Family Tree Forensics: Fighting Crime with DNA

By Linda Cullen

Genetic genealogy is a new forensic technique that has taken the crime-fighting world by storm. By sending your DNA to companies such as 23andMe or AncestryDNA, you can help catch violent criminals, mostly of unsolved murder and rape cases, and solve cases from years ago and now. While it may be controversial, many criminal cases have been solved and the perpetrator has been caught using this technique. For example, the Golden State Killer, who terrorized women throughout the state of California during the 1980s, was caught in 2018 using genetic genealogy (1).

Is It Okay for Law Enforcement to Have Access to Consumers’ DNA?

Many DNA databases have now allowed law enforcement access to their information through the new terms and conditions. For a while, there was controversy surrounding the idea of law enforcement having access to the DNA within these databases for violent crime investigation without the consumers explicitly being notified. A company called FamilyTreeDNA was exposed for allowing law enforcement access to the genetic profiles of over a million users (2). Many people thought this was an invasion of privacy, especially considering they did not give consent for their DNA profiles to be viewed and used by law enforcement. FamilyTreeDNA’s response to the criticism was that they felt a moral obligation to help solve violent cases given the information they had (3). Now, people seem to not have an issue with their DNA being available to law enforcement, considering that many criminal cases have been solved thanks to the use of genetic genealogy (2). Now, the concept of law enforcement having access to consumers’ DNA is less of a controversy, as long as there is transparency between law enforcement, the DNA database companies, and the customers.

How Does It Work?

DNA from crime scenes are inputted into the genetic database GEDmatch and cross-referenced with DNA of consumers within databases like 23andMe and AncestryDNA. If a match is found, it is most likely a distant relative of the perpetrator of the crime. Law enforcement can then trace back through the ancestry tree to find the person in the family who committed the crime and arrest them (1). This technique is especially helpful for older cases, when DNA testing couldn’t be used. The technique requires testing of Y-DNA, which is a genetic test that follows the paternal lineage. This increases the popularity among forensic investigators because it’s the best way locate relatives through the male genetic line as well as determine the gender of the person’s DNA left at the crime scene (4).

Convicting Family

The biggest concern with this new forensic technique is that people will be unknowingly giving information to law enforcement that could get someone in their family convicted on a violent crime. While this seems to be a big issue, most of the relatives found through forensic genealogy are distant relatives, such as third or fourth cousins, and don’t even know the relative who committed the crime (2). Many people also feel that everyone should do time for violent crimes they have committed, such as murder or rape, even if it means helping to put a family member in prison. While it’s easy to look at the situation from an outside perspective and say that it is one’s moral responsibilty to give their DNA to solve crimes, even if it means getting a family member arrested, there is much more to consider in reality. The emotional distress that can come from making this decision is very difficult to put upon a family member. It is also very difficult for people to put aside family loyalties to get justice for someone they probably don’t know.

Should You Send in Your Spit?

Many campaigns have come out supporting the use of forensic genealogy and advocating to the public that they can help catch violent criminals by sending in their DNA. The most famous advertisement is Ed Smart’s ad for the genetic testing company FamilyTreeDNA, which advocated for allowing law enforcement access to DNA databases and asking viewers to send in their DNA (3). Ed Smart’s daughter is Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted when she was 14 years old. His message was that the families of victims of violent crimes need and deserve answers, and that your DNA could be the missing piece to finding those answers (3). I would recommend that you send in your spit, because the possibility of solving a violent crime with your DNA could mean giving closure to and getting justice for a victim or a victim’s family.

Sources:

1. Corbyn, Z. (2019). How taking a home genetics test could help catch a murderer. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/01/how-home-dna-tests-are-solving-cold-cases-golden-state-killer [Accessed 14 Nov. 2019].

2. Zhang, S. (2019). A DNA Company Wants You to Help Catch Criminals. [online] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/a-dna-company-wants-your-dna-to-catch-criminals/586120/ [Accessed 14 Nov. 2019].

3. MIT Technology Review. (2019). Help us catch killers is now the new advertising angle for DNA companies. https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613232/help-us-catch-killers-is-now-the-new-advertising-angle-for-dna-companies/ [Accessed 14 Nov. 2019].

4. Corporation, P. (2019). Forensic Genealogy: What Your Second Cousin’s DNA May Say about You – ISHI News. https://www.ishinews.com/forensic-genealogy-what-your-second-cousins-dna-may-say-about-you/ [Accessed 14 Nov. 2019].

