Amateur Detectives are Now Crowdfunding DNA Sequencing to Solve Murders (nytimes.com) 54
In 2018 police arrested "the Golden State Killer" — now a 72-year-old man who had committed 13 murders between 1974 and 1986, the New York Times remembers:
What made the investigation possible was GEDmatch, a low-frills, online gathering place for people to upload DNA test results from popular direct-to-consumer services such as Ancestry or 23andMe, in hopes of connecting with unknown relatives. The authorities' decision to mine the genealogical enthusiasts' data for investigative leads was shocking at the time, and led the site to warn users. But the practice has continued, and has since been used in hundreds of cases.
But now using similar techniques, a wellness coach born in Mississippi (through a Facebook group called DNA Detectives) has helped over 200 strangers identify their unknown parents, the Times reports.
And she's recently donated more than $100,000 to a genetics lab called Othram — to fund the sequencing of DNA to solve cold cases back in her home state. "These families have waited so long for answers," she told the New York Times, which calls her "part of a growing cohort of amateur DNA detectives..." [Othram] created a site called DNASolves to tell the stories of horrific crimes and tragic John and Jane Does — with catchy names like "Christmas tree lady" and "angel baby" — to encourage people to fund budget-crunched police departments, so that they can hire Othram. A competitor, Parabon NanoLabs, had created a similar site called JusticeDrive, which has raised around $30,000.
In addition to money, Othram encouraged supporters to donate their DNA, a request that some critics called unseemly, saying donors should contribute to databases easily available to all investigators. "Some people are too nervous to put their DNA in a general database," said Mr. Mittelman, who declined to say how large his database is. "Ours is purpose-built for law enforcement."
Another group raising money for genetic investigations are the producers of true-crime podcasts — and their listeners. According to the article, the podcast-producing company Audiochuck has donated roughly $800,000 to organizations doing investigative genealogical research (including Othram), though the majority went to a nonprofit started by the host of the "Crime Junkie" podcast. (And that nonprofit raised another $250,000, some through crowdfunding.)
"Why just listen to a murder podcast when you can help police comb through genealogical databases for the second cousins of suspected killers and their unidentified victims?" the Times asks? So far donors around the country have given at least a million dollars to the cause. They could usher in a world where few crimes go unsolved — but only if society is willing to accept, and fund, DNA dragnets.... A group of well-off friends calling themselves the Vegas Justice League has given Othram $45,000, resulting in the solving of three murder-rape cases in Las Vegas, including those of two teenage girls killed in 1979 and in 1989.... [T]he perpetrators were dead....
Natalie Ram, a law professor at the University of Maryland, expressed concern about "the public picking and choosing between cases," saying investigative priorities could be determined by who can donate the most. Ms. Ram said the "largest share" of cases solved so far with the method "tend to involve white female victims...."
Ms. Ram is also concerned about the constitutional privacy issues raised by the searches, particularly for those people who haven't taken DNA tests or uploaded their results to the public internet. Even if you resolve never to put your DNA on a site accessible to law enforcement authorities, you share DNA with many other people so could still be discoverable. All it takes is your sibling, aunt or even a distant cousin deciding differently.
But now using similar techniques, a wellness coach born in Mississippi (through a Facebook group called DNA Detectives) has helped over 200 strangers identify their unknown parents, the Times reports.
And she's recently donated more than $100,000 to a genetics lab called Othram — to fund the sequencing of DNA to solve cold cases back in her home state. "These families have waited so long for answers," she told the New York Times, which calls her "part of a growing cohort of amateur DNA detectives..." [Othram] created a site called DNASolves to tell the stories of horrific crimes and tragic John and Jane Does — with catchy names like "Christmas tree lady" and "angel baby" — to encourage people to fund budget-crunched police departments, so that they can hire Othram. A competitor, Parabon NanoLabs, had created a similar site called JusticeDrive, which has raised around $30,000.
In addition to money, Othram encouraged supporters to donate their DNA, a request that some critics called unseemly, saying donors should contribute to databases easily available to all investigators. "Some people are too nervous to put their DNA in a general database," said Mr. Mittelman, who declined to say how large his database is. "Ours is purpose-built for law enforcement."
