Genetic Genealogy and Its Use in Criminal Investigations: Are We Heading Towards a Universal Genetic Database?
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Volume 15 Spring 2019 djim.management.dal.ca | Genetic Genealogy and its Use in Criminal Investigations: Are We Heading Towards a Universal Genetic Database? Emily Plemel School of Information Management, Dalhousie University Abstract In April 2018, Joseph DeAngelo also known as The Golden State Killer was caught and convicted. This was made possible by 40-year-old DNA evidence, genetic genealogy, and current information systems technology. This paper will discuss the history of genetic information such as DNA testing used in forensics, and consider information technologies effect on the future of criminal investigations. The main focus is genetic databases and their management. How will the management of these databases affect the public and law enforcement? Could a universal genetic database create solutions to the current criminal database systems, often critiqued for being discriminatory? How can we use genetic genealogy more efficiently to solve crimes? The sources used for this exploration include companies such as GEDmatch, 23andME, and Ancestry; key players of the field such as Barbara Rae Venter and CeCe Moore; newspaper articles, statistics, and academic journals. Keywords: DNA, genetic genealogy, cold-case, crime solving, forensic investigation, genetic database, information management, universal database 1 Lately, a small industry has been gaining and investigation process should be attention in the fields of criminal understood as follows. investigation and information management, The Procedure as it Currently that is, solving cold cases using genetic Stands genealogy and genetic information To explain the current process I will be databases. Already, there have been a few consulting information from Parabon key players identified in this growing field Nanolabs Inc., the company from which in North America; Cece Moore, Parabon CeCe Moore operates. This is a summary of Nanolabs Inc., Barbara Rae-Venter, Curtis the processes that labs or databases such Rogers (GEDMatch), Ancestry.ca, 23andMe, as Parabon Nanolabs use. The first process and Paul Holes. You may be wondering, involved with genetic investigation is hasn’t Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) genetic genealogy (GG). This entails a profiling been used in crime investigations combination of traditional genealogical since the 1980s? Yes, it has. However, the research and genetic analysis. Traditional processes and results have evolved with the genealogy research is conducted by using rise of big data and the public’s evidential documents such as vital statistics, participation in DNA genealogy services. To church records, obituaries, immigration explore this topic, the focus of this paper records, land records, biographies, and will be placed on the changing process in much more to research family history and criminal investigations via genetic map family trees. Genetic analysis is genealogical evidence, starting with early conducted by using DNA information to cases and practices then moving into compare how closely related two present procedures and the predictions for individuals are. To break this down, the the future. I will discuss how the history of exact process is done by examining the genetic information has led to future aDNA, which is different from other genetic predictions for a universal genetic database, markers such as X or Y chromosome DNA and how this might function. I will explain because “aDNA is inherited from all how information managers could see the ancestral lines and passed on by both landscape of genetic information and its males and females and thus can be used to storage change because of the added value compare any two individuals, regardless of as evidence and its use in the criminal how they are related” (Parabon Nanolabs, investigation process. I will explore 2018). By examining long stretches of DNA questions such as; what are the benefits genealogists can infer if there is a common and the concerns of considering a universal ancestor because it is highly unlikely for database for this type of information? But unrelated individuals to share a long first, to understand how this industry has stretch of aDNA. So, how can a stretch of changed, the current genetic genealogy an unknown individual’s DNA be compared to other known individual’s DNA on a large 2 Genetic Genealogy and its Use in Criminal Investigations enough scale that these comparisons can Typically, when DNA and investigation are be representative our current population? thought of in tandem, what comes to mind The answer to that lies in the development is fingerprinting or bodily fluid samples. of public and private genetic genealogy This type of DNA profiling is different than databases. By using databases such as the genetic genealogy profiling done today GEDmatch, Ancestry.ca, or 23andMe, the because it can only trace the parentage unknown DNA can be compared to DNA. This means that the DNA can only be numbers in the millions at a time to check