Japan - Miyazawa family of 4 murdered, Setagaya, Tokyo, 30 Dec 2000 #2

[MesquiteO21]

Yeah, the two haplogroups that have been mentioned here are O-M122 and H15. But as you say, that's pretty useless in terms of catching the killer. Wikipedia tells me that the former is found in over 50% of Chinese males, for example. I'm a total science dunce but as I understand it, this information could be interesting but nothing more than that. It gives us context but doesn't help us catch him. 23andMe tells me I have more Neanderthal DNA than 70% of the population but if I was a murderer, how would that knowledge help the police? And that's ignoring the fact that Japan has no version of 23andMe, Gedmatch etc.

@MesquiteO21, regarding the sequence of the murders and Rei being the object of the killer's intentions. Basically, we could argue this either way. Rei was the only one not to be stabbed and was also the first to die, so this seemingly places significance in the order of the events. But it's also quite possible the killer entered the house through the window into Rei's bedroom. Meaning he was simply first as he was right there. And he was strangled not through any greater meaning, the killer simply wanted to stay as quiet as possible in doing so. The same goes for Yasuko, we could argue this in reverse: it was actually she who was the true target as she was saved til last and he focused most of the violence on her. (The Chief, who I interviewed at length, said she was stabbed long after the point of death and he grimaced when talking about the scene he saw). But he was also adamant that there was no sexual component in this case at all, including the children. I can't say for sure how they investigated only that I am absolutely sure this included both schools. I know, for example, that they have fingerprinted over 1 million men in this case, they were out looking at men with hand injuries in the hospitals across the Tokyo region the very next day (a city of 40 million people). It would be almost impossible for me to imagine they didn't consider some sort of predator that was focused on Niina or Rei.

Very interesting information thank you for sharing

 

[MesquiteO21]

What we know is that they identified mitochondrial DNA and Y-haplotype. They could have done something with autosomal DNA, only all genetic genealogy was in nascent stage at that time, if at all. Autosomal DNA would tell us more about a person's ancestry, but even now, all they can reliably tell is where your ancestors have lived within the last 150-200 years. They definitely can't tell where you live now by looking at your DNA.

H, V, HV are all European, but only 40% of Ashkenazi mito DNA are from the "founder" groups, and even this is highly questionable. Ashkenazi Jews got into genetic bottleneck, and maybe some local women converted. Another interesting fact? Palestinian BRACA1 gene, causing breast and ovarian cancer, is found in Mexico. How? The Spanish inquisition didn't trust its "marranos", the Jews forcibly converted to Christianity, and tried to send them out into newly acquired colonies. Where people mixed with the locals.

But, as I started thinking about BRACA, I remembered a situation that gave me some ideas regarding this case.

In short: a company like the now-defunct DNA.land. That ambitious project imploded due to certain disorganization, but they were run by the Columbian University and did research in breast cancer. Once, they asked for DNA of people with positive and negative negative family history of breast cancer, to compare. Several of my relatives with negative family history, agreed to donate their DNAs for the study. As a side benefit, there was also a relative search function. I wish they had it now.

So, Japan might feel it would be problematic sending the killer's DNA to the US. They already had problems working with Korea, remember. But as long as the killer is faceless, they have nameless DNA, and hence, there is no violation of privacy. Privacy applies to the case when the DNA of a known person is subjected to studies without the person's consent or court order. But with faceless DNA, they can do full genome sequence (1000 $ at most), extract the full genetic code, it is essentially long sequence of letters, and then they can compare it with any DNA they see fit. In any world lab or open-source project. At this point in time, anonymous DNA is their strength. Someone faceless broke into the house, killed four people, bled all over, defecated in the toilet, ate food, stole money and left. His DNA, the result of his vandalism, is as obscure as him. For all I know, Japanese police can compare different portions of the genome with data from different projects, the way they see fit. Y - with one open source, mito - with another. This will protect the anonymity for longer, and then they can pull it together.

I don’t have a firm grasp on haplogroups but due to mixing and migration it seems like they are somewhat dubious? From what I’ve found online HV occurs in Europe (unevenly, as it’s rarer in the north and west and increases as you move south and east) but is not originally a European haplogroup? Origin is west Asian and occurs most commonly in the Caucasus and Arabian peninsula regions (so Asia). But years of migration muddies things a bit it seems.