Another group raising money for genetic investigations are the producers of true-crime podcasts — and their listeners. According to the article, the podcast-producing company Audiochuck has donated roughly $800,000 to organizations doing investigative genealogical research (including Othram), though the majority went to a nonprofit started by the host of the "Crime Junkie" podcast. (And that nonprofit raised another $250,000, some through crowdfunding.)
"Why just listen to a murder podcast when you can help police comb through genealogical databases for the second cousins of suspected killers and their unidentified victims?" the Times asks? So far donors around the country have given at least a million dollars to the cause. They could usher in a world where few crimes go unsolved — but only if society is willing to accept, and fund, DNA dragnets.... A group of well-off friends calling themselves the Vegas Justice League has given Othram $45,000, resulting in the solving of three murder-rape cases in Las Vegas, including those of two teenage girls killed in 1979 and in 1989.... [T]he perpetrators were dead....
Natalie Ram, a law professor at the University of Maryland, expressed concern about "the public picking and choosing between cases," saying investigative priorities could be determined by who can donate the most. Ms. Ram said the "largest share" of cases solved so far with the method "tend to involve white female victims...."
Ms. Ram is also concerned about the constitutional privacy issues raised by the searches, particularly for those people who haven't taken DNA tests or uploaded their results to the public internet. Even if you resolve never to put your DNA on a site accessible to law enforcement authorities, you share DNA with many other people so could still be discoverable. All it takes is your sibling, aunt or even a distant cousin deciding differently.
Rape kits (Score:2)
When someone is raped, the doctor or victim is supposed to provide samples that should have the rapists DNA. That is assuming the police give a shit enough to even tell the victim that they ought to provide the sample, the kits usually end up getting lost or on some shelf somewhere. My guess is most police would try to avoid helping the victim with that because it is additional work. If the police bothered to test those rape kits that would probably drastically reduce the number of rapes. Most of the time t
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The usual excuses are lack of manpower and lack of funding.
Yet it seems they have plenty of officers on the roads waiting for someone to go 5mph over the limit, and enough money to filed huge teams of cops in full military level gear that even the military only uses for special squads because it's too bloody expensive!
(I'm not even going to go into the police depts. that have military tanks...)
A
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People want more effective police, but aren't willing to pay higher taxes to get them.
Some people want to defund the police entirely.
Speeding tickets make money for the police force, investigating and then prosecuting a rape or murder case costs a lot of money so it won't be done unless it's either an easy case or there is external pressure (ie media attention).
You are more likely to get a long sentence for copying a movie than for killing someone these days, because corporations have far more influence ove
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People want more effective police, but aren't willing to pay higher taxes to get them.
Perhaps we could end the War On Drugs and legalize other victimless vices so the police could focus on crimes that cause harm.
Some people want to defund the police entirely.
Nobody wants that.
"Defund the police" was just an idiotic slogan by a directionless group that couldn't think of anything else to demand.
Re: Rape kits (Score:2)
The defund polie group wanted yo take police away from police tanks and repurpose it for mental health people for wellness checks, road watchers for repair crews etc. Stuff the police do but really shouldnt.
The police have to cover a broad range of topics from welfare checks to burgerly and crime to active shooters.
Police either need to expand personal, or a second group should be brought in yo take up some of the duties
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The defund polie group wanted yo take police away from police tanks and repurpose it for mental health people for wellness checks, etc. Stuff the police do but really shouldnt.
The police have to cover a broad range of topics from welfare checks to burgerly and crime to active shooters.
Police either need to expand personal, or a second group should be brought in yo take up some of the duties
Got any more info on the "road watchers for repair crews"?
Haven't heard of that and I am curious what that entails, would seem that if someone is there watching for people breaking the law and/or causing accidents in a construction zone it would make sense for them to be able to give the offenders a ticket and possibly arrest them if they dont want to stop.
Aaron Z
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People want more effective police, but aren't willing to pay higher taxes to get them.
Perhaps we could end the War On Drugs and legalize other victimless vices so the police could focus on crimes that cause harm.
So then we can blame further poverty of black neighbourhoods on racism instead of rampant crack addiction?
