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Indiana Murder Suspect Found by Using Genealogical Website

posted by mrpg on Wednesday July 18 2018, @03:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the gotta-attac dept.

takyon writes:

Murder suspect due in U.S. court after DNA cracks open 1988 case

A 59-year-old Indiana man will be formally charged on Thursday with the 1988 murder of an eight-year-old girl after the decades-old cold case was cracked open by DNA evidence linked to a genealogical website, authorities said on Tuesday.

John Miller of Grabill, Indiana, was arrested in nearby Fort Wayne on Sunday after DNA evidence and records on publicly accessible genealogical websites helped investigators track him down. Investigators followed a pattern similar to that used to track down the "Golden State Killer" in California earlier this year.

Miller on Monday was preliminarily charged with murder, child molestation and confinement of someone under 14 years old, 30 years after eight-year-old April Tinsley was found dead in a ditch. He has been ordered held without bond.

If you don't hand over your DNA, you want child murderers to frolic in freedom.

Related: DNA From Genealogy Site Led to Capture of Golden State Killer Suspect
GEDmatch: "What If It Was Called Police Genealogy?"
DNA Collected from Golden State Killer Suspect's Car, Leading to Arrest
Another Alleged Murderer Shaken Out of the Family Tree
'Martyr of the A10': DNA Leads to France Arrests Over 1987 Murder
DNA Methylation Can Reveal Information About Criminal Suspects

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 18 2018, @11:07PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday July 18 2018, @11:07PM (#709075) Journal

    Samples are handled differently state-by-state [aclu.org]. Even if the sample is used for research, it might not be associated with an individual's name, or fully sequenced. California's criminal database is worse, and it's likely expanding:

    https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/03/golden-state-killer-case-why-is-california-fighting-over-collecting-criminals-dna/ [mercurynews.com]

    “It’s been a struggle to bring DNA in California to the forefront” as a forensic crime-scene investigation tool, Bruce Harrington said at last week’s news conference announcing the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, who allegedly killed Harrington’s brother Keith and sister-in-law in 1980.

    Harrington met with what he called a “buzz-saw of opposition” in the Legislature in the 1990s over his efforts to get California to create a DNA database. Ultimately, voters in 2004 approved Proposition 69, which required DNA collection from all felons. California now maintains the largest state DNA database in the country and the third largest in the world.

    Harrington is now backing a proposed initiative called the “Reducing Crime and Keeping California Safe Act of 2018,” which he said is needed to restore the DNA collection requirement for certain crimes that a recent criminal justice reform measure, Proposition 47 in 2014, reduced to misdemeanors.

    https://ballotpedia.org/California_Violent_Crime_Definition,_DNA_Collection,_and_Parole_Initiative_(2020) [ballotpedia.org]

    The California Violent Crime Definition, DNA Collection, and Parole Initiative is on the November 3, 2020 in California as an initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.

    The initiative was designed to add crimes to the list of violent felonies for which early parole is restricted, require DNA collection for certain misdemeanors, recategorize certain crimes of misdemeanor theft as felonies, and make changes to parole rules and proceedings. The ballot initiative would make changes to Proposition 47 (2014) and Proposition 57 (2016), which were both designed to reduce the prison inmate population.

    [...] The measure would require persons convicted of specified misdemeanors to submit to collection of DNA samples for state database.

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  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:00AM (1 child)

    by captain normal (2205) on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:00AM (#709139)

    Violent crime DNA database is way different from collecting DNA from all new born babies.

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