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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
(Score: 3, Informative) by Revek on Wednesday July 18 2018, @03:45PM (33 children)
If you don't hand over your DNA, you want child murderers to frolic in freedom.
Yeah, that is what it means to not want to hand over my DNA.
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 18 2018, @03:58PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:03PM (6 children)
<sarcasm> But, Citizen! DNA samples can only be used for good! Insurance companies won't raise your rates because you have and/or carry hereditary diseases. And, no one can ever, ever, EVER "plant" your DNA at a crime scene. $ethnicity haters can't find out that you are $ethnicity from your DNA. And, people who judge people guilty by association will never find out that your *parent was a murderer, child molester, traitor, or whatever else will learn who your daddy is. </sarcasm>
Unfortunately, this is the way the world is going. Eventually, those DNA samples will be taken from the newborn baby, and kept on file forever and ever. Classified and categorized, analyzed, and plugged into the system, long before Baby is ready to join the system.
"Oh, Becky can't take advanced academic classes, because her DNA indicates that she isn't smart enough to pass those kind of classes."
"John cannot go into medicine, because" whatever. Cindy will be pushed INTO medicine because HER DNA indicates that she will excel.
And, most of the rank and file will be deemed to be worth little more than cannon fodder.
You life will be mapped out according to some algorithms, based on your DNA. How wonderful - NOT!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:13PM
A GATTACA dystopia is one way for the 1% to bring the population down to 500 million.
Oh, wait. Those invalid breeders will keep breeding.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @06:09PM (4 children)
I read California had been doing this for a while.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday July 18 2018, @09:12PM (3 children)
Actually it's the whole country.
http://genes-r-us.uthscsa.edu/ [uthscsa.edu]
I don't know why so many AC trolls and TRDT are so fixated on California.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 18 2018, @11:07PM (2 children)
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]
https://ballotpedia.org/California_Violent_Crime_Definition,_DNA_Collection,_and_Parole_Initiative_(2020) [ballotpedia.org]
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(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:00AM (1 child)
Violent crime DNA database is way different from collecting DNA from all new born babies.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:29AM
Define "collect". How long do they store it in your state?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:10PM (18 children)
I think you're missing a larger point.
If you don't hand over your DNA, then YOU must be the criminal trying to hide evidence of your crime! Quick, taze him!
police chief: If he doesn't hand over his DNA he must have committed an earlier crime where he left his DNA at the scene. He's a criminal. So burn him at the stake!
junior donut eater: But if we burn him, then we won't be able to extract a DNA sample for comparison.
police chief: It doesn't matter, he MUST be guilty!
junior donut eater: But an actual DNA comparison could prove his innocence. The test works both ways. It has two possible outcomes.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:23PM (2 children)
Ahhhhh - nothing beats the smell of 50,000 volts of justice burning into a criminal's flesh! Wonder if we can turn the amerage up a little? Not a whole lot - not more than 100 amps, I'd say. We don't want to incinerate the bastard!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday July 18 2018, @07:01PM
Your Sig is some real fucked up shit. I like it :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 18 2018, @08:24PM
The amperage is a relation to the load resistance and voltage. So either (somehow) lower the body's resistance (and maybe skin contact resistance), or raise the voltage in order to raise amperage. But power (watts) is a function of voltage and amperage. Which also means heating of the load. Including at poorly connected contact points (such as the skin). So extra heating and smoking can occur at the points of contact.
As I wrote on SN once before: Police tasers should have a special setting labeled "Sovereign Citizen". (Referring to people who believe the law does not apply to them. I live by my own rules. Etc.)
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:49PM (14 children)
Confusing the tech with the system.
The tech is incredibly reliable. The system continues not to be. We're at the point where its almost infinitely more likely if DNA is found at the scene, then someone is tampering with evidence or pencil whipping lab results or just outright corrupt rather than the test statistically being faulty.
There's also interesting chronological issues. Its trivial for me to provide an alibi that I didn't kill someone thousands of miles from my house yesterday, business clients and coworkers and family contacts and meetings and CCTV cam footage and cell phone records and stuff make it near impossible to set me up using evidence tampering alone. Now I know that I was busy in high school as a young kid when the victim died and a week later back in '88 it would have been trivial to prove I was in class when the victim was killed, but there's no way in hell I (or probably anyone else) could possibly provide any alibi 30 years later. My history teacher is almost certainly dead or senile or won't remember I was in class on one specific day when the crime happened, etc.
One long term effect is likely to be some reform of statute of limitations laws. Right now, if (no, when...) someone tampers with evidence, its impossible to provide an alibi or documentation, so conviction is guaranteed. It would be difficult to impossible to set me up for a murder that happened last week, but a murder three decades ago is not possible to defend against, for anyone.
