The Changing Face of Law Enforcement: Cold Cases and DNA

DNA Testing Unintended Consequences

DNA testing sites became appealing for those interested in learning about their ethnicity. An unintended consequence has been the ability it has given myself and others to locate and identify biological family members for adoptees. Then, in 2018, Law Enforcement discovered this powerful tool and began using it to identify suspects in 28 cases.

Reverse Genealogy

Reverse Genealogy is a process used by genetic genealogists to construct a family tree of a person’s DNA matches. This process is used to help find unknown family members.

Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg where traveling from British Columbia to Seattle, Washington in 1987. It took CeCe Moore only three days to identify the killer of this couple. “Moore uploaded a DNA sample from one of the crime scenes to the genealogical search engine of GEDmatch. She was able to identify two distant relatives of the murderer, and with the use of traditional genealogical methods traced ancestors who were common to the suspect, and to every one of the relatives who had been found. At this stage, she started to build a family tree forward in time.” Read Full Article