Sweden: man goes on trial for 2004 murder after DNA matched to genealogy site:
A 37-year-old Swedish man has gone on trial for double murder after two killings that went unsolved for more than 15 years until police matched his DNA on a popular genealogy website.
Daniel Nyqvist, who confessed to the crime shortly after his arrest last June, has been charged with the 2004 murder of a 56-year-old woman and an eight-year-old boy.
The two victims – who were unrelated – were stabbed in a random act in the quiet southern Swedish town of Linkoping [sic Linköping].
The crime shocked the nation, with investigators unable to come up with either a perpetrator or a motive, despite finding the suspect’s DNA at the scene, the weapon that was used, a bloody cap and witness descriptions of a young man with blond hair.
Police even called upon the FBI for help, but to no avail. Over the years, the case file grew to become the second biggest in Sweden’s history, after that of the 1986 murder of former prime minister Olof Palme.
The case was finally cracked when new legislation in January 2019 allowed police to search for matches to suspects’ DNA on commercial genealogy websites, which are popular among Swedes seeking long-lost relatives.
[...] “We received a match almost immediately. And several months later, the suspect could be arrested. His DNA was taken and matched 100%,” police said in a statement the day after his arrest.
How much might other repositories uncover, and are any fundamental freedoms violated by so trawling?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @10:50PM (3 children)
Heh. In a Swedish witness description that may as well have been "young man with arms and legs"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @11:03PM
What was the frequency of his murders?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:21AM
LOL [independent.co.uk] If they did use hair color in suspect descriptions, it'd rarely be blonde. [filmdaily.co]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @12:00AM
And he works as a chef.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 21 2020, @11:07PM (11 children)
I can understand how you might misplace a relative in China, Russia, Canada, or the US. Sweden? Come on people, Sweden isn't THAT big!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @11:48PM
A young man with blond hair? I mean sure that eliminates female portion of the population, but that's still a lot of matching descriptions!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:08AM (5 children)
It's fairly big size/land wise, it just doesn't have a lot of population. The country to a big hit in the mid to late 1800:s when over a million people left for the USA -- which is why you have so many blond people that speak with the Fargo accent in the states that share a border with Canada.
Considering that everyone that is born in Sweden since 1974 (or was it 1975? I forget) are blood registered in a science and research register (PKU-registret) I would say it fairly high or likely if it was allowed to be trawled, but it's not. But you never know in the future, they have already done exceptions a handful of times when the Police have been allowed to look.
That said this "news" is just the local version of or comparable to how they found the Golden State Killer in the USA, which has been previously discussed here I'm sure. Relatives submit DNA sample to Genealogy-database and then you get a relative match and then you just start comparing that to all your suspects.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:28AM (4 children)
You know what would be really crazy? The authorities - here, there, or anywhere - find the bad guy based on DNA evidence. Then he hits them with an iron clad alibi. "I was employed in $nation 5,000 miles away at the time this crime took place." And, the alibi checks out no matter how they juggle the facts.
I'm kinda waiting for a trial to be derailed like that, to see what happens.
"Well, Sir, we can see that you're innocent, but you have to tell us who uses your genes when you're not wearing them!"
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:49AM
It's already happened with DNA transfer: https://www.wired.com/story/dna-transfer-framed-murder/ [wired.com] . Basically every time that you touch something you might leave DNA behind, even on other people.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:54AM (1 child)
7.5 billion people on the planet, it's only a matter of time before the odds catch up with the DNA matching statistics.
The birthday problem is a real bitch.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday September 22 2020, @07:18AM
DNA evidence is usually much less convincing than you might think. A population of even 500.000 makes unrelated match quite likely. How convincing is DNA evidence? [nature.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pipedwho on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:57AM
I can see it now:
Detective: we matched your DNA 110%, so good a match that it matches you with enough leeway for a +/-10% error and we still have a perfect match. So do you have an alibi for 8pn on the 16th of March, 2004.
Suspect: Holy shit man, that was more than 16 years ago. Let me just check my TikiTok, no Instagram, no Facebook..., damn. Oh wait, my diary... ah, yeah, here it says I was with my besties Bob and John at the pub at the time of the murder. See it couldn't have been me!!! There's your proof!
[a couple of hours later]
Detective: so Bob, John, I'm just verifying your whereabouts and who you were with at 8pm on the 16th of March, 2004.
Bob & John: Gee, fucked if we can remember what we were doing on any given day 16 years ago.
Detective: So Mr Suspect, looks like your alibis have come up a bust. Any other evidence you might have to prove your innocence?
Suspect: Not really, it's pretty hard to prove a negative.
Detective: You see, once the jury sees this 110% infallible DNA evidence they'll surely convict.
Suspect: What about innocent until proven guilty?
Detective: Pffft. Think about all the extra work the police would have to do if it were that way around.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:52AM (3 children)
Take a train from Stockholm to Kiruna and back, then tell me how big Sweeden isn't.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:09AM (2 children)
OK, I'm willing. Can you get me an airline ticket to Stockholm? And, uhhhh - I'd rather ride a bike than take a train. I was traumatized by a train when I was 19, and my tailbone still aches some days. But, hell yeah, looks like a great ride. Hmmmm - 772 miles? I can do that in two or three days if I have to, but I'm going to take about 3 weeks!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:09AM
Therein lies a tale, the tale of how Runaway tried to have sexual congress with a train.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:42PM
I did this back in 1989, but only through Germany and Denmark. When I was entering Denmark I met a guy who was "going all the way" into the huts of northern Sweden - in the summer. My Hamburg - Odense - Romo loop took 3 weeks, and somehow it was against the wind the entire way around the loop.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @11:31PM (12 children)
These geneology websites certainly violated his freedom to get away with murder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @11:51PM (10 children)
It feels weird, but despite trying I can't really come up with a specific problem with this.
