from the should-not-leave-your-DNA-lying-around-where-others-can-find-it dept.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/06/02/us/golden-state-killer-unsealed-warrants/index.html
When the suspected Golden State Killer drove into a Hobby Lobby parking lot in April, investigators were waiting nearby. As he walked into the craft store, it gave them a perfect chance to collect a secret DNA sample.
Police swabbed the driver's side handle of [the suspect's] car, according to arrest and search warrants released Friday.
Authorities sent it for testing and matched it to semen recovered at some of the Golden State Killer's crime scenes, the arrest warrant said.
[...] The stop at the Hobby Lobby was just one of several ways investigators used to zero in on a suspect. Earlier this year, police tracked him down by comparing genetic profiles from genealogy websites to crime scene DNA, according to investigators.
On April 23, a day before his arrest, police say they collected multiple samples from a trash can outside DeAngelo's home in Citrus Heights, a town 16 miles northeast of Sacramento. They had watched the home for three days, the warrant said.
Previously: DNA From Genealogy Site Led to Capture of Golden State Killer Suspect
GEDmatch: "What If It Was Called Police Genealogy?"
Related Stories
The Orange County Register reports:
[...] one of California's most prolific serial killers and rapists was caught by using online genealogical sites to find a DNA match, prosecutors said Thursday. Investigators compared the DNA collected from a crime scene of the Golden State Killer to online genetic profiles and found a match: a relative of the man police have identified as [the suspect, who was arrested.]
[...] Authorities didn't give the name of the site, one of many, like Ancestry and 23andMe, that allow people to send in their DNA and find long-lost relatives. [...] Contacted Friday, representatives of both Ancestry and 23andMe.com said the sites weren't involved in the case.
Police submitted a DNA sample under a fake name to GEDmatch, an online DNA-matching/genealogy service, in order to capture a man they suspect to be the "Golden State Killer". Science Magazine interviewed Yaniv Erlich, who warned back in 2014 that GEDmatch could be used for law enforcement purposes:
The Associated Press and the Everett Washington HeraldNet carry a story about a 30 year old double murder solved using Public Genealogy Sites similar to the Golden State Killer story carried here on SoylentNews.
Deaths of two Canadian visitors shopping in the Seattle area were unsolved since 1987.
The deaths remained a mystery for more than 30 years, until DNA led to a major breakthrough. A genealogist, CeCe Moore, worked with experts at Parabon NanoLabs to build a family tree for the suspect, based on the genetic evidence recovered from the crime scenes. They used data that had been uploaded by distant cousins to public genealogy websites. They pinpointed a suspect, Talbott, a trucker living north of Sea-Tac International Airport.
Police kept him under surveillance until a paper cup fell from his truck in Seattle in early May. A swab of DNA from the cup came back as a match to the evidence that had waited 30 years. Before then, Talbott had never been considered a suspect. Days later he was in handcuffs.
This time the police used Parabon NanoLabs (more well-known for generating facial models from mere samples of DNA) to build a family tree of the killer by submitting the 30 year old crime scene DNA samples to multiple genealogy sites.
Results from those sites were combined by a Parabon genealogist to map the family of distant cousins found in those data bases. Police were then able to narrow down the list using other methods unmentioned.
Neither article mentions if any family members were stalked by police while being eliminated as suspects, or whether any samples were submitted by other family members.
Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
'Martyr of the A10': DNA leads to France arrests over 1987 murder
French police have arrested a couple 31 years after their daughter was found dead, in a cold case revived through DNA evidence. The mutilated body of the child, named by police as Inass, was found by a motorway in central France in 1987. The parents were traced after the DNA of their son, tested in an unrelated case, was matched with that of the girl, French media report.
[...] In 2008, her DNA was formally identified, and the related information registered in a national genetic prints database. However no identification was made at that stage. The case was reopened in 2012 when a call for witnesses was released with a picture of the dead girl's face and the caption: "Who is she?"