traced as far back as the parents, or for common relations (Parabon Nanolabs, another sample of that specific person’s 2018). This process can help to identify DNA. For example, one of the first cases in perpetrators as well as unidentified or North America where DNA evidence of this “Jane/John Doe” murder victims. Currently, kind was used in a court of law resulted in this is the process and applications of a conviction of a serial rapist in 1987. genetic genealogical investigation. In the Tommy Lee Andrews was sentenced to past, this practice was very different. twenty-two years in prison for rape, The History of Genetics in aggravated battery, and burglary primarily Criminal Investigations based on DNA match evidence. The blood taken from a fingerprint proven to be In 1999 the International Journal of Andrew’s at one crime scene and was Offender Therapy and Comparative matched to the semen taken from another Criminology published an article outlining crime scene. However, predictions for forensic DNA profiling in the 21st century. This article takes us back to the lab couldn't match Andrews' entire the first classification system developed for genetic code to the rapist's--that would be DNA evidence in 1982 called Galton’s technically impossible. But technicians Fingerprints. This fingerprinting system is could compare representative pieces of the important to recognize because Galton was two DNA samples that scientists know are able to collect a large sample of prints, highly variable in the human population essentially creating the first system to (Crenson, 1997). manage the collection of unique identifying Unlike the present method of genetic evidence which we can compare to the genealogy, Andrew’s separate DNA databases of today (Friedman, 1999). samples were matched to each other to Advancing on from fingerprinting, DNA determine that he was present at both the testing became increasingly common in crime scenes because there was a long criminal investigations particularly after the enough run of matching genetic coding. court gave DNA information evidential From this evidence Andrews was “convicted value with early convictions such as that of of breaking into the home of a 27-year-old Tommy Lee Andrews, which will be Orlando woman, raping and stabbing her discussed shortly. Genetic Genealogy and its Use in Criminal Investigations 3 on May 9, 1986” (NYT Staff, 1988). This was By 1992 the ability to test DNA was a a break in the crime solving industry as well trusted procedure and the DNA from the as the world of genetics – it meant that Maryland case was tested, ultimately DNA could show us information that had proving Bloodsworth’s innocence and evidential value. So, how did DNA evidence staying his execution. and profiling procedures evolve from this In the early1990s scientists made another breakthrough? breakthrough in DNA testing technologies. The process of DNA testing that was used The process of Polymerase Chain Reaction in the 1970s-1980s is called Restriction (PCR) replaced RFLP analysis. This meant Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP). To that less DNA was required and the results simplify, RFLP analysis is the process of were available much quicker as the test “cutting a particular region of DNA with examines the Short Tandem Repeats (SRP) known variability, with restriction enzymes, of the DNA which are highly variable then separating the DNA fragments by making matches more exact and lowers the agarose gel electrophoresis and risk of misidentification. determining the number of fragments and By the early 2000s PCR technology was relative sizes” (Philips, 2018). The drawback improved by combining genetic markers to this method is that the process is time into a singular test. This cut test times even consuming and expensive. Once the further and created an array of other process is completed the information from options for what the DNA could reveal, the RFLP tests are compared in an attempt including “AIMs (Ancestry Informative to match the unique information. In cases Markers), Y-Chromosome markers, like Tommy Lee Andrews this confirmed his mitochondrial markers, ancient DNA guilt as the unknown DNA matched his markers, and other markers useful for own. On the other hand, it allows for the establishing more distant biological opposite result like the case of Kirk relationships like 4th or 5th cousins” (DNA Bloodsworth, who in 1993 was the first Diagnostic Centre, 2018). person on death row to be exonerated by DNA evidence. In this case In 2015 an article published in the Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Bloodsworth was a 22-year-old former Society: Biological Sciences made some Marine when he was wrongfully convicted predictions of where the field of DNA in 1984 of the rape and murder of a nine- testing was to go next. The article year-old girl, and was sentenced to death anticipated that, “DNA protocols can be in Maryland… Bloodsworth was convicted expected to become more rapid and largely based on misidentifications made sensitive and provide stronger investigative by several eyewitnesses (Innocent staff, potential” (Butler, 2015).