 

[Charlot123]

Ok

I don’t have a firm grasp on haplogroups but due to mixing and migration it seems like they are somewhat dubious? From what I’ve found online HV occurs in Europe (unevenly, as it’s rarer in the north and west and increases as you move south and east) but is not originally a European haplogroup? Origin is west Asian and occurs most commonly in the Caucasus and Arabian peninsula regions (so Asia). But years of migration muddies things a bit it seems.

This is what I considered to be founder (Levantine) Jewish haplogroups

https://eu.customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/204444434-Can-23andMe-Identify-Jewish-Ancestry-#maternal

Now, yesterday I came across this

A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages - Nature Communications

Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA variation has four major founders whose sources are difficult to trace due to the rarity of Ashkenazi Jews in the general population. Here, the authors provide evidence that all four major founders originated from Europe and provide a genealogical record of the Ashkenazi.

www.nature.com

If you care to read, please tell me what you think..
My opinion: 1) they imply that neither of founder groups is Levantine
2) we don't know a thing about ancestry. Still.
3) as "comparison ancestry group" represents a sample whose four grandparents belong to this ancestry, we are comparing ourselves to ourselves. No one digs out bodies from Palestine, Finland, Ireland, etc, etc. So "us" may be far gone from our remote ancestors.

 

[Charlot123]

Yeah, the two haplogroups that have been mentioned here are O-M122 and H15. But as you say, that's pretty useless in terms of catching the killer. Wikipedia tells me that the former is found in over 50% of Chinese males, for example. I'm a total science dunce but as I understand it, this information could be interesting but nothing more than that. It gives us context but doesn't help us catch him. 23andMe tells me I have more Neanderthal DNA than 70% of the population but if I was a murderer, how would that knowledge help the police? And that's ignoring the fact that Japan has no version of 23andMe, Gedmatch etc.

@MesquiteO21, regarding the sequence of the murders and Rei being the object of the killer's intentions. Basically, we could argue this either way. Rei was the only one not to be stabbed and was also the first to die, so this seemingly places significance in the order of the events. But it's also quite possible the killer entered the house through the window into Rei's bedroom. Meaning he was simply first as he was right there. And he was strangled not through any greater meaning, the killer simply wanted to stay as quiet as possible in doing so. The same goes for Yasuko, we could argue this in reverse: it was actually she who was the true target as she was saved til last and he focused most of the violence on her. (The Chief, who I interviewed at length, said she was stabbed long after the point of death and he grimaced when talking about the scene he saw). But he was also adamant that there was no sexual component in this case at all, including the children. I can't say for sure how they investigated only that I am absolutely sure this included both schools. I know, for example, that they have fingerprinted over 1 million men in this case, they were out looking at men with hand injuries in the hospitals across the Tokyo region the very next day (a city of 40 million people). It would be almost impossible for me to imagine they didn't consider some sort of predator that was focused on Niina or Rei.

You know, when I first saw the results of my dad's Y-DNA, it was 1 step away from the so-called Rurick, an apocryphal Viking founder of the dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus. Even in FTDNA, there were tables of "Rurik descendants", "Rurikids", etc, etc. Then I did Big Y, and his closest ancestor was Finnish. Then big Y upgraded, and my dad is alone in his clade. No common relatives. Yes, the Finns still recognize it as Karelian DNA, but my guess is, he could be from any northern ethnicities, be it of Russia or Finland. What I want to say, today M-122 says little. If they did big Y, with good luck, they'd cut off a lot of unrelated Ys but still would be left with a few that would be relatives. But, that still requires working with a company.

@FacelessPodcast, I think that this organization Welcome to ISOGG... | International Society of Genetic Genealogy
and this site

ISOGG Wiki

isogg.org

Are the ways to start.
They can be good mentors.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Japan's laws on privacy, though well-founded when originally created, really do hinder investigations.

I was following a case of an American woman (Pattie Wu-Murad) who went missing in Japan. Her phone records would potentially have shown where she went. But the Japanese phone company she was using won't release the data--because the only person who can request the missing woman's private data is the woman who is missing!