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People want more effective police, but aren't willing to pay higher taxes to get them.
Perhaps we could end the War On Drugs and legalize other victimless vices so the police could focus on crimes that cause harm.
Some people want to defund the police entirely.
Nobody wants that.
"Defund the police" was just an idiotic slogan by a directionless group that couldn't think of anything else to demand.
Not just legalize, regulate. If government tax goes to ensuring responsible activities (at least as responsible as cigarettes and alcohol anyway... which I will not get into here) and the amount of money people can make is properly balanced against the cost of regulation, then many of these vices would cause far less harm than they do in their current illegal state. At the same time there are some vices that should remain illegal, but I'm probably not qualified to determine what that level should be. So
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Speeding tickets make money for the police force, investigating and then prosecuting a rape or murder case costs a lot of money so it won't be done unless it's either an easy case or there is external pressure (ie media attention).
DNA tests these days cost a few hundred dollars. For various reasons, they cost about 10X as much when the police do them, but it's still only a few thousand dollars. Even for the cities with thousands of untested kits, that's just a few million dollars (for the big cities, obviously). The police budgets for cities like that are pretty big. People who talk about "defunding the police" (most don't want to defund the police entirely, that's mostly just extreme libertarians) usually do so for things exactly li
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Some people want to defund the police entirely.
Some people probably do want that, but the vast majority of people who support or sympathize with the "defund police" movement are not in that boat. The whole defund the police slogan was a horrible one from the beginning because it didn't reflect the core message of focusing funds on preventing crime instead of policing it. Increases in social programs, safety nets, mental health programs, drug rehab, etc. have been shown to reduce crime rates, yet they are massively underfunded. We spend twice as much on
Re: Rape kits (Score:2)
While DNA tests on rape kits are an issue, it usually is not the problem blocking prosecution.
Usually (but not always) police and prosecutors know exactly who was involved. They usually know each other. It varies by demographic but between 85%-95% they know exactly who was involved. Often both admit to sex, and are willing to talk to police to present their story.
Instead, the thing blocking prosecution is the evidence of non-consent. One person says it was rape, the other says there was consent. Prosecuto
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Usually (but not always) police and prosecutors know exactly who was involved. They usually know each other. It varies by demographic but between 85%-95% they know exactly who was involved. Often both admit to sex, and are willing to talk to police to present their story.
Instead, the thing blocking prosecution is the evidence of non-consent. One person says it was rape, the other says there was consent. Prosecutors have no clear evidence of violence, so the case becomes he said / she said. In courts where both stories are given equal weight, with no other evidence the case is dismissed.
Without evidence of violence, merely evidence of sex, prosecutors cannot proceed.
Unless the accused is a celebrity, in which case the alleged victim can do a LOT of damage even before the issue is judged.
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Government cannot work on philanthropy. It needs a tax base sufficient to conduct the peoples work. Sometimes we get a positive result, but do we really want vigilante justice. Amateurs scamming for donations to do work of dubious quality, falsely identif
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Agree 100%. Let's start by selling off the armored personnel carriers and other military hardware that the cops don't need.
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They usually don't buy that stuff, they get it on the federal equipment loan program. The stuff they actually buy is fancy body armor, and fancy guns.
Re: Rape kits (Score:2)
Sounds like we need a private foundation that does the testing. Sending the kit to a foundation and have it tested and checked on GEDmatch or wherever.
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Sounds like we need a private foundation that does the testing. Sending the kit to a foundation and have it tested and checked on GEDmatch or wherever.
Most rapes don't really need a wide investigation to find out who the involved parties are. In most cases - more than 9 out of 10 [bbc.com] - the involved parties know each other. The difficulty is proving that there was a rape, beyond reasonable doubt. If there are evidence of violence, that's a lot easier - and the main point of a rape kit then would be to prove that sex happened, not "just" other violence.
The need aside, privatising law enforcement is a really bad suggestion in my opinion. Private parties should n
Re: Rape kits (Score:2)
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I would be concerned if people tried to do DIY detective work by making their own rape kits and shipping them off to labs of unknown quality. Not that I'm impressed by the police approach (either doing nothing at all or using ultra-cheap labs that only return 8-12 markers).