The apparent breakthrough in the case happened when a man was arrested over a violent incident in 2016. His DNA reportedly identified him as the victim's brother. Months of investigation then led police to the parents.
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
Crime scene DNA could be used to reveal a suspect's age—and whether they have cancer
A drop of blood left by a suspect at a crime scene is a treasure trove for forensic scientists. Genetic information extracted from such biological samples can be compared against DNA databases to see whether a sample's DNA sequence is a match for any known offenders, for example. To protect individuals' privacy, these analyses, known as DNA fingerprinting, are normally restricted to parts of the genome not involved in creating proteins. But in some countries, investigators hoping to narrow down their pool of suspects are allowed to identify certain protein-coding sequences that can help predict skin or eye color. And soon, scientists may be able to find out even more from an offender's DNA—including their age.
A new forensic approach analyzes the chemical tags attached to DNA, rather than genetic sequences themselves. These molecules, which can switch genes on and off, get added onto DNA throughout our life span in a process called DNA methylation. And because the patterns of DNA methylation change as we age, they could provide a good indication of how old a suspect is.
But this technique could inadvertently reveal a lot more about a suspect's health and lifestyle [DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2018.03.006] [DX], raising tricky legal and ethical questions that may demand new privacy safeguards, scientists suggest in a commentary in the July issue of Trends in Genetics.
A brief interview with two of the authors is included in TFA.
Related: Better DNA Hair Analysis for Catching Criminals
Creating Wanted Posters from DNA Samples
The Problems With DNA Evidence
Study Predicts Appearance From Genome Sequence Data
GEDmatch: "What If It Was Called Police Genealogy?"
DNA Collected from Golden State Killer Suspect's Car, Leading to Arrest
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
If you're white, live in the United States, and a distant relative has uploaded their DNA to a public ancestry database, there's a good chance an internet sleuth can identify you from a DNA sample you left somewhere. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that by combining an anonymous DNA sample with some basic information such as someone's rough age, researchers could narrow that person's identity to fewer than 20 people by starting with a DNA database of 1.3 million individuals.
Such a search could potentially allow the identification of about 60% of white Americans from a DNA sample—even if they have never provided their own DNA to an ancestry database. "In a few years, it's really going to be everyone," says study leader Yaniv Erlich, a computational geneticist at Columbia University.
The study was sparked by the April arrest of the alleged "Golden State Killer," a California man accused of a series of decades-old rapes and murders. To find him—and more than a dozen other criminal suspects since then—law enforcement agencies first test a crime scene DNA sample, which could be old blood, hair, or semen, for hundreds of thousands of DNA markers—signposts along the genome that vary among people, but whose identity in many cases are shared with blood relatives. They then upload the DNA data to GEDmatch, a free online database where anyone can share their data from consumer DNA testing companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com to search for relatives who have submitted their DNA. Searching GEDMatch's nearly 1 million profiles revealed several relatives who were the equivalent to third cousins to the crime scene DNA linked to the Golden State Killer. Other information such as genealogical records, approximate age, and crime locations then allowed the sleuths to home in on a single person.
Even if you can convince your entire immediate family to not use these services, you could still be vulnerable. And the success rate is likely to climb over time for all racial groups. Maybe the tests could be subsidized to get more of the population to give up the goods.
Also at LA Times
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
Indiana Murder Suspect Found by Using Genealogical Website
DNA Databases in the U.S. and China Are Tools of Racial Oppression
Two major world powers, the United States and China, have both collected an enormous number of DNA samples from their citizens, the premise being that these samples will help solve crimes that might have otherwise gone unsolved. While DNA evidence can often be crucial when it comes to determining who committed a crime, researchers argue these DNA databases also pose a major threat to human rights.
In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a DNA database called the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) that currently contains over 14 million DNA profiles. This database has a disproportionately high number of profiles of black men, because black Americans are arrested five times as much as white Americans. You don't even have to be convicted of a crime for law enforcement to take and store your DNA; you simply have to have been arrested as a suspect.
