Crime, courts & justice
The Golden State Killer and the rise of forensic genealogy
11 min
How investigators uploaded decades-old crime-scene DNA to a public family-tree site, traced a killer through his distant relatives, and opened a sweeping new front in cold-case work — along with hard questions about genetic privacy.
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Show notes
The Golden State Killer committed thirteen murders and fifty rapes while evading standard forensic databases for decades.
Investigative genetic genealogy uses six hundred thousand genetic markers to identify suspects through their distant relatives.
Third cousins share less than one percent of their DNA but can still lead investigators to common ancestors.
Joseph James DeAngelo was identified after investigators narrowed thousands of descendants down to one specific California family branch.
Police confirmed the match by surreptitiously collecting DNA from DeAngelo's car door handle and a discarded tissue.
New privacy policies caused searchable profiles to drop from one million to twenty thousand after requiring user opt-ins.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Cold Trail and the Digital Pivot2 min
- 3The GEDmatch Breakthrough3 min
- 4Identifying Joseph James DeAngelo2 min
- 5The Privacy Fallout and Policy Shifts3 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations
- Forensic genealogy, bioethics and the Golden State Killer case
- The untold story of how the Golden State Killer was found - Los Angeles Times
- In Hunt For Golden State Killer, Investigators Uploaded His ...
- Cracking the code: Using genetic genealogy to unmask serial criminals - CBS News
- Tracking Down Invisible Killers | Texas Law Magazine | Texas Law
- How Genetic Genealogy Helped Catch The Golden State ...
- Genetic Privacy and the Case of the Golden State Killer— ...
- How They Caught The Golden State Killer
- Base Pairs Episode 17: Genomes, justice, and the journey here | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Investigators: DNA from genealogy site caught serial killer | AP News
- How lucky was the genetic investigation in the Golden State Killer case? | gcbias
- Genetic Privacy and the Case of the Golden State Killer—Diving into the Science | National Institute of Justice
- Identifying the Golden State Killer: An Interview with Paul Holes and Barbara Rae-Venter - ISHI News
- Overview of
- The Cold Case That Inspired the ‘Golden State Killer’ Detective to Try Genealogy
- How DNA sleuthing led police to the Golden State Killer suspect | Science News
- To Catch a Killer: A Fake Profile on a DNA Site and a Pristine Sample
- How a Genealogy Site Led to the Front Door of the Golden State Killer Suspect
- Investigators searched a million people’s DNA to find Golden State serial killer | MIT Technology Review
- Golden State Killer case update: A prosecutor reveals new details about the capture of one of America’s most notorious serial killers | CNN
- The Golden State Killer - ISHI 2019 Keynote
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