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Do No Harm,
Do Know Harm
posted
I'm sure you've read about this serial killer from the 70s/80s being caught from a DNA hit. He was never a suspect, prior.

This is the first article I've read to claim that the police got his profile from a genealogy service. I know a lot of people who have sent their info in. A whole lot. And, as I understand it, it wasn't even HIS DNA that was submitted to the service, it was a family member's.

I wonder how many people are freaking out right now over the implications:

https://www.wsoctv.com/news/wo...ing-as-cop/738749957

quote:
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) - More than three decades after his trail went cold, one of California's most prolific serial killers and rapists was caught by using online genealogical sites to find a DNA match, prosecutors said Thursday.
Investigators compared the DNA collected from a crime scene of the Golden State Killer to online genetic profiles and found a match: a relative of the man police have identified as Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who was arrested at his suburban Sacramento home on Tuesday.

Authorities didn't give the name of the site, one of many that allows people to send in their DNA and find long-lost relatives, like Ancestry and 23andMe.

They also didn't outline the rest of the investigative process - how they used that match to home in on DeAngelo, the former police officer accused of being California's notorious Golden State Killer. Despite an outpouring of thousands of tips over the years, DeAngelo's name had not been on the radar of law enforcement before last week, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.

Contacted Friday, both Ancestry and 23andMe.com said they weren't involved in the case.

Investigators also revealed Thursday that DeAngelo is the prime suspect in the 1975 killing of a community college teacher, raising the total number of his alleged victims to 13.

Detectives are trying to link Joseph DeAngelo to the slaying and about 100 burglaries that occurred in Visalia, in Central California, while DeAngelo served as a police officer in nearby Exeter, Visalia Police Chief Jason Salazar said.

The police chief said he believes DeAngelo is the so-called Visalia Ransacker, who terrorized the farming community about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Fresno from early 1974 until late 1975.

Authorities alleged that he was responsible for 12 murders and dozens of rapes in California from 1976 to 1986. The suspect, they said, was tied to many of those crimes through DNA.

The Ransackers' crimes have not yet been added to the tally announced Tuesday in Sacramento because there is no DNA evidence connecting DeAngelo to the Visalia crimes, Salazar said.

DeAngelo is suspected of shooting to death journalism teacher Claude Snelling after Snelling caught him trying to kidnap his 16-year-old daughter, Salazar said.

DeAngelo matches the description of Snelling's killer, and the serial burglar operated the same way DeAngelo is alleged to have operated in the other crimes, Salazar said.

The Visalia suspect used sophisticated "pry tools" to gain entrance to locked homes, just as DeAngelo is alleged to have used in the other crimes, Salazar said.

The Visalia suspect was seen wearing a ski mask and eluded capture because of an apparent deep-knowledge of police work.

"He was very elusive and always had a good escape route," Salazar said.

Visalia police also have fingerprints and shoe tracks that will be investigated for matches to DeAngelo. Detectives will look to see if items taken during the Visalia burglaries are uncovered during the investigation of DeAngelo, Salazar said.

Also Thursday, investigators searched DeAngelo's home, looking for class rings, earrings, dishes and other items that were taken from crime scenes.

Authorities were seeking weapons and other items that could link the suspect to the crimes, Sacramento County Sheriff's Lt. Paul Belli said. He declined to say what, if anything, investigators had found.

Investigators backed two vehicles, a motorcycle and fishing boat out of the home's three-car garage and installed tarps to block prying eyes and news cameras.

Retired FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt said he and others have speculated that the serial killer had police or military training because of the sophistication of the crimes and the suspect's ability to elude capture.

DeAngelo had both. He served six years as a police officer after serving for nearly two years in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He worked as an officer in Exeter from 1973 until 1976, when he joined the Auburn Police Department outside Sacramento. Auburn fired him in 1970 after he was caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent.

Investigators have linked DeAngelo to 11 murders that occurred after he was fired from the police department.

"There may have been a revenge aspect to it," Van Zandt said. "He was going to show police that he was smarter than any of them and that it was a mistake to fire him."

Investigators said DeAngelo appeared to stop killing and raping after 1986 and settled down to steady employment and a middle-class life.

Former profilers said most serial killers usually don't stop until they die or get arrested, but a few have voluntarily quit.

Scientists developed a way to identify rapists and others through DNA fingerprinting in 1986, the same year as DeAngelo's last alleged murder.

Experts noted that DeAngelo, who graduated from Sacramento State with a criminal justice degree, most likely knew about the highly publicized DNA breakthrough.

"He knew police techniques," said John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Louis Schlesinger. "He was smart."




Knowing what one is talking about is widely admired but not strictly required here.

Although sometimes distracting, there is often a certain entertainment value to this easy standard.
-JALLEN

"All I need is a WAR ON DRUGS reference and I got myself a police thread BINGO." -jljones
 
Posts: 11472 | Location: NC | Registered: August 16, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Interesting, this through a family member's DNA test, and facial recognition technology that's moving forward quickly.



<><
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Posts: 2002 | Location: Goodbye, so. Fla. | Registered: January 26, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Based on what I read, the initial hit was from the online profile. Further DNA was then used to focus on him and ID him. I would guess the end samples were obtained by surveillance type investigation.
If he is actually good for all this, the method used to ID him seems pretty smart. And the fact his own family aided in the ID is poetic justice.