This also happened in the disappearance of Lucie Blackman in Tokyo a few months before the Miyazawa case. There was a recent Netflix documentary about it but, as I understand it, it didn't feature Richard Lloyd Parry. Massive oversight, imo. He wrote People Who Eat Darkness which, not only is it a tremendous book, it also gives great insight into the inner workings of the TMPD. For anyone interested in learning more about Japanese law enforcement, I cannot recommend that book enough.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Friends, do I have anyone here who is good with numbers? Essentially, I'm looking to demonstrate in a document I'm putting together just how *specific* the killer is. So, the population of Tokyo in 2000 was 31 million. Half of that were males. X were of working age (defined in Japan as 15-64, I think). Y were size 27.5cm shoe. Z had been to America that past year. So on and so forth. Essentially, to showcase that the chain of details is actually quite long so the likelihood of some innocent man fitting it is low.

 

[lilykaluva]

Friends, do I have anyone here who is good with numbers? Essentially, I'm looking to demonstrate in a document I'm putting together just how *specific* the killer is. So, the population of Tokyo in 2000 was 31 million. Half of that were males. X were of working age (defined in Japan as 15-64, I think). Y were size 27.5cm shoe. Z had been to America that past year. So on and so forth. Essentially, to showcase that the chain of details is actually quite long so the likelihood of some innocent man fitting it is low.

I have a friend who might be able to do it, if you're interested. They're not familiar with the case, but they said it would probably require a statistical method called multivariable anova. That means nothing to me but it does to math people, and they went into a ton of detail about what it would involve and probabilities and things I just can't compute lol.

 

[10ofRods]

What about finding similar unsolved US crimes, in the states you think the perp returned to?

If you have a direct connection with the chief investigator in Japan, then you could ask him to put the DNA profile forward for comparison to a 'similar' case. It would be difficult for any US police force to refuse a request from the top man in Japan.

Once the profile is on the US system, doesn't it become eligible for genealogical databases etc? I think at this stage, you might also be able to pay independent genealogists to find some sort of a familial match.

In order for the profile to go into Othram (the database that WS partners with - one of the best in the business), LE has to enter it themselves. So in the Kohberger case, BK's DNA (from the sheath) was uploaded to Othram.

This is how it works. While Othram does test individual customers, that's not the norm. All of us who have used Ancestry or 23andme can download our full genetic profile (personal genome). It's very long and it is a system of letters, like a code. Then, we upload that to Othram, giving consent for our own DNA to be studied by Othram and by LE. I am going to do it, although I have no reason to believe any of my relatives are criminals.

Once a person uploads to Othram, they also give as much genealogical data as they feel comfortable giving. On 23andme, I have given the last names of every bio relative that I know about. As relatives turn up in my feed, they've usually done the same thing. I can build out my own immediate genealogy with that information.

A genealogical database, by itself, does not give the same potential for locating criminals. It needs to be an investigative database, like Othram. 23andme may not and does not use its genetic database for this purpose.

I don't know what you mean by the "US System." There is no overall US system of recording everyone's DNA. There's CODIS (run by the FBI) and that has, in theory, data about what are called SNP's from every felon since the laws were passed requiring felons to give DNA (I don't know if it's all felons). It also includes SNP's derived from full profiles contained in rape kits from unsolved sexual assaults. So the US has only a database of known criminals to work from.

If a person is not already in the database (has eluded capture or conviction), then they're not in the federal database. And even if they are in it, it's not possible to match to their full individual genome (only those markers that are somewhat individually identifying). Because these people are felons, if their SNP's match up with a crime and they were not in prison when the crime occurred, they will likely be asked to submit DNA again - to that particular investigation. Sometimes (as with EARONS/GSK the original lab kept a clean, full sample - which is how that was solved).

We who lived through EARONS (I was acquainted with two victims) never caught on to calling him GSK. Now I think of him as the Visalia Ransacker/EARONS (but I do understand that more recently, he's been known as GSK - due to his last known group of crimes).

At any rate, there is no publicly open large database of DNA to compare anyone's DNA with - it would have to be managed by a series of steps by LE.

IMO.

 

[10ofRods]

Friends, do I have anyone here who is good with numbers? Essentially, I'm looking to demonstrate in a document I'm putting together just how *specific* the killer is. So, the population of Tokyo in 2000 was 31 million. Half of that were males. X were of working age (defined in Japan as 15-64, I think). Y were size 27.5cm shoe. Z had been to America that past year. So on and so forth. Essentially, to showcase that the chain of details is actually quite long so the likelihood of some innocent man fitting it is low.

Great project! I'd start exactly in the same place. Your first assumption is that the person is actually from Tokyo - but of course, you can widen that. There is online data for bell shaped curves of male and female shoe size (including forensic topics on scholar.google.com ).