Maybe the 2020s and 2030s equivalent of "swatting" people will be gathering DNA sample from someone (hair, blood, whatevs) then planting it on some cold case evidence, run the tampered evidence thru DNA on a hunch, and ta da instant conviction because its impossible to defend against. For example, it could trivially be proven in a court of law that I shot president JFK; my only hope is convincing the jury that I look healthy enough and my birth certificate look real enough that I wasn't alive when JFK was shot (which is true, I was negative a couple years old at that time; I guess someone could frame my mom as a SWAT).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 18 2018, @05:00PM (1 child)
I guess I could be framed for JFK's murder. I was 7 years old. They thought that shot would have been difficult for an "expert" shooter? Well, fact is, I was just playing around with my daddy's gun, and it fired by accident. It wasn't an assassination, just an accident.
But, seriously - whoever pulled the trigger(s) on that day, is probably dead and gone now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @07:50PM
E. Howard Hunt is indeed dead. George H.W. Bush is still alive though.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 18 2018, @08:33PM (7 children)
Squeaking of the system being faulty in the face of real evidence. I remember stories on Tech Dirt a few years back about (some poe-dunk) court(s) saying (effectively) that video evidence is less reliable than the police officer's report and sworn testiphony.
My point about the test having two possible outcomes: If someone wants to withhold their DNA and isn't obligated to provide it, that is not evidence of their guilt of some crime. In fact, their DNA could prove they are innocent. But you can't forcibly take their DNA if state law requires you to burn them at the stake for withholding their DNA for comparison.
What is the reason for statute of limitations laws? If someone committed a crime 30 years ago, wasn't it still a crime? Isn't there still a victim? (unless the crime was masturbation or something equally horrible)
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday July 18 2018, @09:36PM (2 children)
The LEOs don't have to force you to give your DNA. If you or any close retaliative sent DNA to a genetic database (a public record base), that could narrow down the search quite a bit. The all they have to do is watch you till you toss a cigarette but or coffee cup or come by early on garbage day and grab the contents of your trash to extract DNA. Then you lose buddy. Actually this is what happened in this case.
" The arrest affidavit said that police, using outside labs, compared DNA evidence with information on genealogical websites, which narrowed the search to Miller and his brother.
Earlier this month, police began to watch Miller, and took three used condoms from his trash, the affidavit said." ---TFA
IANAL but as far as I know there no statute of limitation for murder and kidnapping in this country.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 18 2018, @10:31PM
While it's true that you don't need to have your own DNA in a database to get caught, it is the next step and has broader implications.
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(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:00AM
Here is another case involving a drinking utensil, in this instance turned over by a co-worker: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dna-on-coke-can-leads-to-arrest-in-1989-rape-murder-of-washington-teen/ [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Wednesday July 18 2018, @09:48PM (3 children)
There are multiple reasons for a statute of limitations.
One is that after so much time, it is impossible to mount a defense. Pick a random non-special day 30 years ago. Do you remember for a fact if you were at work or not? Does anyone else? Could you even find any people who might remember if you were or were not at work that day?
As to why that matters, you made a common but critical mistake in your post. DNA can NOT generally prove guilt. I know for a fact my DNA can be found in places I have never been to. I know that because I have sent mail before. There is little doubt my dna was on each and every letter and package I have ever sent. That guy that bumped into me this morning on the elevator? My DNA is on him. I did construction the summer after high school as a sort of change of pace. Since minor cuts are common, you will find my blood in several homes in the area, even inside the walls.
It would be unjust to expect me today to recall where I was (that is not one of those homes) 30 years ago, there is only my word that I don't recall being in one of those homes after it was completed.
The other reason is based on the claim that our penal system is justified by being rehabilitative in nature. That is, it is claimed that the purpose is so that people don't do it again (Hence the frequent use of "Department of Corrections", "correctional facility", etc). If the person has gone 30 years without committing another crime, they have arguably reformed already. Alternatively, if the only crime you can link a person to is that old, In the case of a singular crime, there's also that if the one and only crime you can link to a person is that long ago, and you have no other evidence of criminal activity, its a fair bet that you have the wrong person.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:11AM (2 children)
True, but did you leave your DNA on the undies of an underage girl by 30 years ago? I don't see how something like that could explained by innocent circumstance, do you?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 19 2018, @03:05AM
No, but only because I had my own washer and dryer so I didn't need the laundromat.
I can't say what the thousands of other people who are of no relation but share a number of alleles in common might have done.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 19 2018, @06:30AM
A. No.
B. Think back on who you were 30 years ago -- you are probably almost a different person.
C. Looking over your shoulder for 30 years is itself, punishment.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:33AM (3 children)
Perhaps you could. 20 years ago I was helping write software for schools, part of which enabled teachers to record each day for each student whether or not they were present. This was because state funding was tied to attendance -- every day, or even part of a day, that a student was in school, meant the school qualified for more money. (What, you thought the school cared so much about the students that they wanted to see their smiling faces each day? No, it's just money.) I don't know if every state does that, but at least one did.