Now, on the other hand, if those same kits were being sent to high-end labs, for the sort of testing that would be considered "medical grade" (100x oversample, so there's essentially zero error) or from one of the testing companies consid
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What's the reporting rate of rape cases in both countries? I think I heard somewhere that the reporting rate has gone up in the UK, which could of course skew the conviction rate down. I'm not trying to downplay the shockingly low conviction rates because there is a serious problem that does need to be improved, it's just that it's a very difficult problem, starting with reporting it. Furthermore, how do the US and UK compare in terms of evidential thresholds and other criteria that result in the convict
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The reporting rate is around 100,000 per year in the UK and 200,000 per year in the US. Of these, around 5% reach court in the UK and 10% in the US, with half the cases resulting in a verdict of not guilty.
Valid points, but if the false accusation rate ran at 9 out of every 10, or 19 out of every 20, I'd be frankly astonished.
Yes, it would be difficult to prosecute, but we have to start with whether the evidence is being processed at all. And it looks like evidence is only processed 25% of the time in the S
Ignorance as Right (Score:1)
DNA and fingerprints can stored, then planted (Score:2)
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DNA doesn't remove the need to preserve the chain of custody. It is still necessary for prosecutors to prove that the DNA got to the scene of the crime because the person identified by the DNA was there and committed the crime. Just like fingerprints (which can also be transplanted), DNA is a tool that can be used to solve cases. Yes, crooks, including criminal police officers, can misuse it. But just because some people misuse a technology, doesn't mean the technology itself is bad.
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That is not always true. Some courts are breaking all the rules of evidence. allowing hearsay, allowing non specified items in search warrants to be used, hiring biased experts, Illegal phone and email taps, and using client-attorney legally privileged correspondence.
These are all real dangers that a court system can fall into, but what do they have to do with DNA evidence? These are things that can go wrong whether or not there is DNA evidence.
This is why in the US we have an adversarial court system, where lawyers for the plaintiff (the government) argue their case, and lawyers for the defendant argue their case, in front of a jury. It is the job of the lawyers to bring up these issues related to the evidence, and it's up to the jury to listen to the evidence and try
Re: DNA and fingerprints can stored, then planted (Score:2)
Usually when a criminal goes through elaborate steps like that, they end up getti by caught.
Re: DNA and fingerprints can stored, then planted (Score:2)
Usually when a criminal goes through elaborate steps like that, they end up making a mistake and getting caught.
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Because Surveillance Is Great? (Score:2)
It is a great idea to think that you will solve every misdeed by all the horrible people of the world.
Finding someone that rapes and murders people, so we collect everyone's DNA, and figure it out. We're all arguably safer from that murdering rapist.
The hunt never stops there. After awhile, those lines get skewed.
The people that own the data now might be good enough, but that data on you and your extended family, will be good for thousands of years. Eventually, someone is going to take a look, and sort
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This goes back to something I've argued many, many times.
Science and technology is misused/abused because society has stagnated or devolved, whereas science and technology move forward. You need society to be as advanced as the science it is trying to use before you can be sure that the science COULD be used responsibly. But this, in itself, is not sufficient. One of the functions of humanities is to question assumptions and to challenge beliefs/prejudices. If the humanities are as evolved as the society th
Chain of custody (Score:2)
Without a provable, trust worthy and unbroken chain of custody for these samples on both sides, there really shouldn't be much legal confidence put in the results at all.
And its always convenient when something is "solved" and the alleged perpetrators are deceased - they of course can't defend themselves, but they now have been eternally convicted in the court of public opinion without due process. That information should never have been released IMHO.
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Without a provable, trustworthy and unbroken chain of custody for these samples
No one is convicted based on the DNA samples in a commercial database. A match just establishes probable cause to collect a reliable DNA sample from the suspect.
Even if there is a match, there needs to be corroborating evidence. But if there are three matches and two live hundreds of miles away while the third is the murder victim's ex-boyfriend who had a restraining order, then it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who did it.
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The Golden State Killer wasn't convicted based on GEDMatch. GEDMatch just led investigators to the likely suspect. Once they thought they knew who the suspect was, they staked out his house, collecting fresh DNA samples from his trash. This fresh DNA was then compared to DNA collected from the crime scenes, and used to convict him.