End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
 
Posts: 16561 | Location: Marquette MI | Registered: July 08, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Big Stack
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This sounds very much like the Grim Sleeper case.
 
Posts: 21240 | Registered: November 05, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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You should have seen the flood of vehicles around the place. Both law enforcement and news media.

I have family who live quite close to his house. I needed to go by last night to take of some things, and you had be careful driving past that house because of all the lights from the news trucks.

Many years ago, we lived in another part of the same town - he hit several houses not far from us.
 
Posts: 2837 | Location: Northern California | Registered: December 01, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Wait. He was fired from a PD for theft and then hired on again at another department ? Pretty good background checks...
 
Posts: 5112 | Location: Florida Panhandle  | Registered: November 23, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Peace through
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He needs to be brought to justice, and I don't mean in a court of law. Let the people have his ass.
 
Posts: 110065 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Muzzle flash
aficionado
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An ingenious use of available DNA information. My DNA is on file with one of the genealogical sites, but I'm not concerned about it. I'm not a felon.

flashguy




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Posts: 27911 | Location: Dallas, TX | Registered: May 08, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Freethinker
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We never know where technology and scientific discovery will take us. Hopefully this will have others of his ilk lying awake at night waiting for the knocks on their own doors.




“I can’t give you brains, but I can give you a diploma.”
— The Wizard of Oz

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I didn't read the article but something popped up on a feed that Patton Oswald's wife was working on a investigative book on this and it was published posthumously. The blurb was giving her credit for the leads. I'll have to try to find it.

Here is one from USA today.

link

Be interesting to find out if she really added to the investigation or if it's just giving Patton some closure on the death of his wife.



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Posts: 5371 | Location: Shenandoah Valley, VA | Registered: November 05, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I started with nothing,
and still have most of it
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^^^^The police say her book was not a factor in the arrest. I watched a multi-part special on this case on A&E a couple weeks ago, he was bad for sure. On the 20th anniversary of one of the rapes he telephoned the victim to taunt her.


"While not every Democrat is a horse thief, every horse thief is a Democrat." HORACE GREELEY
 
Posts: 1891 | Location: Central NC | Registered: May 18, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
His Royal Hiney
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72 years old. I hope he is healthy and lives quite well and lucid while in prison until the end, whatever that may be.



"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.
 
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Wait. He was fired from a PD for theft and then hired on again at another department ? Pretty good background checks..


quote:
He worked as an officer in Exeter from 1973 until 1976, when he joined the Auburn Police Department outside Sacramento. Auburn fired him in 1979 after he was caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent.


Better try rereading the article again. He was terminated from the SECOND department, not the first.


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Epping, NH

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Posts: 5812 | Location: Epping, NH | Registered: October 16, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
As Extraordinary
as Everyone Else
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I can see the day that when a baby is born his/her DNA sample will be taken and put in a data base for future reference...

Not sure how I feel about it. There are pros and cons...


------------------
Eddie

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Go Vols!
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It would be very easy for a child or grandchild of a rape victim to point a line to a suspect if a few relatives close to the suspect submit DNA.
 
Posts: 17944 | Location: SE Michigan | Registered: February 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by smlsig:
I can see the day that when a baby is born his/her DNA sample will be taken and put in a data base for future reference...

Not sure how I feel about it. There are pros and cons...


I agree with you, seems to me there could easily be some issues and misuse and abuse of information.




“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”
― Ronald Reagan

Retired old fart
 
Posts: 6547 | Location: Near the Beaverdam in VA | Registered: February 13, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I would suspect that the service was FamilyTree. It is the only large organization that does a more complete test including Y-DNA.

Once you have your results in the data bank the services continue to compare your data with every new test made. There is also a complex method of entering data into the various data banks without submitting an actual test.

In short, I think a clever investigator could enter the data into any of the services' data banks with a phony name to see whether there were hits. It would violate the terms of service but so what.

Nice detective work, this.
 
Posts: 3853 | Location: Citrus County Florida | Registered: October 13, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
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Anything that can be done to eliminate, or at least minimize, the chance of convicting and imprisoning those who are innocent (not just not guilty, but completely innocent, as in “the wrong guy) mist be tried.

There are hundreds of exonerated now released victims so far, and God knows how many others still lanquishing behind bars.




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When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

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Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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So, does the DA get a warrant to search the DNA services' database? Is it something like "Hey, we think you may have evidence to help us crack a case....let me in."?


P229
 
Posts: 3979 | Location: Sacramento, CA | Registered: November 21, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Big Stack
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Let's be honest, we know how this will play out. It'll take a few years to get to trial in such a complicated case (many victims, many, many counts), he'll get convicted and likely sentenced to "death". Death bring in quotes, because it really means he'll die of old age in San Quentin. California is never going to actually execute someone.

Given his age, they might work out a plea deal, since really anything he would get would work out to life without.

quote:
Originally posted by Rey HRH:
72 years old. I hope he is healthy and lives quite well and lucid while in prison until the end, whatever that may be.
 
Posts: 21240 | Registered: November 05, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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