goldenstatekiller
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Police are using ancestry sites to track down more cold case suspects
In April, California investigators arrested Joseph James DeAngelo for some of the crimes committed by the elusive Golden State Killer (GSK), a man who is believed to have raped over 50 women and murdered at least 12 people between 1978 and 1986. Investigators tracked him down through an open-source ancestry site called GEDMatch, uploading the GSK's DNA profile and matching it to relatives whose DNA profiles were also hosted on the website. Now, using those same techniques, a handful of other arrests have been made for unsolved cases, some going as far back as 1981.
DNA is just another way we can’t opt out of data sharing
Growing up in California, serial killers are as much a fact of life as year-round citrus or having a bit of Spanish in your daily vocabulary. News of the Golden State Killer's arrest came as a surprise and a relief to most of us whose early lives were shaped by a generation of fear. The Golden State Killer raped at least 51 women and killed 12 people (that we know of). Our parents literally slept with guns and knives under the killer's shadow, and the many others like him.
Investigators used online DNA databases to hunt Golden State Killer
Yesterday several police departments in California announced the arrest of the "Golden State Killer," who killed a dozen people between 1978 and 1986 and has been accused of over 50 rapes. At the time, investigators said DNA played a role in identifying former Auburn, CA police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, and today went a step further with the explanation. The LA Times and New York Times report that investigators took DNA samples from the old crime scenes and plugged them into online databases, looking for familiar matches that would help narrow down the suspect. The Olympian reports that by combing through family trees of partial matches they focused on DeAngelo, who was the right age and had lived in some of the areas. Before arresting the subject they got a DNA sample from something DeAngelo had discarded and checked for a match. That match led to his arrest and charges for two of the murders, with more expected to follow.