15.5 million males, about 11 million of roughly the right age. 27.5 cm is a men's size 11 shoe in American sizing - which is helpful, because that's statistically slightly longer than the average American male's foot - but not by much. Average size for American men is 10.5 (so just above average. About 30% of the male population of America are roughly 10.5, and I'd guess that about 15% have either size 10 or 11.

If you think the person is Japanese, then, well, they are an exceedingly unusual Japanese man (average shoe size American is 7.5)

If this person is ethnically Japanese, they are probably in a 1% group - an outlier on Japan's bell shaped curve of shoe sizes.

If they are American, they are average-ish.

If they are American and in Japan (which would be my working assumption), that truly narrows down the field.

 

[10ofRods]

So should I go back to the earlier thread for a summary of the Y chromosome data? Or can someone fill me in, please.

What's the killer's Y chromosome?

 

[10ofRods]

@10ofRods Any chance you'd read through this thread (and/or listen to the podcast also!)? I feel like you'd probably be another who would have some good thoughts about DNA related questions, plus I just think you would have some good thoughts in general (there's a possible CA link to area around Edwards Airforce base also, FYI)

I haven't read the first thread yet (but I will) and I will start listening to the podcast tonight.

I'm guessing from what I've read so far that neither the mtDNA nor the Y chromosome haplogroup has been leaked. Is that right?

Since the system for assigning letters and numbers to anyone's mtDNA or Y chromosome has changed significantly over the years, many LEO's just go by the first letter (and the easiest books to read on the topic do the same).

So, for example, someone might (somewhat erroneously) decide that mtDNA "H" means "Southern Europe" as there was (in prehistoric times) a large group of mtDNA H people living on the Iberian peninsula - but before that, they were also in Southern France (stlll Southern Europe, right?) But before THAT, they were on the North Shore of the Black Sea.

To complicate matters further, at the time that H appeared in Southern Europe, it already had a "child" mtDNA form (H1). When mtDNA mutates (which it is slow to do), the first recognized variant is labeled as the parent Letter plus the number 1.

So, I am H1 mtDNA. This mutation likely occurred just one time (using probability) way back in prehistory. About 18,000 years ago - most likely in Western Europe (descendants of earlier arrivals who were H). H got named with the letter H because it was first found in Greece (a Hellenic distribution pattern) - but that was much later! A

Not long after H1 appeared, H2 appeared and then H3. And at some point, someone with H1 had a second mutation which was given the letter "a." H1a. As an H1 person, it means that my mother and all her ancestral grandmothers never had another mutation since the appearance of H1 (whereas in other families, the mutation occurred). So it can be very specific.

mtDNA H is associated almost entirely with early Neolithic European farmers, and their legacy is still shown in their mtDNA. However, since those farmers also founded Greece/Athens etc and the type is also prevalent in Spain and Italy - it could be H that we're talking about here (there are other candidates - I'm just trying to show how much information could be gotten if the specific Haplogroup (in 2024 terms) was known.

The map on this page (scroll down to see the *oldest* version of mtDNA which is HV (it split into two parts as people migrated out of Africa - this an exceptionally farflung group and people who have H or H1 today might live absolutely anywhere on the planet - and be almost any ethnicity). People who are H1a, though, are fewer and we can get clues about recent ethnicity from that type of label.

I just checked and there are at least 5000 specific mtDNA patterns identified in the literature. And there's been some renaming (what I just called the HV group is apparently now known as R - for various reasons). H/H1 and H3 remain the main mtDNA types of Europe - but they are found many other places as well. It is, however, exceedingly (vanishingly) rare in Japan:

2020 new data: Genetic and phenotypic landscapes of mtDNA in the Japanese population

Below is an excerpt from the Open Access 2020 study: Yamamoto, K., Sakaue, S., Matsuda, K. et al. Genetic and phenotypic landscape of the mitochondrial genome in the Japanese population. Commun Bio…

heritageofjapan.wordpress.com

So I wish we knew the exact letters for both the mtDNA and Y chromosome (due to its greater mutability, it has more subgroups and therefore more specificity - but can only be gotten from a male).

HTH.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

I have a friend who might be able to do it, if you're interested. They're not familiar with the case, but they said it would probably require a statistical method called multivariable anova. That means nothing to me but it does to math people, and they went into a ton of detail about what it would involve and probabilities and things I just can't compute lol.

