Another murder solved from DNA uploaded to Genetic testing genealogy website by a relative.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man...acher-150518197.html

Man Arrested in 1992 Murder of Teacher After DNA Website Links Him to Killing

Police have arrested a popular Pennsylvania DJ in the cold case killing of a young woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered in her home back in 1992.

Christy Mirack was just 25 years old when she was beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted in her Greenfield Estate townhouse in East Lampeter Township on Dec. 21, 1992.

The sixth grade teacher was found on her living room floor by her school’s principal after she did not come to work the following day.

Emergency responders rushed to the scene, but Mirack had already died, authorities said.

Since the killing, investigators vetted dozens of persons of interest, but the case went cold.

But 25 years later, a break in the case came as a genotype formed from DNA evidence left at the scene matched relatives of Raymond Rowe, 49, a well-known area disc jockey.

Rowe’s relatives had uploaded their genetic material to a public database, authorities said.

The match that came back showed Rowe was a strong viable suspect, WPMT-TV reported.

On May 31, undercover detectives were able to pick up a water bottle and gum Rowe discarded while working as a DJ at an event at Smoketown Elementary School, the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office said.

Rowe’s DNA came back as a match to the DNA found on multiple parts of Mirack, and on the carpet underneath her body, the district attorney’s office said.

Rowe was arrested at his home and is being held at the Lancaster County Prison.

He was charged with one count of criminal homicide and will not be eligible for bail. He has not yet entered a plea.

“This killer was at liberty from this crime, this brutal crime for longer than Christy Mirack was on this earth alive," District Attorney Craig Steadman told reporters following Rowe's arrest.

Known as DJ Freez, Rowe has performed at events with Paris Hilton, Brooke Hogan and Beenie Man, according to his website.

He noted he performs at as many as 150 weddings and parties per year, including fundraisers that include Stop the Violence and events benefiting a women’s abuse shelter.

Rowe was never considered a suspect in the case before, according to reports.

It was not immediately clear whether Mirack knew Rowe before her murder, but investigators had previously said there were no signs of forced entry at her home.

Rowe is the latest to be arrested after being identified through a genealogy website to which a relative apparently uploaded genetic material. Last week, 66-year-old Gary Hartman was charged with the rape and murder of Michella Welch, who was just 12 when she was killed in Washington State in 1986.

Hartman, a registered nurse, was tied to the killing after DNA found on the little girl's body was ran though a public database and led investigators to him. They then got a hold of a napkin Hartman used and matched the DNA on it to the DNA found on Michella. Hartman has since pleaded not guilty.

And in April, 72-year-old Joseph DeAngelo was arrested for the 1978 murders of Katie and Brian Maggiore, but officials believe he was behind at least 12 murders, 51 rapes and 120 home burglaries that occurred in at least 10 different counties in California in the 1970s and 80s, crimes tied to a suspect known as the Golden State Killer. Authorities say a partial DNA match with an unidentified, distant relative who shared their genetic material with a free online database led investigators to DeAngelo.

DeAngelo has not yet entered a plea.

No violation of privacy is thought to have been committed in these cases, but the tools used to make the arrests have served as a reminder of the ways technology surrounding DNA can be used.

"There [aren’t] legal ramifications, so much as policy ramifications — what kind of rules as a society do we want to create around DNA?" Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, told InsideEdition.com shortly after DeAngelo's arrest. "One of the lessons here is that people need to be very careful about sharing their DNA ... because it can be potentially accessed by police and other government agencies.

"Obviously, no one is shedding any tears for a serial killer and rapist, but if we’re going to start allowing the police to post the DNA of suspected criminals open to the public, that raises significant privacy issues," Stanley continued. “Not all suspected criminals turn out to be guilty ... even if they are, does that mean they lose all their privacy interests in their DNA?"

"It’s important that there be good checks and balances on how government agencies deal with DNA," he said.

I'm good with how it's used so far.

I don't see where or how abuse could start to creep in without anyone pointing it out or objecting to it.

