Genealogy and the Golden State Killer, possible methods used

[sugarfizzle]

According to one of the other threads about this, it has been confirmed that gedmatch was involved.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/26/ancestry-23andme-deny-assisting-law-enforcement-in-east-area-rapist-case/

That presumably indicates that the police lab prepared their DNA report in the same format as one of the other companies, then uploaded it to gedmatch, purporting it to be from one of those companies.

Possibly stripped the text out of a major company's downloaded file, then added their text to it, uploaded it to gedmatch as if it was from that major company??

There might be a lot of people shaking in their boots after this.

Regards Margaret

[jc26red]

Another report explaining how it was done. Though I wouldn’t usually believe anything in this rag, it was probably lifted from elsewhere     Interesting case though.


http://www.rootschat.com/links/01lz4/

[sugarfizzle]

Another report explaining how it was done. Though I wouldn’t usually believe anything in this rag, it was probably lifted from elsewhere     Interesting case though.


http://www.rootschat.com/links/01lz4/

To be fair to the Daily Mail, they are right on this occasion, as even Gedmatch admits it was through them. But there seems to be a misunderstanding in the non genealogical community in how it works. Gedmatch did not hand over any information to the police, they merely used it as we would do to find likely matches.

April 27, 2018 To correct a BIG misunderstanding, we do not show any person's DNA on GEDmatch. We only show manipulations of data such as DNA matches

April 27, 2018 We understand that the GEDmatch database was used to help identify the Golden State Killer. Although we were not approached by law enforcement or anyone else about this case or about the DNA, it has always been GEDmatch's policy to inform users that the database could be used for other uses, as set forth in the Site Policy ( linked to the login page and https://www.gedmatch.com/policy.php). While the database was created for genealogical research, it is important that GEDmatch participants understand the possible uses of their DNA, including identification of relatives that have committed crimes or were victims of crimes. If you are concerned about non-genealogical uses of your DNA, you should not upload your DNA to the database and/or you should remove DNA that has already been uploaded.

Regards Margaret

[Berniberns]

Just to make people even more nervous about big brother watching you....

Went to a postnatal group with some others for a few weeks, this was over 5 years ago (in the UK).
Was told by a midwife there, something very interesting that I have not been able to find out if true or not. That the Guthrie cards (heel prick test) data was used to help identify victims of the July London bombing.

Kind of freaks me out that not only have they not destroyed that data like they were supposed to, but they seem to have the DNA profiles on some system somewhere.

I understand Australia and New Zealand also have the heel prick tests done on newborns?

B

[davidft]

I wasn't aware of that about the Guthrie cards but a quick internet search reveals that has been a lot of controversy about their retention in many diverse jurisdictions from Ireland to Australia, USA to Scotland and more (although none of the articles said what current UK practice is and whether it differed in different parts of the UK).

[DevonCruwys]

In case it's of any interest I have a blog post here with a curated collection of links relating to the Golden State Killer case:

https://cruwys.blogspot.com/2018/04/gedmatch-ysearch-and-golden-state-killer.html

The police used a stored sample from a duplicate rape kit. That was sent off to a lab to get a genotype compatible with the genotypes used on GEDmatch.