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You're right that there needs to be trustable data. But right now, there's often no data at all and it's only in very recent times that the defendant was able to offer contrary forensic data, the prosecution was absolutely trusted to be honest.
If, however, you can put pressure on lackadaisical standards, shame politicians and the public into not accepting inferior results and poor prosecution rates, force forensics by police to dramatically improve, and make it easier for the falsely accused to have the mea
Sharing feels good. (Score:2)
Even if you resolve never to put your DNA on a site accessible to law enforcement authorities, you share DNA with many other people so could still be discoverable.
The act you're looking for is...sex. So people stop sharing.
I posted my DNA to GEDMatch after the news (Score:2)
When the Golden State Killer was convicted, in part by identifying him through GEDMatch, I uploaded my DNA to GEDMatch and made it available to researchers for future investigations. If this technology can help put murderers away, I'm happy to do my part.
If you think withholding your DNA from such sites will keep you from being found, you are wrong. The Golden State Killer's DNA was not on GEDMatch. But he had some second-cousins who did, and that was enough to find him. If you're worried about the privacy
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Then fix society. The problem isn't with the data, the problem is a primitive society with science it simply isn't advanced enough to use safely and maturely. So don't let society get away with being too primitive to cope.
It's too late to keep your DNA private (Score:2)
If you are worried that your privacy will be violated if you upload your DNA to a site like GEDMatch, it's already too late. Somebody you are related to, already has uploaded their data.
The Golden State Killer didn't have his DNA on the site, but some of his relatives did. This triangulation was what led to the police identifying him as a suspect.
If you can be found through DNA, the data is already out there, whether you submit yours or not.
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Uploading to these sites is incredibly foolish. There's a reason why the governments of countries like Russia and China are trying to collect as much foreign DNA as they can. For more likely reasons, insurance and pension companies could end up with their hands on it, with outcomes that you might not like (aside: also see Vitality for example, a healthcare company that gets people to log their lifestyle - they're in to pensions with the rumour being that people who lived a healthy life get a worse pension
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What exactly can Russia and China do with my DNA? Do you really think you are important enough for the Chinese government to be interested in collecting your DNA?
If they want to find me specifically, there is no amount of hiding (including hiding my DNA) that will be sufficient to protect me from them. But I'm simply not important enough to them for my DNA to be of any interest. People who worry about foreign governments being able to collect their DNA have an inflated idea of their own importance in the sc
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/b... [cbsnews.com]
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So this article essentially claims that China is collecting data on you so it can sell you things like drugs specifically tailored to your DNA profile. And they're getting the DNA data by buying labs and clinics. Your upload to GEDMatch isn't going to help them much. Nor is this type of marketing going to be much different that marketing via more traditional channels like web cookies or ad tracking.
If your biggest concern is targeted advertising, then I'll grant this is a likely out come at some point in th
Re: It's too late to keep your DNA private (Score:2)
Woosh!
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That's a very convincing argument!
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Lots of words that don't say a whole lot. Yes, there are lots of people who don't understand what they're talking about. We have a cure for ignorance, it's called education. The reason people aren't educated sufficiently is that morons and loan sharks have tried to make money off it. The correct solution is to never tell people what to think but to teach them how to think effectively and critically, and then to let them get on with the job of thinking for themselves. Ignorance, fear, insecurity, etc, are th
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Thank you. I was perhaps a little sharper than I would have liked to have been, you're not an unreasonable person.
I tend towards trying to analyse problems, occasionally over-analysing them in great depth, in the hopes that if I can identify the right threads to tug, then I can start looking at ways to contribute to fix it. (The problem is that many who do try to help end up causing problems because they don't analyse enough and tend towards reflexive "solutions" rather than useful ones. In trying to avoid
Very funny (Score:2)
50 years ago, crimes were solved because the criminals were idiots.
Nowadays they are caught because their family is full of idiots.
Data sharing is bad (Score:2)
DNA sharing is bad without approval of every family member with the same DNA up to maybe a 2nd cousin. You are not the sole keeper of your DNA, therefor it's a shared responsibility model.