Ignoring for a moment the obvious hitch that sperm does not automatically equal murder, there's also the problem that DNA forensics suffers from the same fakery problem that other criminal forensic techniques suffer from especially when samples are old and mixed <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733-500-fallible-dna-evidence-can-mean-prison-or-freedom/" rel="nofollow">https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733-500-fallible...</a><p>DNA matching from a decades old mixed tissue slide is not an exact process and many factors from handling to a desire to close the case can lead to a wrong conclusion.<p>The most that can be said is that the detectives are satisfied enough to stop digging, not that the case is solved. Let's remember that a posthumous process allows for zero defense and criminal justice depends on defense.<p>And besides all of that, it strikes me as wildly unethical to burden the family with this information just to satisfy detective curiosity and desire for closure. I see zero benefit to going through the final steps after they determined that their suspect had already died. The corpse's ashes can't go to prison. The family just lives with this now. That's a negative outcome.
I've personally followed Andrew Singer's/BODE's work and have been present in his (and other forensic genealogists) presentations to the forensics community. I was literally in the audience 2 days ago for another of his. I am a professional Forensic Scientist who is specialized in DNA. My educational background is in biochemistry & molecular genetics. Feel free to ask me anything.<p>There is a lot of misunderstandings in this thread so far. For one, on the idea that "sperm does not automatically equal murder," is of course logically true. DNA evidence doesn't equate that point, but it does suggest that there is a putative perpetrator who could be responsible for the crime. It's not up to forensic scientists to decide who committed what crimes. We can tell that the person was "there." It's up to the detectives to argue/figure out, and ultimately the judicial system to decide the outcome/verdict.<p>She was raped and killed, who's DNA was on the vaginal swab? Most likely the perpetrator.<p>Secondly, to suggest that modern DNA forensic science is questionable is farce. There have been major issues with interpretation in the past with non-accredited crime labs/analysts/methods/persons making bogus conclusions, but these days, and for the last 15+ years, has just plain not happened. If there were unqualified interpretations they would be thrown out of the courthouse in a nanosecond.<p>The absoluteness of DNA mixture interpretations is getting better and better. Google "probabilistic genotyping." A human can reasonably look at data and discern multiple DNA profiles up to a few people when it comes to certain limited mixtures. Prob. Gen. software can deconvolute up to about 10 distinct people in a DNA mixture. It's basically brute force computing. I bring this up because some of the examples other's posted here happened when such tech didn't exist and bogus interpretations were going on.<p>As for the ethics point. I have met with many victims personally. Not one has ever not returned genuine overly emotional gratefulness of our efforts. Many brave victims become spokespeople and support for other victims. They tour my lab all the time in wonder. I can't tell you how many cases we've solved. DNA evidence, investigations, then a line up, then "that's the one!" happen all the time. These would have never happened without DNA evidence.
The first thing that comes to mind after reading this article is that they don't have enough evidence to conclude that the fact that there were sperm in the victim that weren't from her boyfriend actually means that they were murdered by the creator of said sperm.<p>It seems likely, but calling the case 'solved' just based on that is a bit of a stretch to me. Maybe the article is leaving out some important details.
Here's a list of suspected perpetrators of crimes identified via genealogy databases. [0] This case is not in this list (yet).<p>[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspected_perpetrators_of_crimes_identified_with_GEDmatch" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspected_perpetrators...</a>
Who involved really is better off, after hearing of the ”solution” to this crime? Except for maybe the police department, possibly a detective with an itch to scratch, and definitely the firm used for the genealogical dna profile (mentioned by name in the article), I can think of no one.
What state restrictions on scouring DNA databases would you like? The article points out how incoming state laws would make this investigation impossible, but it turns out it was just a few states being referenced.<p>I think this needs to be treated as property of the individual as well, or even of an individual's estate, and there must be consent granted for each use and compensation for it. Consent can be revokable and a record of the consent's state should be attached to every piece of data.<p>It leaves the avenue open for this same kind of investigation to occur.