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Crime Biotech

Decades-Old Missing Person Mystery Solved After Relative Uploads DNA To GEDMatch (npr.org) 30

Posted by EditorDavid from the closing-cases dept.
In 1970 an Oregon man discovered a body with "clear signs of foul play".

NPR reports that "The identity of the young woman remained a mystery — until Thursday." State authorities identified the woman as Sandra Young, a teenager from Portland who went missing between 1968 and 1969. Her identity was discovered through advanced DNA technology, which has helped solve stubborn cold cases in recent years. The case's breakthrough came last year in January, when a person uploaded their DNA to the genealogy database GEDMatch and the tool immediately determined that the DNA donor was a distant family member of Young....

From there, a genetic genealogist working with local law enforcement helped track down other possible relatives and encouraged them to provide their DNA. That work eventually led to Young's sister and other family members, who confirmed that Young went missing around the same time.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Tony Isaac for sharing the news.
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Decades-Old Missing Person Mystery Solved After Relative Uploads DNA To GEDMatch More

Decades-Old Missing Person Mystery Solved After Relative Uploads DNA To GEDMatch

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  • What's not stated directly is that a black girl went missing in 68/69 and no one cared. I'd be willing to bet the PPB made zero effort to connect any dots. They'll just deflect and do nothing this time too. After all, the PPB has far right sympathizers [wweek.com] and allowed the far-right to engage in targeted political violence [theguardian.com].

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How about spending 29 years on death row for being picked out a police lineup you weren't even in? https://www.wtae.com/article/p... [wtae.com]

    • It sounds like they couldn't even be bothered to write up a missing persons report.

      The missing young lady and the body would have been an obvious link.

      • Re:What's not stated directly ... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday March 03, 2024 @09:33PM (#64287276)

        Problem is, there are a lot of kids who are serial runaways. Families often don't bother to report the kids missing after the third or fourth time. Plus there are a lot of dysfunctional families... they might have assumed she was staying with some friend, but not be in any sort of regular contact with her - so no one may have even realized she was missing.

        I'm not saying that was the case here, necessarily - but things are not always as cut-and-dried as we might want.

        I'm glad that at least her family has a tiny amount of closure now - but I can't even fathom what they've gone through all these years.

        • >Problem is, there are a lot of kids who are serial runaways. Families often don't bother to report the kids missing after the third or fourth time.

          I've seen this in white middle-class suburbia - suddenly there's an extra kid at a house and eventually the story comes out. Eventually the parents get told and they're kind of casual about it. I guess they figure the runaway has proven smart enough to always run away somewhere safe and they just just don't worry enough to have another big police drama over

          • When my daughter was a teenager, there were a couple of different instances where one of her friends lived with us for a while. Both times were situations where, for whatever reason, the girl and her family were just constantly banging heads - they were all "good people", but some space seemed to be the best thing. We did make sure they knew where she was and verified they didn't mind her being with us. She wasn't problematic at all for us, just quietly hung around the house.

            But, growing up, I had a few (ma

        • The ambiguity on the age of the victim and the date of their disappearance does leave a lot of open questions.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      I don't think that "no one cared" from the linked articles description of the continuing steps taken to put data into various systems and resolve the identity question. What wasn't clear was whether a missing person's report was ever filed and data collected. Even if it was back in 1970, DNA identification wasn't really a thing. So linking a corpse to relatives was difficult, absent some other evidence. It would have depended on someone being aware of advances in technology and pursuing family members for s

      • having been someone who was alive in the 70's, I can honestly say that if a missing persons report went out in one city, and her body was found in some other city, some miles apart, it is highly likely that neither jurisdiction were in contact, much. Plus, even today, where all the law enforcement are connected, the FBI estimates that something like 70% of felons are not input by local police departments as is required into the background check database that most states require you to use if selling a firea

    • Re:What's not stated directly ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <`slashdot' `at' `worf.net'> on Monday March 04, 2024 @01:43AM (#64287514)

      It's also just as likely the police didn't care. The 70s while not exactly an openly racist era, likely had its fair share of it.

      Black girl goes missing? Meh. After all, there were signs of foul play - did the murderer ever get anything?

      And yes, sadly, there's a good chance the parents didn't bother filing a police report because of previously bad encounters with police (no, those didn't start in the 90s). They probably would've filed something but their previous experience probably taught them that the police won't do anything for them and that's it.

      It's the sad reality of it all. The whole systemic racism thing did happen, and whole generations grew up fearing the police (a black guy in a nice car? Must've stolen it. Common in the 80s and 90s to be comedy material).

      Of course, nothing happens, because these days it's considered "woke" to try to fix problems like this. Meanwhile, there is/was a murderer who got away with it.

      • Racism... Living in Boston in the 1960's I saw little of it, but then in the 70's when we moved to the suburbs, it was rampant! And yeah, our all - white police force probably wouldn't have put forth the same level of effort for one of 4 black families in that town as they may have for anyone else in the town (other than the two asian families, it was as if they didn't even exist unless you wanted asian food)... I will say though the only 'racist' violence I saw was between the Irish and the Italians... whi

  • The BBC did a fantastic documentary on this topic here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/... [apple.com]

  • For example, the next fascist regime will have no trouble rounding up all "undesirsbles" for disposal in death-camps. The 3rd Reich had some real troubles doing that and needed to buy IBM tech for it. No such issues today.

    • "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

    • Correction: Nothing is private.

      And the missing woman never got a DNA test or submitted the data to any online service. But one of her relatives did, and that was enough to help police figure out who she was.

      If you are worried that getting a DNA test will put you at more risk of being tracked down, it's already too late for that. They don't need *your* DNA, they just need DNA from someone related to you as distantly as 3rd or 4th cousin.

      Luckily for you, YOU are not important enough for police to try to track

      • excuse me, the missing woman, her remains were found in 1970... in case you weren't aware, DNA testing wasn't a thing people could just go get back then. It wasn't until the late 90's, almost 30 years later, that DNA testing became something that you could just do.

        • You are correct, DNA testing wasn't available back then. But I'm not sure how your statement relates to what I said. My statement and conclusions are not changed in any way by this fact.

          • Your statement, "And the missing woman never got DNA tested...." seems to imply that she COULD have been DNA tested.

            • No, it doesn't imply that. The point is that *despite* the fact that she personally wasn't tested (because she couldn't be tested back then, or for any other reason), they were able to identify her through DNA of a relative that *was* tested. This thread is about the privacy of DNA, which doesn't exist, whether you are personally tested or not.

    • What regimes any longer aren't fascist regimes?
    • If the fascist regime needs your DNA, they will come and get it and there is nothing you will be able to do about it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        For targeting select individuals, yes. But not for mass-scale or low-key. Things could take years and a lot of people could get away.

  • See, everybody? (Score:3, Funny)

    by 0xG ( 712423 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @12:10PM (#64288736)

    Mass genetic cataloging is for GOOD.
    Sign up now!

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