I spoke to a statistician friend and we came up with a number! Basically only using five data points. But the long and the short of it is, that from the year 2000 Tokyo population, 34 million, the killer could only be hiding in a figure of 5,213 people. So, 0.015% of the population.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

Great project! I'd start exactly in the same place. Your first assumption is that the person is actually from Tokyo - but of course, you can widen that. There is online data for bell shaped curves of male and female shoe size (including forensic topics on scholar.google.com ).

15.5 million males, about 11 million of roughly the right age. 27.5 cm is a men's size 11 shoe in American sizing - which is helpful, because that's statistically slightly longer than the average American male's foot - but not by much. Average size for American men is 10.5 (so just above average. About 30% of the male population of America are roughly 10.5, and I'd guess that about 15% have either size 10 or 11.

If you think the person is Japanese, then, well, they are an exceedingly unusual Japanese man (average shoe size American is 7.5)

If this person is ethnically Japanese, they are probably in a 1% group - an outlier on Japan's bell shaped curve of shoe sizes.

If they are American, they are average-ish.

If they are American and in Japan (which would be my working assumption), that truly narrows down the field.

See my previous post just now, @10ofRods! But yes, 27.5cm shoe while only being around 5'7. Pretty big shoes for a guy of that height. This number I've been looking for isn't an exact science of course, it's just for the purposes of showing that while the population of Tokyo is vast, the population in which he could actually be hiding must necessarily be much, much smaller. [For a project I'm currently working on]. And, sure enough, according to my stats friend, it's just over 5,000 based on stuff like his blood type, age, etc. And we didn't even use the full range of details about him we know meaning the real number is likely far smaller.

 

[FacelessPodcast]

So should I go back to the earlier thread for a summary of the Y chromosome data? Or can someone fill me in, please.

What's the killer's Y chromosome?

I am a DNA dunce but this is as much as we know: the two haplogroups that have been mentioned here are O-M122 and H15. This information was leaked by a well-known figure in the Japanese DNA field when the Tokyo MPD approached a university for a second opinion. This are the lines that are always trotted out (from Wikipedia:

"The killer's blood was gained during an analysis of the murder scene that revealed traces of Type A blood,[14] which would not have belonged to the Miyazawa family. A DNA analysis of the Type A blood determined the killer is male and possibly mixed race, with maternal DNA indicating a mother of European descent, possibly from a South European country near the Mediterranean or Adriatic Sea, and paternal DNA indicating a father of East Asian descent.[9]"

It is considered possible that the European maternal DNA comes from a distant ancestor from the mother's line rather than a fully European mother. Analysis of the Y-chromosome showed the Haplogroup O-M122, a common haplogroup distributed in East Asian peoples, appearing in 1 in 4 or 5 Koreans, 1 in 10 Chinese, and 1 in 13 Japanese.[15] These results led to TMPD to seek assistance through the International Criminal Police Organization as the killer may not be Japanese or present in Japan."

Now, there's so much wrong with this Wikipedia page that, after working on this case for literally years, I wouldn't even know where to begin. But I do think those figures on Koreans, Chinese and Japanese were driven by the aforementioned well-known figure. How accurate they are, I have no clue.

 

[10ofRods]

I am a DNA dunce but this is as much as we know: the two haplogroups that have been mentioned here are O-M122 and H15. This information was leaked by a well-known figure in the Japanese DNA field when the Tokyo MPD approached a university for a second opinion. This are the lines that are always trotted out (from Wikipedia:

"The killer's blood was gained during an analysis of the murder scene that revealed traces of Type A blood,[14] which would not have belonged to the Miyazawa family. A DNA analysis of the Type A blood determined the killer is male and possibly mixed race, with maternal DNA indicating a mother of European descent, possibly from a South European country near the Mediterranean or Adriatic Sea, and paternal DNA indicating a father of East Asian descent.[9]"

It is considered possible that the European maternal DNA comes from a distant ancestor from the mother's line rather than a fully European mother. Analysis of the Y-chromosome showed the Haplogroup O-M122, a common haplogroup distributed in East Asian peoples, appearing in 1 in 4 or 5 Koreans, 1 in 10 Chinese, and 1 in 13 Japanese.[15] These results led to TMPD to seek assistance through the International Criminal Police Organization as the killer may not be Japanese or present in Japan."

