DNA Solves Cold Cases/Parabon Nanolabs & GED/Match.

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This just came across on my screen.

A Jane Doe found dead from a brutal attack in 1987 has finally been identified three decades later thanks to forensic technology, southern California authorities said.

The identity of victim Tracey Hobson, 20, was confirmed on Tuesday through forensic odontology, which analyzes a person's bite marks, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said.

The case dates back to Aug. 30, 1987, when her skeleton was recovered in a grassy area in Anaheim.

https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-c...identified-decades-forensic/story?id=60447563

Identified! - CA - Anaheim, WhtFem Skeletal 22UFCA, 15-19, off Riverside Fwy, Aug'87 - Tracey C Hobson
 

ETA - This is in reference to DixieGirl's post #46 above which didn't show up when I posted.

Wanted to emphasize this!
What was so cool about this one was not only this little boy was identified after 20 years, his DNA also linked back to his mother whose unidentified remains had been found in SC, thus solving two cases in two different states heretofore not even thought to be connected.

After 20 years police in 2 states link dead mother and son
 
Remains identified as missing 1994 rafting victim

Based on a forensic evaluation utilizing extracted DNA from both bones and living relatives, investigators determined skeletal remains recovered from the Salmon River in 1996 were of Patricia L. Tamosaitis, 56, of Medical Lake, Wash., who was presumed drowned two years prior during a kayaking accident at Snow Hole Rapids
 
Press Releases | Collier County, FL Sheriff

The body of Patricia Minnis was discovered by a prison work crew under heavy brush near Gannet Strand along U.S. 41 East, 22 miles south of Everglades City, on April 3, 1990

The break in the case came in a June 18, 2015, letter from the University of North Texas Center For Human Identification. The letter stated that DNA evidence resubmitted for testing in 2005 was a strong possible match with DNA submitted by Minnis daughter.
 
You only need to have about 2% of a population (Caucasians in north america, African Americans etc...)in the genealogy database to have a 95% probability of finding at least a first cousin from a random sample-
 
'Who did this to her?' Houston woman's remains identified 27 years later

New information in a 27-year-old Houston cold case, the remains of Patricia Castillo have been identified.

It was June 1st, 1991 when Castillo vanished. She was last seen on Delmar Street near her grandmother’s home.

Last year, a sibling sent a DNA sample in to the National Institute of Justice, a government database which helps identify remains. Then on August 13th, the family received the news that Castillo’s remains had been found.

“It was her skull that they found and that’s all that they found. They didn’t find the rest of her body. Didn’t find any other skeletal remains and that’s the hard part.”

For 26-years, Patricia’s remains have rested under an unmarked grave in the Harris County Cemetery, the family plans to change that.
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/crim...nts-dna/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b3f9e0aeb627

February 17 at 12:09 PM

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Elena Sergie sat for the news that her family had waited a quarter-century to hear, shifting in the chair as the details of her daughter Sophie’s brutal slaying were again put into words.

“The impact of her murder was felt statewide,” a public safety official saidfrom the lectern.

The April 1993 slaying of Sophie Sergie, an Alaska Native, was one of the state’s most notorious cold cases until Friday, when authorities announced that DNA genealogical mapping helped triangulate a genetic match with Steven Downs, 44, a nurse in Auburn, Maine.

An Alaska district court filing recounts the long arc of the investigation.

Sophie Sergie, who aspired to be a marine biologist, was a student at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks but left school to save money for orthodontic work. She took three flights to Fairbanks from Pitkas Point — a tiny, verdant town on the Yukon River in western Alaska — to have the work performed.

Shirley Wasuli was happy to have her friend in town. Sergie was happy, too: A photo taken that night shows her with a wide smile, her arms stretched out wide against a ground cover of snow.

Wasuli prepared a bed in her room on the female-only second floor of Bartlett Hall and, with her boyfriend in tow, hosted Sergie for a night of pizza and catching up. Sergie stepped out for a smoke. It was cold, Wasuli told her, and she suggested huddling by the bathroom exhaust vent to avoid going outside.

Witnesses later said she smoked with a group outside, wearing a brightly colored striped sweater poking out from the fringes of her jacket in the photo.

By 1:30 a.m., Sergie had not returned. Wasuli left a note on her door, explaining that she and her boyfriend were sleeping in another dorm. When Wasuli arrived the next morning, she found the note still on the door. The bed was undisturbed. She called the orthodontist; Sergie had missed her appointment.

University janitors found her body that afternoon in a bathtub on the second floor, her sweater and pants half-removed. She had been sexually assaulted, stabbed in the face and shot in the back of a head with a .22-caliber firearm. Investigators found her cigarette lighter when they moved her body. She still wore her socks and shoes.

Investigators canvassed the area and interviewed students who had been at Bartlett Hall, including Downs, then an 18-year-old student, and his roommate Nicholas Dazer, who also worked as a security guard on campus and helped secure the scene. They denied having any knowledge of the crime

Today, public databases like GEDmatch are filled with genetic codes volunteered by people with hopes of building out their family trees.

That helped authorities find “Golden State Killer” suspect Joseph James DeAngelo, accused of killing 12 people and raping 45 in California in the 1970s and ′80s.

The publicity of the feat, state troopers said, sparked the idea for investigators in the Sergie case. Why not try the same?

A forensic genealogist prepared a report on Dec. 18, comparing the suspect’s genetic material from the crime scene to likely relatives. A woman’s DNA profile emerged in the search.

Investigators found their link: She was an aunt of Downs’s.

A cheek swab was taken the next day for DNA testing. It was a match with the original DNA sample, police said. Downs was arrested without incident.
 
Remains identified as Indiana man missing since 1981

Ira Freeman Kemp has been considered missing since January 1981, investigators said in a news release.

His death is now being investigated as a homicide. The positive identification came after "extensive" DNA testing was conducted on the remains by a team from the University of Northern Texas. The remains were discovered in April 2015 in a culvert
 
Napkin, genealogy site leads to arrest in 1993 murder case

A businessman has been charged with fatally stabbing a Minneapolis woman in 1993 after investigators ran DNA evidence from the murder scene through a genealogy website and obtained his DNA from a discarded napkin.

Jerry Westrom, 52, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of 35-year-old Jeanne Ann “Jeanie” Childs, whose naked body was found in her blood-covered apartment. He was released from jail after posting $500,000 bond Friday.

Westrom was arrested after detectives decided to take another look at the cold case by conducting new tests on DNA samples and running them through an online genealogy website, which turned up Westrom as a possible suspect, according to prosecutors.

Investigators then used the internet to determine where Westrom would be in public, and secretly trailed him to his daughter’s hockey game in Wisconsin in January. That’s where investigators confiscated a napkin he’d used and tossed in the trash.
 
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