Current Cold Cases Solved with Investigative DNA Genetic Genealogy

Would these developments affect your decision to share your genetic information?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 23.1%
  • No

    Votes: 10 76.9%

  • Total voters
    13

sprockets

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"Genealogy website used to nab 'rapist'
Police in the US have again used a commercial genealogy website to identify a suspect from crime scene DNA, arresting a California man for rapes in the 1990s.

A California man has been arrested in connection to two rapes committed in the 1990s after his DNA was linked to the crime scenes through commercial genealogy websites, which initially turned up the both the suspect and his twin.

..."
https://www.news.com.au/world/break...t/news-story/9a094aae5cc6f425a03fcd4cdab1de6a
 
Mar 21, 2016
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FTDNA or fTDNA have given the FBI open access to data mine their database

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...-tree-dna-fbi-investigative-genealogy-privacy

As opposed to having to apply for a court order this means there is no need and information is given freely

Family Tree DNA, one of the largest private genetic testing companies whose home-testing kits enable people to trace their ancestry and locate relatives, has given the FBI access to its genealogy database, BuzzFeed News has learned, allowing agents to mine the DNA records in hopes of cracking violent crime cases.

Federal and local law enforcement have used public genealogy databases for more than two years to solve cold cases, including the landmark capture of the suspected Golden State Killer, but the agreement with Family Tree DNA and the FBI marks the first time a private firm has agreed to willingly allow law enforcement access to its database.
 
Slick.

In a statement, Greenspan, the president and founder of Gene by Gene, Family Tree’s parent company, said the firm would not be violating its terms of privacy to its customers, despite the FBI’s access.

“We came to the conclusion that if law enforcement created accounts, with the same level of access to the database as the standard FamilyTreeDNA user, they would not be violating user privacy and confidentiality,” Greenspan said.
 

Opine

Norm Smith Medallist
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police were recently able to identify a 55-year-old man named Jos Brech through the DNA of a relative, who was a close match.
Was discussing this very thing with someone the other day, and possibility of perhaps one day forensically identifying the infamous Zodiac.
 
Mar 21, 2016
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Was discussing this very thing with someone the other day, and possibility of perhaps one day forensically identifying the infamous Zodiac.
I think I have mentioned this but they are starting to have the ability to draw a physical likeness through DNA as well ie phenotyping

They can now predict eye , hair and skin colour so a physical drawing may be not too far away
 

Opine

Norm Smith Medallist
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I think I have mentioned this but they are starting to have the ability to draw a physical likeness through DNA as well ie phenotyping

They can now predict eye , hair and skin colour so a physical drawing may be not too far away
That is just remarkable. However, I hope we never get to the point of being able to replicate exact DNA tissue of an individual. The potential ramifications are frightening.
 

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That is just remarkable. However, I hope we never get to the point of being able to replicate exact DNA tissue of an individual. The potential ramifications are frightening.
They've been able to replicate DNA for many years and it's used in forensics when there's only a tiny bit of DNA to work with.
 

Opine

Norm Smith Medallist
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They've been able to replicate DNA for many years and it's used in forensics when there's only a tiny bit of DNA to work with.
This really concerns me. The possibility that forensically manufactured DNA tissue could be planted is frightening to say the least.
 
Mar 21, 2016
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Further from FTDNA - Family Tree DNA

We are emailing you to notify you of changes that we have made to our Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, and other guidelines and processes which govern how law enforcement may use our site. We now require all law enforcement authorities to register accounts under a special process, designed specifically for law enforcement and third parties working with law enforcement, which allows them to participate in our DNA matching program.

Our new policy changes to allow registration of law enforcement accounts will take effect today, March 12th.

If you do not wish to be matched with these designated law enforcement registered users, you have the ability to opt out by adjusting your Matching Preferences, which now includes an option to opt-out of Law Enforcement Matching. User accounts created prior to March 12th, 2019 that are flagged as an EU account have been opted out of Law Enforcement Matching but may choose to opt in.
 

Opine

Norm Smith Medallist
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Further from FTDNA - Family Tree DNA

We are emailing you to notify you of changes that we have made to our Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, and other guidelines and processes which govern how law enforcement may use our site. We now require all law enforcement authorities to register accounts under a special process, designed specifically for law enforcement and third parties working with law enforcement, which allows them to participate in our DNA matching program.

Our new policy changes to allow registration of law enforcement accounts will take effect today, March 12th.