I wonder how many others he is responsible for. I would anticipate some more hits off of CODIS and every department near where he lived or worked will be looking at their cold cases. With that level of violence, most sexual predators don't suddenly stop.

As for DNA, some courts jurisdictions allow this type of collection, as the property was thrown away, while others may not. The recovered DNA is used to get arrest warrant, once the suspect is in custody, another swab is taken which is used to verify the DNA hit.

I can't help but wonder: if there is no other evidence except a DNA match, truly no other evidence, and the suspect just claims he has no idea how it could have gotten there, would that lead to a conviction?

I think we can all speculate about ways that our DNA could possibly get just about anywhere, including the possibility of a deliberate plant. But is there some precedent on this ?

With no one alive to refute it, is one-night-stand a credible defense?

DNA is great tool but it should be the only one that leads to a conviction because it is subject to misuse and abuse, just like serialized primers from a gun.

I pick up a few from the range and drop them at a crime scene. You're now the focus of the po-po.

I drop a half smoked cigarette and some transient picks it up and drops it somewhere else. Bad mojo.

DNA is subject to misuse in a big way but it's also a great tool for cases like this. I'm OK with it being used like it was here but vigilence is necessary.

Let's hope the use of these tools remains restricted to the very worst offenses.

Why? They should be used on any crime. From a legal standpoint the use of it for a murder is the same as using it for something like auto theft (to pick a random example.)

I sat on a grand jury once. One of the cases that came through was a store burglary. It was an old cold case. But when it happened, the burglar cut himself on something (broken glass maybe), and left blood evidence. The collected it, ran the DNA, and put it in the database. Years later, they busted him for something else, collected his DNA, ran it, and got a match.

Why shouldn't they do this?

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
Let's hope the use of these tools remains restricted to the very worst offenses.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
Let's hope the use of these tools remains restricted to the very worst offenses.

Like this?

Must be nice living somewhere that a dine'n dasher gets the DNA trackdown.

quote:

WHEN a hotel guest absconded without paying his bill after leaving a false name, he might have thought he had a perfect plan for a free stay.

But the would-be criminal mastermind had failed to observe that crucial rule for all travellers – don’t forget your toothbrush. The error made it easy for police to trace his identity through DNA.

Trainee plasterer Stephen Evans, 29, checked into a £32 ($51)-a-night guesthouse in the Welsh seaside resort of Llandudno – his home town – in June under a false name and address, ‘Paul Jones of Chester’.


Evans had told the receptionist that he would be staying for three nights. But after two days he left without having paid.

Officers who were called in to investigate noticed the toothbrush he had left behind in his room. After having it forensically tested, they discovered a DNA match on the police database, magistrates in Llandudno heard.

I have a feeling this is going to be a 4th amendment challenge. Did the police get permission to access the DNA data base for this purpose.
Is it possible the owner of the DNA in the data base they used to track him down could say this is not how I wanted my DNA used.
How about the company that stored the DNA information did they give the police permission to use it for this purpose.
I am glad they caught the guy if he did it but all he has to say that they had consensual relations and when he left she was alive.
Nothing is fool proof.

Whine all we want, but that genie is out of the bottle. No warrant this time, warrant that requires a couple of hours extra work for the police and a judge the next time—do we really believe it will make a scintilla of difference to our individual privacy? I’m thinking of a cold rape/murder case from the early 1980s in Germany that probably has someone sweating bullets at this point, and good that he is. “What’s with this fingerprint shit? Those are mine, for fuck’s sake; what the hell! are the police doing with them?” Leave evidence lying around in a public place (including on or in the victim), and expect someone to pick it up.

Boo, effing hoo: “Can’t do the time? Don’t do the crime.

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
I have a feeling this is going to be a 4th amendment challenge. Did the police get permission to access the DNA data base for this purpose.
Is it possible the owner of the DNA in the data base they used to track him down could say this is not how I wanted my DNA used.
How about the company that stored the DNA information did they give the police permission to use it for this purpose.
I am glad they caught the guy if he did it but all he has to say that they had consensual relations and when he left she was alive.
Nothing is fool proof.

