Three rapes happened in Georgia between June and October of 1999. “In each case, a woman awoke in the wee hours of the morning in her own bed to find an unknown man standing over her.” says the Washington times.
After each rape happened, the survivors at once reported the tradgedy. After all of the testing, all three of the cases has matching DNA. In the twist of things, the intruders dna was unknown in a national DNA base.
In 2018, the district attorney's office proposed to The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council that having more DNA testing should be done. With that being done, in 2019 the DNA evidence was matched to DNA found in a genealogy research website.
After research and investigation, the investigators established that the suspect was living in the Georgia area at the times the rapes were done. According to the Washington Times, two of the incestgaters went to the area the suspect was and implemented a search warrant on his house gathering DNA samples.
The suspect denied the rape act. After the investigators traveled back to Georgia, they heard the news that the suspect had gone missing. He was found, deceased. The DNA taken from the suspects house matched the DNA from the rape kits of 1999.
The news got told to all three survivors, they finally have some closure after 20 years of having the situation being left unknown.
Using genetic genealogy websites to identify unknown crime victims has been creeping into today’s criminology. “Private DNA test kits like Ancestry and 23andMe offer users downloads of their genetic code, which they can later upload to sites like GEDMatch. These private DNA bases are closed to law enforcement due to privacy concerns. Press says access to private databases like 23andMe or Ancestry would make the search process for law enforcement much quicker.” says npr.
America has the upper hand by having access to using genetic genealogy websites to access DNA.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/21/georgia-uses-dna-sample-and-genealogy-to-solve-199/
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/08/682925589/using-genetic-genealogy-to-identify-unknown-crime-victims-sometimes-decades-late
DNA test tube taken by Sciencealert
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