[...] As for China, a report that was published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in mid-June claims that China is operating the "world's largest police-run DNA database" as part of its powerful surveillance state. Chinese authorities have collected DNA samples from possibly as many as 70 million men since 2017, and the total database is believed to contain as many as 140 million profiles. The country hopes to collect DNA from all of its male citizens, as it argues men are most likely to commit crimes.
DNA is reportedly often collected during what are represented as free physicals, and it's also being collected from children at schools. There are reports of Chinese citizens being threatened with punishment by government officials if they refuse to give a DNA sample. Much of the DNA that's been collected has been from Uighur Muslims that have been oppressed by the Chinese government and infamously forced into concentration camps in the Xinjiang province.
Related:
EFF to Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment Covers DNA Collection
EFF Sues Justice Dept. Over FBI's Rapid DNA Plans
Kuwait Creating Mandatory DNA Database of All Citizens, Residents--and Visitors
San Diego Police Department Accused of Unlawful DNA Collection From Minors
Massive DNA Collection Campaign in Xinjiang, China
Study Predicts Appearance From Genome Sequence Data
GEDmatch: "What If It Was Called Police Genealogy?"
Bavarian Law Broadens Police Surveillance and DNA Profiling Powers
DNA Collected from Golden State Killer Suspect's Car, Leading to Arrest
Another Alleged Murderer Shaken Out of the Family Tree
Indiana Murder Suspect Found by Using Genealogical Website
Public Ancestry Data Can be Used to Narrow Down the Identity Behind an Anonymous DNA Sample
Rapid DNA Analysis Machines Coming to Police Departments
FamilyTreeDNA Deputizes Itself, Starts Pitching DNA Matching Services To Law Enforcement
Genealogy Sites Have Helped Identify Suspects. Now They've Helped Convict One
U.S. to Collect DNA of All Undocumented Migrants
US Court Let Police Search GEDmatch's Entire DNA Database Despite Protections
China Uses DNA to Map Faces, With Help From the West
Cousin Took a DNA Test? Courts Could Use it to Argue You are More Likely to Commit Crimes
Ancestry Says Police Requested Access To Its DNA Database
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday June 04 2018, @03:19PM (9 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 04 2018, @04:01PM (2 children)
Are you sure about that? The coverage I've read (admittedly not a lot) has implied this case was basically solely solved through DNA. And they went after the wrong people [washingtonpost.com] first, surreptitiously taking DNA in questionable ways:
That guy didn't pan out, so they tried a different online DNA database (from my link above):
So, yeah, there were "traditional investigative techniques" used after that, but it's unclear what all that entailed. It could have been as little as "Of relatives to this DNA match person, who lives near the attacks? Who's in the right age group?"
Then, it sounds like they went through his garbage, got some DNA. Then they swabbed his car at Hobby Lobby, and got a complete match.
To me, at least from the way it's been presented publicly so far, it sounds like 97% of the investigation was likely DNA-based. Sure, there will now be corroborating evidence (hopefully) based on things they figured out once they had an idea of who it was. But actually finding the "right guy" sounds like it was almost all based on DNA.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Monday June 04 2018, @06:34PM
Exactly.
But they had a complete semen DNA sample from back in the day. They had already been able to reduce the pool to specific racial profile, as well as other genetic markers. They weren't interested in huge swaths of the population by that point. So they submitted it to the DNA service INTENTIONALLY to gain a familial match, which is what this service specialized in. This was the only real "Hail Mary" play in the whole investigation.
Once you know it is a relative of a particular person (himself too young to be involved) you work outward from there.
Standard police work. Forget the Females, Eliminate the males one by one, wrong age, not present at the time, DNA already in (one of the) systems, already dead, already in custody, bats for the other team.
By this time you've probably got it down to less than 10. (swag).
Then start collecting DNA. Maybe you just ASK those you least suspect.
