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
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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:
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?"
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.
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
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @09:39PM (9 children)
I suppose by now most first-world nations have comprehensive management of future taxpayers, so no kid can just "disappear" anymore. Immediate registration after birth (or after entry from a foreign nation), and at age 5 an invitation to enter school (and follow up if that doesn't happen). If home-schooling is legal, can follow up with an invitation to sign up for ID / health insurance / the draft at near adulthood (and follow up if that doesn't happen).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @09:48PM (1 child)
In the US, a child needs a SSN to be claimed as a dependent on their parents taxes. Thus, most parents apply for a SSN in the first year. So, yes, what happened is getting harder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @10:04PM
The SSN is required to claim credit for your children from your income taxes, but that protects the government from giving tax credits for imaginary children. You need some sort of audit system to catch instances of real children disappearing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @10:03PM (6 children)
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @10:52PM (3 children)
Yeah, but they have to go out in public to buy bomb-making suppliers. You can catch them then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @11:10PM (2 children)
I hope there is no pressure cooker registry in our lifetimes (as it is now you can go to a small family hardware store and buy a Presto with cash).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @12:16AM (1 child)
I love my pressure cooker and use it at least four times a week. Low energy use and most meals in less than 20 minutes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:33AM
I'm using an Instant Pot right now to make a gallon of yogurt at a time. With the pressure cook option I was able to make pulled pork in about half the time.
And who doesn't love canning? I'm not sure that electric pressure cookers should be used for it, but it would be fine for high acid preserves that can be done with boiling water and no pressure.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:23AM (1 child)
I once dated a midwife during a time when her work was quite a serious felony.
But in the particular place she and I lived a great many soon-to-be parents chose midwives over doctors.
That particular area was chock-full of folks who had little use for the government. Without a doubt there were plenty of children whose existence was never reported to the government until perhaps they got driver's licenses at 16. Without a doubt many never really felt the need for a license when they drove their family cars.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @05:35AM
How can they get a license without a birth certificate? I'd guess concealing a birth would be a crime too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:10AM (2 children)
The culprits were a couple of Muhammedeans. Nobody could have predicted that. It was probably an honor killing because she talked to a boy in preschool. And her brother arrested for being violent? A rag head in France committing a violent act? What are the odds?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @02:28PM
Funny how they leave the names and skin color and ethnic details out
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @02:36PM
I think the term you are after here is kafirophobes.
Kafirophobia is a mental disease afflicting up to a billion people. Most refuse to discuss it. Community backlash can be severe for admitting this condition even exists while in public. Alone they talk about it all the time.