That data, even down to the individual student, was sent to the state education agency. For each school, every month. There might still be an archive of that data around somewhere.
Even before computerization, there were paper forms -- because we in part got the software's requirements by reviewing the existing paper documents. That might still be around somewhere, on microfiche, or perhaps sucked into an imaging system by now (I've worked on imaging systems, too; lots of formerly microfiched documents are digitized now).
So if you ever ARE accused of something from when you were back in school, dig for the documentation. It just might save your ass.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:03AM (2 children)
The secret to "your permanent record": If it didn't burn in a fire, get erased to make room for newer data, recorded in a format nobody knows anymore, or get destroyed in a basement flood, nobody knows where it is.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:29AM (1 child)
Unless of course you are named Archibald Buttle and the authorities are after Archibald Tuttle because a computer glitch spit out your name instead of Tuttle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aeBq5H3O2I [youtube.com]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:36AM
Hint... the song is a clue.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by takyon on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:22PM (2 children)
Cloning Revek (5022) cells for in vitro meat production.
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(Score: 2) by Revek on Wednesday July 18 2018, @05:14PM (1 child)
Nah, it would taste like snark.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 18 2018, @06:45PM
OK, as long as you utilize the whole snark, and do not just cut off the snark fins, and toss the rest of the snark back into the briny to die.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by EvilSS on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:54PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @06:12PM (1 child)
Are you serious? Hey, everybody, someone on the internet thinks their a doctor! Surprise, surprise.
(Score: 3, Touché) by EvilSS on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:29AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:25PM (2 children)
Whats he been doing for the last 30 years?
I'm not making a stealth argument for going easy on the guy, but just stating the practical obvious argument the defense lawyer is going to make, that "everyone knows" that pedos are serial killers and they kill over and over for the thrill and predators can never stop and all that stuff that's a weird mixture of being true and merely good Hollywood...
So the defense argument is going to be theres been dozens of recent incidents of sloppy lab work giving false evidence over the years, everyone knows that both pedo and predator is like the TV commercial "you can't stop with just one" so if they're accusing him of one murder-rape there must be like 59 others unsolved in the last 30 years. Because everyone knows predators are unstoppable, that means "rather unlikely" conspiracy theory stuff starts being more likely than he killed one then permanently quit the hobby.
Just saying its an interesting collision of technical results being near perfect assuming no corruption colliding with some equally strong interesting belief systems about human behavior. There's a lot of Hollywood indoctrination about this situation on both sides, prosecutor and defense.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 18 2018, @05:02PM
Similar thinking went through my mind. Except, I was wondering more about how many other people he may have killed. Reading TFA, he promised to kill again when he left taunts for the police.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 18 2018, @08:38PM
Hypothetical Prosecutor says: Maybe there IS a string of unsolved murders that this particular pedo is guilty of. Pointing out that there might be, is not a defense against the evidence and burden of proof being presented by the prosecution in this particular murder trial. Nor is it evidence of any fault in the science or technology. We may indeed be back with more murder trials for this guy once more evidence comes to light. But today we're trying THIS case. Not hypothetical ones.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday July 18 2018, @04:33PM (6 children)
Interesting cultural implication:
"recently" tough on crime, big brother is better brother, type of propaganda focused on creating new prison / death row inmates who were mostly young black men guilty of killing other young black men over crack cocaine related issues. Partially made up Hollywood, fake news, and politics and partially entirely factual, although a politically incorrect hate fact to observe their demographics, etc.
We're entering a new era due to technology and big brother culture, such that for "awhile" we're going to get a temporary impulse of re-opened cold cases where "tough on crime" is gonna mean gray/white haired baby boomers doing the perp walk and being displayed in political advertisements, instead of young black men. So that will be interesting to watch, culturally.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @05:48PM (3 children)
Middle age to senior white men are current society's useless garbage responsible for every ill in modern life.
Not saying I subscribe to that sentiment, just recognizing its existence.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 18 2018, @08:40PM (2 children)
I typically qualify it further. The evil of society is Senior, Rich, Heterosexual, Racist, White, "christian", men.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 18 2018, @11:30PM
Who are also "stable geniuses".
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:33AM
Humm...I do fit some of those categories, but I am not Rich, Racist nor "christian".
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday July 18 2018, @06:18PM (1 child)
Or a group of mostly old men of a very predictable demographic. Roughly 6% of the population commits over 50% of murders. Thinking that would change just because a case is old?
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday July 18 2018, @09:28PM
Your 'predictable demographic' is obviously young black men killing other young black men.
They're not going to put much effort into solving a 30 year old case where one black gang member shot a rival gang member. The cold cases that get this treatment will be those involving young kids / serial killers / politically connected victims. The profiles of those criminals are probably quite different.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.