Maybe you dig through trash, watch for publicly discarded items.
I'd guess by that time you are down to two or three people.
There is a LOT of this case that is just dogged police work.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday June 04 2018, @09:24PM
But only one bit of that was the swab from the car.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 04 2018, @04:14PM (5 children)
Also...
Agreed. At least, that's the way it should be.
The problem is -- juries don't tend to be very "reasonable," particularly when it comes to evaluating scientific evidence, and particularly when it involves statistics. And there have been a number of cases where convictions solely on the basis of DNA have had serious statistical errors in the way evidence was presented, leading to bad convinctions. Unfortunately, the public only tends to hear about the crazy cases where the police make severe blunders with DNA (e.g., it turns out that the supposed suspect has an ironclad alibi and was thousands of miles away).
Juries think of TV shows like CSI and assume when DNA comes into the picture, it must be rock-solid. It likely leads to quite a few innocent convictions each year, not to mention cases where DNA evidence is initially used for things like coercive interrogation that can generate a false confession -- which then can lead to a conviction even if the DNA evidence turns out to be inconclusive.
(I'm not saying any of this applies to the present case with the Golden State Killer -- only that in many cases lots of people often assume police do very diligent investigations, but the actual positive evidence for conviction can be surprisingly slim. Often it's just a "good story" that prosecutors make up to try to connect the dots...)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 04 2018, @06:42PM (4 children)
Name one.
Virtually all DNA based cases that have yielded wrongful convictions have been due to contamination of original crime seen collections, (accidental or intentional).
Statistical errors are virtually unheard of, because the Defense gets to have their own experts test the DNA as well.
DNA evidence exonerates far more people than it convicts.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday June 05 2018, @02:28AM
First, I should be clear that what I meant was serious statistical misrepresentations in the way evidence was presented. Sometimes it's due to actual errors, but more often it's just playing off a jury's ignorance and when they hear "DNA match," they just assume it's ironclad.
There have been loads of coverage of the potential problems with this sort of thing in recent years. See articles about it here [sciencemag.org], here [theatlantic.com], here [innocenceproject.org], here [pbs.org], here [latimes.com]. And the FBI even admitted [usatoday.com] to a pattern of statistical errors in DNA calculations over 15 years. Granted, the magnitude of the FBI errors mentioned in the last link may have been small enough not to cause wrongful convictions, but if such errors could go overlooked for a long time, it's certainly likely that other estimates are sometimes off.
That's likely true, but we probably are significantly less likely to find out about wrongful convictions due to statistical error or misrepresentation, since usually it's significantly harder to challenge a ruling where a match was found. Evidence of contamination is a clear reason to challenge a ruling, but proving that a statistical misrepresentation (or even a blunder) had an effect on a jury is a lot harder.
If you're referred to ERRONEOUS cases, yes DNA is probably much more likely to be used to exonerate a bad conviction than to be used to erroneously convict. But again, part of the issue is that DNA evidence is seen by many juries (and judges) without nuance -- a "match" is a match, and so we just may not have gotten to a big wave of challenges yet because not enough judges are convinced to examine an appeal on this basis yet.
I'm not saying it's hugely widespread in leading to false convictions. But exaggeration of DNA matches has happened and is definitely a problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday June 05 2018, @02:39AM (2 children)
I should also say there are a number of wrongful trials, investigations, and convictions buried in the links I gave (and things they link to), but if you want one piece focused on a specific wrongful conviction due to bad DNA stats, see here [gizmodo.com].
The link contains the following disturbing information concerning samples from crime scenes where there is a mixture of DNA:
That study was also mentioned in some of the links in my previous post. Lots of labs don't have adequate standards to deal with this sort of stuff or estimate potential error. Chances are there are quite a few bad convictions out there.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:45AM (1 child)
Again, made up tests. Fake situations.
Defense lawyers make mince meat out of those cases.