Most people would consider it a breach of privacy to collect DNA from everyone at birth, for example. But if police had more DNA on file, they'd catch more criminals (and exonerate more innocent people), and I can't think of any particular right this would actually violate. What's the difference between that and getting caught because a witness recognized you? Or an ordinary policeman followed your footprints to where you are hiding?
There's not even a mass surveillance issue here; collecting DNA from a scene is a delicate manual process and will probably never be automated. At worst, health insurance companies could use your DNA on file to determine your risk of diseases. This weirds people out too but I'm not sure it's actually bad.
I think the sense of unease is because these geneology sites allow police to collect DNA from people who volunteered it, but then use it against people who have not volunteered it (or who have given no reason for it to be collected by force). The consent situation feels weird.
But the more important question is why we need consent for this sort of thing at all. I genuinely don't see it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:32AM (4 children)
I wouldn't be terribly sure of that. Our current nominee for vice president withheld evidence in a number of cases that would have freed the accused. It seems to be a pretty common practice in many jurisdictions, not just in California.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:44AM (1 child)
Seems to be part of the DNA of many Law and Order types. Some will commit murder before admitting to a mistake, such as, that they convicted the wrong person. Never apologize, never admit or reveal fallibility, never look weak. They can be doubly determined to stonewall and deny if they profited from a conviction of questionable merit thanks to corruption. Makes it extremely difficult to fight and win against stuff such as the highly profitable petty traffic violation.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:05AM
To paraphrase a popular meme;
This is a heinous crime.
Someone must be convicted and punished.
This is someone.
Convict and punish him.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:11AM (1 child)
Mike Pence did no such thing! He was just praying to Jesus!! Your lying TDS will send you to Hell, Runaway! I pray for your wayward sole!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:06AM
Please, don't pray for my soles. In Dr. Scholl I trust!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:04AM (4 children)
What it can do is sweep the innocent into suspicion of things they never did. Police can be lazy, prosecutors can take the easy conviction rather than seeking the truth, and your DNA can end up lots of places you have never been.
The biggest mass murderer suspect after DNA testing started was an unknown woman, her DNA was found at dozens of unsolved crime scenes all over Europe for many years. Even when there were other killers convicted with confessions - her DNA was found there. Many years later, it turns out she worked in the cotton swab manufacturer used by the crime labs.
You will have no such alibi when your DNA ends up under the broken fingernails of a murder victim in the county dump because they happened to end up next to a bandage you threw away around the time of her disposal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:28AM
Yea, that happens a lot. Much more common than DNA actually pointing to the perpetrator. Slightly less common than aliens framing people for crimes.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:47AM (2 children)
Exactly. A DNA "match" from a DNA registry is not "100% matched" as if each and every chromosome is tested (contrary to police quote above). More like "100% of the markers we tested totally matched," which leaves most of the DNA untested.
Meaning that anyone having markers in common will likely be assumed to be guilty, and be investigated as guilty, by any police agencies involved in such work.
In the US, this would be a big 4th amendment [nccs.net] no-no, not to say that that prevents it from happening--just that it's a bad thing in that it violates the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:08AM
so the superstitious are ahead of the curve?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:11AM
https://www.bartleby.com/196/51.html [bartleby.com]
oops - missed the link
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:38AM
the problem is they violated the freedom hundreds of thousands of innocent people to not have their dna collected by law enforcement without probable cause. you're supposed to need a warrant to get someinr's dna.
europe. land of the free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:18AM
So, this is a 'nother nutherguy submission, and I am just wondering, spitballing, if you will, on what could be going on here. Should we be looking back for unsolved murders in Pennsylvania, or Arkansas, or anywhere the trucking routes went? Could this submission possibly be itself a confession to unspeakable crimes?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:40AM (5 children)
What bothers me with this isn't this first-party database match. It's what happens 4 generations from now when a oppressive government uses the same technology to identify families of dissidents and wholesale slaughter them. Once data is in a database it doesn't go away.
I'm adopted with no oral history connection to my genetic ancestors. A DNA test would be very interesting to me. That said, I'm not willing to possibly trade the freedom and lives of my great great grandchildren to satisfy my curiosity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Tuesday September 22 2020, @07:59AM (4 children)
This is exactly what scares me. Imagine Nazi Germany or Pol Pot with access to this thing. Hell, even segregation with this tech. Even Facebook/Google scares me already as, even if not DNA, it is possible to connect a lot of my social graph. If I become an undesirable or anybody in the social graph is undesirable the sweep would make the Nazis plan a thing to execute in about a year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:34PM (3 children)
Unfortunately all my extended family are exactly those kind of mouthbreathing social network whoring plebs, and most of the rest of my family already got DNA testing done 10-20 years ago.
So for me there is no hope outside of obscurity and staying off the radar. Which is becoming harder and harder each year without emigrating.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:23PM (1 child)
Don't murder anybody in the US. ♡
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @12:03AM
And don't vote for the wrong party.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Wednesday September 23 2020, @12:14PM
This is why i believe more and more that the next civilizational evolution will need to happen in law rather in the tech. With the tech we are basically fucked. The law is now our only resort, and why more than ever constitutional democracy regimes need to be protected and nurtured by it's people. While tech can in theory give us anonymity, due to our social nature it actually, it actually decreases it in privacy.
Also morality as in the Abrahamic kind will need to be scaled back. Instead of evil being a thing that is abhorrent and abnormal it will need to be taken as being part of our existence and mitigated. I find it ironic that the moral orthodoxy of the liberals is as strong as any zealot.