Story on local news has Lancaster Co DA saying it is available because of the terms of use agreed to when using the site (fine print). They needed to get exact match instead of familial match, so they followed and observed publicly discarded second sample.

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
I have a feeling this is going to be a 4th amendment challenge. Did the police get permission to access the DNA data base for this purpose.
Is it possible the owner of the DNA in the data base they used to track him down could say this is not how I wanted my DNA used.
How about the company that stored the DNA information did they give the police permission to use it for this purpose.
I am glad they caught the guy if he did it but all he has to say that they had consensual relations and when he left she was alive.

"Rowe’s relatives had uploaded their genetic material to a public database, authorities said."

Two words - "Public database." What permissions do the police need to access a publicly available database?

If the owner of the DNA didn't want his DNA used this way, he/she should not have made it publicly available.

Glad they got the bastard.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Why? They should be used on any crime. From a legal standpoint the use of it for a murder is the same as using it for something like auto theft (to pick a random example.)

I sat on a grand jury once. One of the cases that came through was a store burglary. It was an old cold case. But when it happened, the burglar cut himself on something (broken glass maybe), and left blood evidence. The collected it, ran the DNA, and put it in the database. Years later, they busted him for something else, collected his DNA, ran it, and got a match.

Why shouldn't they do this?

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
Let's hope the use of these tools remains restricted to the very worst offenses.

Because DNA can be an extremely powerful tool for things other than crime fighting. If this becomes extremely common, many people may avoid DNA testing for fear of bringing the police down on a relative.

On a bizarre side note. My stepson is a groomsman in a wedding this weekend.

The suspect was the DJ for the wedding and both the bride and groom knew him personally. They had no clue that his guy could be capable of such a crime.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Boo, effing hoo: “Can’t do the time? Don’t do the crime.

I don't question the police's right to collect and analyze it. I go back to the essence of my original question: how credible is it really. DNA can easily be transferred and spread around.
In fact, if I were committing crimes now, I would be deliberately collecting oddball DNA samples to spread around at my crime scenes

quote:

Originally posted by daikyu:
They had no clue that his guy could be capable of such a crime.

Everyone is capable of killing....we train 18 & 19 year olds how to kill in a very effective manner-BOOT CAMP.

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
I have a feeling this is going to be a 4th amendment challenge. Did the police get permission to access the DNA data base for this purpose.
Is it possible the owner of the DNA in the data base they used to track him down could say this is not how I wanted my DNA used.
How about the company that stored the DNA information did they give the police permission to use it for this purpose.
I am glad they caught the guy if he did it but all he has to say that they had consensual relations and when he left she was alive.
Nothing is fool proof.

Doesn't work like that.

The defendant has no standing to object to the way another person's DNA was used and a person who submits their DNA to a public database likely abdicates any privacy interest in it.

None of this changes the proof requirements for criminal convictions. If someone was raped and murdered in San Francisco and the DNA of someone who was seven years old and living in France at the time of the crime is found at the scene, what’s the chance that the “suspect” would be so much as charged? As an investigator if I found the DNA of someone who clearly could not ever have been at a crime scene, that would be a clue that it was planted, and that any other evidence would have to be evaluated in that light.

Is there nevertheless a chance of a wrongful conviction or at least extreme inconvenience through an improper investigation or prosecution? Of course. But if anyone believes that that hasn’t always been possible for other reasons, he can only be congratulated on his naïve ignorance of the realities of the criminal justice system.

quote:

Originally posted by daikyu:
On a bizarre side note. My stepson is a groomsman in a wedding this weekend.

The suspect was the DJ for the wedding and both the bride and groom knew him personally. They had no clue that his guy could be capable of such a crime.

Anyone is capable of anything.

They may be more or less likely to commit such a crime, but they are capable.

Monsters are real, they just wear a human face.