Defense lawyers hire their own labs. And labs are getting more plentiful to find.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Touché) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday June 06 2018, @04:20AM
Did you even bother to look at ANY of the links? If you just look at the link in the post you replied to, there was a detailed discussion of a an actual case of an actual person who was convicted in basically just like this. You asked for me to name ONE case. There's one. Read. Learn. Stop being an ignorant ass. Then explore the manifold links in my previous post and see a multitude of other actual cases.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday June 04 2018, @05:21PM (8 children)
Must be fun to try to get a DNA sample from a car on a parking lot, hoping that nobody pays enough attention to question your behavior.
Hoping to avoid having to show your warrant before the guy comes back, while making sure nobody blabbers on social media...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @05:37PM (5 children)
these pigs are collecting dna without a warrant by purposely misapplying the law. at least one of these morons knows they are full of shit. they are allowed to collect dna from public places. well, my private car is not a public place just because i'm using a public or private store's parking lot. if some judge has ruled it is, he should be in jail or worse. really, there are two violations most of the time b/c these stores private property rights are being violated. the parking lot is for customers to temporarily park to shop. try using it like it's a public park and see how the store deals with it. the stores just suck pig ass instead of fighting back, though. if we let these pigs do this to actual criminals then they will do it to joe smoe eventually.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:13PM (4 children)
I'll take the flamebait. You only have to get a warrant to obtain something that is protected by law. The exterior of your car is not protected from being swabbed. Your trash is not protected when placed on the street. The stores are not having their property rights violated. The property is private but the space is public. The officers were not loitering. If you don't want the exterior of your car being swabbed then don't leave your house with it.
You need to grow up. The world is a far different place than you wish it could be. No rational person would even remotely consider honoring your warped view of the world.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by donkeyhotay on Monday June 04 2018, @06:55PM
I agree. I know that there are numerous examples of cops overstepping their boundaries, and committing crimes without recrimination recently, but this is not one of those cases. This is a case where the cops actually did some really good and thorough police work in order to catch someone WHO HAS ACTUALLY COMMITTED NUMEROUS CRIMES and who has alluded apprehension for decades. And now this guy will be given a trial in which evidence will be presented, defense will be made, and his guilt or innocence will be confirmed by a jury of his peers. This is how it's supposed to work.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday June 04 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)
My trash is protected when placed on the street in San Diego.
Of course, it's probably not protected from the police, as they work for the city. There may be a minor bureaucratic hurdle to clear, but probably not a warrant.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @11:27PM
Maybe it isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_v._Greenwood [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:07PM
"You only have to get a warrant to obtain something that is protected by law."
that's different. i'm not arguing that they shouldn't be able to get a warrant. if they have just cause to search then let them put it in writing. why is that so much to ask? because they are criminals, obviously.
"The exterior of your car is not protected from being swabbed."
obviously. i'm saying it should be. it's private property temporarily stored in a private company's parking lot for the express purpose of shopping there.
"Your trash is not protected when placed on the street."
are you suggesting just because i park my car in a store's parking lot i relinquish ownership like i do with trash?
"If you don't want the exterior of your car being swabbed then don't leave your house with it."
so i guess they can search your anal cavity without a warrant too, according to your sycophantic world view. a dna swab of non discarded items is a search. period. warrant required.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 04 2018, @06:55PM
Piece of cake.
Especially if the Lot is not on the window side of the building. You casually walk between the rows of cars with swab in hand, pause, pretend to look for your "lost car" while you swab inside the handle. Its literally a 3 second operation.
The guy reading his iphone in the next car won't even notice you or the guy filming you from a beat up looking van for evidence purposes.
To do it right, you need to be reasonably sure that nobody else touched that car, so you might run an alcohol wipe over the handle when its parked at the Safeway store then follow it to the Hobby Lobby store for the swab.
Not that hard. People are oblivious most of the time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Troll) by EvilSS on Monday June 04 2018, @08:55PM
"Excuse me but why are you putting lube on that car's tailpipe?"
"Police business sir, please move along"