Relative's DNA from genealogy websites cracked East Area Rapist case, DA's office says

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Relative's DNA from genealogy websites cracked East Area Rapist case, DA's office says

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article209913514.html



I'm glad they caught this guy ... but I have issues with randomly scanning DNA Databases looking for criminals





How Private DNA Data Led Idaho Cops on a Wild Goose Chase and Linked an Innocent Man to a 20-year-old Murder Case


Man became suspect in murder and rape case after DNA his father donated to Mormon genetic research was sold to Ancestry.com and then tested by police

  • Michael Usry donated DNA to Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation
  • The database, backed by Mormon church to find a 'genetic blueprint' for humans was later acquired by Ancestry.com
  • Police were investigating the murder and rape of teenager Angie Dodge
  • Christopher Tapp was already convicted but his DNA did not match the sample left on Dodge's body in 1996
  • Idaho Falls Police Department had warrant to seize Ancestry.com info, which found Usry a 'familial match'
  • The search only matches certain parts of genetic code, leading to 'high rate of false positives'
  • Usry did not fit the age range of the suspect, so his son, Michael Usry Jr. became a suspect until he was cleared a month later



http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-familial-dna-20161023-snap-story.html

But the growing popularity of the technique has raised alarms for some privacy advocates, such as Steve Mercer, chief attorney for the forensic division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. Mercer successfully lobbied for his state's formal ban on familial searches. Washington, D.C., is the only other jurisdiction to prohibit them outright.

Searching for relatives through partial matches is intrusive, he said, and raises concerns about the 4th Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure.

"It is a slippery slope," he said.

Critics also warn that partial matches can point authorities to innocent people. In 2014, the technology led police in an Idaho city to wrongfully suspect a New Orleans filmmaker of committing a notorious 1996 murder.

Police homed in on him after examining an online database of genetic profiles. One profile, which was a near match to DNA left at the crime scene, belonged to a man who had donated his DNA years earlier to a hereditary studies project conducted by the Mormon church. An ancestry research company purchased the program's database, making it publicly available.

Idaho Falls police obtained a court order compelling the company to turn over the identity of the man, who detectives thought could be related to the killer. Once they had his name, they scrubbed his family and focused on the man's son, Michael Usry.

Detectives flew to New Orleans and interrogated him for more than three hours, before ordering him to provide a cheek swab. Usry asked whether someone he knew had committed a heinous crime. No, the detectives told him, they were looking at him.
 
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