Outreach Blog Post

Linda Cullen

I chose the River’s Alive cleanup as my outreach project. I saw all the trash left on the side of a major road in Athens and down by the river near it. There were so many pieces of trash all over the MLK Greenway. I was with a group of about 20 other people, which included people from our class and other volunteers. I worked with another student to pick up trash together. She held the trash bag while I used the grabber to pick up the trash and put it into the trash bag.
I expected there to be a lot of trash, but there was so much more than I expected. I was very surprised to see the high amount to trash all over the MLK Greenway. I was also upset at how careless and lazy people can be by throwing their trash on the side of the road instead of taking the extra second to throw it away in the proper disposal area. I was happy to see all the people who volunteered their time to clean up the trash. There were so many more people than I expected there to be, which I was glad to see.
This experience was very useful in giving me a first hand look at how common trash pollution is in our communities. While I always knew that littering was a problem, seeing the effects right in front of me really showed how big of an issue it is. I learned what to pick up on my own and what to alert the leader about, like things that would be dangerous to touch or things I don’t recognize. What I learned in class also helped me understand how important it is to keep our watersheds and roads clean.
Now that I know how prevalent littering and pollution is in our community, I will do my best to clean up after myself and others. I will also try to do more volunteer work to help our environment, as well as educating others on the importance of keeping the earth clean.

Climate Simulation Reflection (Other Developing Countries) – Linda Cullen

When I played my role in the policy exercise I felt upset because other countries were very hesitant to donate money to us (other developing countries). We need the most money because of how high our carbon emission rates are and how little money we have to fix it. It was frustrating to see that other countries didn’t want to help us, considering that lowering our carbon emission rates would significantly help lowering world wide carbon emission rates.

At first I was frustrated, but after we expressed our point of view, other countries became more willing to give us the money we need. I realized that a lot of the reason why other countries didn’t want to donate to us was because we were asking for such a high amount of money ($200 billion), but once we explained that the steep amount was necessary, we started to get a lot more money from other countries.

Our group didn’t change our idea of how much money we wanted, but we did change our ideas on how we were going to use the money after negotiating with the other countries. At first, we had planned to use most of it to maintain the rainforest and plant more trees, but we then decided to allocate more money toward green energy.

The changes in where we decided to allocate our money was brought upon by talking to other countries, such as the US. We realized that, in order to get the money we want, we would need to use some of it on things that they wanted us to use it on, which included green energy.

I do believe that emissions can be cut, but the world needs to work together to make it happen. Focusing on your own country won’t solve the problem, because climate change will spread and affect the whole world if we don’t do more to fix it.

Green energy is much more expensive to invest our money into than afforestation, which means that the economy will go down. Each individual country would need to decide if it’s worth it to put money into green energy, which could lead to conflict if they don’t choose to do what other countries want them to do.

We can catalyze change in the US by focusing on decreasing carbon emission from large corporations and producers. We can also focus on lowering individual emission rates by educating people on the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. While people know that climate change exists, most people don’t understand the severity and how quickly it will soon affect the whole world.

Linda Cullen Watershed Reflection Post

In this photo I see a storm drain with a warning sign that reads “No Dumping! Drains to River.”
In this photo, I noticed the effort made to protect the environment by keeping the river clean and not allowing waste products into the local water sources. This really stuck out to me because sometimes local water sources can be overlooked.
This picture makes me think about how important it is to keep the materials that shouldn’t be in the rivers and streams out of them. I see these signs on storm drains all the time, but I never thought about why they are necessary or how important they are.
When I look at this picture, I feel proud of the steps being taken toward bettering the local water sources. I hope this is one of the first steps of many leading to cleaner water locally, as well as within the larger community.
I think this picture is about moving forward in the attempts to protect the local watersheds, which is something that affects us more than we think. I see this photo as a way of shedding light on a topic that goes unnoticed.

Linda Cullen

I took biology, chemistry, physics, and anatomy & physiology in high school. I liked anatomy the best, because it’s super interesting and easy to apply to daily life. Physics was my least favorite, because my brain just didn’t work that way.

I want to go more in depth into a new area of biology that I haven’t really learned much about.

I think the tailgating project looks the most interesting to me, because my high school was really focused on environmental sustainability on campus. I worked a lot with the Go Green committee at my school to keep our campus as trash-free as possible. I think my fellow students will definitely gravitate toward trash clean up and littering prevention because of how much it affects the students on campus.

I might learn about the similarities and differences between the environment here in Athens and at home in California. I also want to learn about biological similarities and differences in each environment.

I want to learn about genetics the most, because I have always found that field very interesting. Learning about antibiotics sounds very interesting as well. It would be a good way to learn a bit about the medical and pharmaceutical fields, even though I won’t be pursuing a career in those fields.