will
continue to take things slow.
27 “It’s so new at this point,” Dreher says. “We don’t want to make
a habit of putting all our eggs in one basket… but when fingerprints
were first used, we weren’t 100 percent sure about how confident we
could be. Now we are. I think this’ll be the same type of thing.”
28 When that happens, Dreher says his county will start applying
GED Match in earnest, in a myriad6 of contexts: to put names on
unidentified remains, in active murder and rape investigations.
29 “We’re scraping the surface of the possibilities,” he says.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

6
myriad (mĭr´ē-∂d): very large number.

“Why Aren't Police Solving More Murders with Genealogy Websites?” by Adam Janos from https://www.aetv.
com/, March 29, 2019. Text copyright © 2020 by A&E Television Networks, LLC. Reprinted by permission of
A&E Television Networks, LLC.

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