If you do not wish to be matched with these designated law enforcement registered users, you have the ability to opt out by adjusting your Matching Preferences, which now includes an option to opt-out of Law Enforcement Matching. User accounts created prior to March 12th, 2019 that are flagged as an EU account have been opted out of Law Enforcement Matching but may choose to opt in.
So the record is deemed shareable by default. At least they advised you of such in an email which appears to be in plain english; rather than inconspicuously doing so in updated terms/conditions.

BTW, a very close friend of mine was notified several days ago that his family tree related DNA test was lost; and that he would have to repeat the process.
 

sprockets

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Further from FTDNA - Family Tree DNA

We are emailing you to notify you of changes that we have made to our Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, and other guidelines and processes which govern how law enforcement may use our site. We now require all law enforcement authorities to register accounts under a special process, designed specifically for law enforcement and third parties working with law enforcement, which allows them to participate in our DNA matching program.

Our new policy changes to allow registration of law enforcement accounts will take effect today, March 12th.

If you do not wish to be matched with these designated law enforcement registered users, you have the ability to opt out by adjusting your Matching Preferences, which now includes an option to opt-out of Law Enforcement Matching. User accounts created prior to March 12th, 2019 that are flagged as an EU account have been opted out of Law Enforcement Matching but may choose to opt in.
I wonder if you can have them delete your DNA records? You probably can but they won't necessarily be publicising it.
 

petedavo

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For those that keep wondering about familiar DNA
https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/familytreedna-dna-testing-solve-crimes-law-enforcement.amp
01feae330373fd814ead660859619915.jpg


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Charges have been laid for the murder of 9 yo Angie Housman in 1993. I listened to a pod on this in April iirc, isn't that the way it's going now? Produce a podcast and it likely won't be long before there's an arrest. This murder was so awful and the details so sickening I hesitated to generate a thread for it even though her abduction/murder played out quite differently to many others. After being held somewhere for nine days she was left deep in the woods tied to a tree with no clothes on and blindfolded. Her hair had been cut, something I've noticed happens a bit with abductions.

Cause of death was actually hypothermia even after a lot of blood loss and if the hunters who found her had got there two hours earlier she'd still have been alive.

Interesting case, there's DNA from more than one man found on her body and the cops have re-interviewed her stepfather so I don't think this is anywhere near over yet.

 
Oct 12, 2017
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Talbott is one of dozens of suspects authorities have arrested in old cases over the past year through the genetic genealogy, including a California man charged in the Golden State Killer case. The serial attacker killed 13 people and raped nearly 50 women during the 1970s and 1980s in that case.

In Talbott's case, a genetic genealogist used a DNA profile entered into a database to identify distant cousins of the suspect, build a family tree linking those cousins and figured out that the sample must have come from a male child of William and Patricia Talbott.

The couple had only one son: Talbott.

Think he is the first one convicted from the suspects found through genetic genealogy.
 
Mar 21, 2016
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Police have arrested the husband of a NSW mother who went missing nearly 40 years ago in a “bittersweet” moment for their two children.

Former ambulance officer John Bowie has been arrested over the disappearance of northern NSW mother Roxlyn Bowie almost 40 years ago.

Mrs Bowie, then 31, was last seen at her Walgett home on Saturday 5 June 1982. She left behind her husband and two children, who were aged six and almost two.
A coronial inquest in 2014 found Mrs Bowie had died but her body had never been found.
Detectives investigating her disappearance arrested a 69-year-old man at a Queensland correctional facility on Friday. The man is John Bowie, who was her husband at the time, according to media reports.
 
Former ambulance officer John Bowie has been arrested over the disappearance of northern NSW mother Roxlyn Bowie almost 40 years ago.

Coincidence but that old Rubaiyat I have and posted of in the Tamun Shud thread passed through the hands of the Bowie family in NSW a long time ago.
 
Wow ... it's working to also overturn wrongful convictions.

A California man who spent 14 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the killing of his roommate has been exonerated and freed after prosecutors found new DNA evidence that led to a new suspect.

The case is only the second in the United States — and the first in California — where investigative genetic genealogy has led to an exoneration of a person imprisoned for a crime they did not commit.

Mr Davis, 54, was convicted in 2005 of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Jane Hylton, a 54-year-old magazine columnist.
Sacramento County district attorney Anne Marie Schubert attributed Mr Davis' exoneration, and the arrest of a new suspect, to the use of genetic and genealogical science.

 
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