Now, there's so much wrong with this Wikipedia page that, after working on this case for literally years, I wouldn't even know where to begin. But I do think those figures on Koreans, Chinese and Japanese were driven by the aforementioned well-known figure. How accurate they are, I have no clue.

Oh, this is great! Yes, H15 is a less common, nearly aways European variant of the most common haplogroup (H) in Europe (rarely found in Japan except in Europeans) and not so common outside of Europe and the US. H15 is relatively rare (and it's the last variant identified so far as I know). The case studies I found are from Serbia (makes sense, since much of the region is some form of H - having any new mutation would give them a bigger H number).

I am of very mixed ethnicity, but my bio mom was mostly European and her own mother was even more European than she. So I have "their" maternal contribution and it makes sense (even though, for example, I know that my maternal grandmother - not represented in mtDNA - is completely different and I am not quite half European).

So, even if the mother is mostly Japanese, there's a European person in that line.

This probably just confirms what you already knew. Public image from Wikipeda Commons:



So, yeah, the father of this person is East Asian (but could be from a number of places) but statistically, those gray to black areas are the most likely.

In real life, the complexity of just these two variables (the H15 is also fairly rare/newish) would narrow this down way more than height or shoe size.

I assume they have his complete personal gene map. Or most of it. This person might not appear "mixed race" to the average observer if for the last 6 generations or more, all of their ancestors have married East Asians (people do not usually classify me as Asian, even though I'm about 8% East Asian and 30% Polynesian - and 12% African). Of course, in Hawaii, people would assume I am Polynesian - but that result can be obtained by so many genetic formlae!

In terms of looks, I'll throw this in: the O-M122 has a strong correlation with a particular kind of nose (my own nose, actually - one of the older and more "popular" noses on Earth; sometimes called a "pug nose" by Europeans (which I take as a term of endearment. It's common in Native Americans, East Asians, and is in about half the Polynesian population (some of whom do have a bigger, more projecting nose). Another possible trait would be taller/longer upper lip.

This isn't going to help find him, BUT, if people only knew how much a more thorough DNA analysis COULD find him - they'd want to use DNA in a better way (how is it that Japan doesn't want to use, say, potential facial reconstruction from the full DNA):

Parabon® Snapshot® DNA Analysis Service - Powered by Parabon NanoLabs

snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com

Surely, all LE should be considering how to use this powerful new set of tools we have - for investigation.

 

[tes1984]

In order for the profile to go into Othram (the database that WS partners with - one of the best in the business), LE has to enter it themselves. So in the Kohberger case, BK's DNA (from the sheath) was uploaded to Othram.

This is how it works. While Othram does test individual customers, that's not the norm. All of us who have used Ancestry or 23andme can download our full genetic profile (personal genome). It's very long and it is a system of letters, like a code. Then, we upload that to Othram, giving consent for our own DNA to be studied by Othram and by LE. I am going to do it, although I have no reason to believe any of my relatives are criminals.

Once a person uploads to Othram, they also give as much genealogical data as they feel comfortable giving. On 23andme, I have given the last names of every bio relative that I know about. As relatives turn up in my feed, they've usually done the same thing. I can build out my own immediate genealogy with that information.

A genealogical database, by itself, does not give the same potential for locating criminals. It needs to be an investigative database, like Othram. 23andme may not and does not use its genetic database for this purpose.

I don't know what you mean by the "US System." There is no overall US system of recording everyone's DNA. There's CODIS (run by the FBI) and that has, in theory, data about what are called SNP's from every felon since the laws were passed requiring felons to give DNA (I don't know if it's all felons). It also includes SNP's derived from full profiles contained in rape kits from unsolved sexual assaults. So the US has only a database of known criminals to work from.

If a person is not already in the database (has eluded capture or conviction), then they're not in the federal database. And even if they are in it, it's not possible to match to their full individual genome (only those markers that are somewhat individually identifying). Because these people are felons, if their SNP's match up with a crime and they were not in prison when the crime occurred, they will likely be asked to submit DNA again - to that particular investigation. Sometimes (as with EARONS/GSK the original lab kept a clean, full sample - which is how that was solved).

We who lived through EARONS (I was acquainted with two victims) never caught on to calling him GSK. Now I think of him as the Visalia Ransacker/EARONS (but I do understand that more recently, he's been known as GSK - due to his last known group of crimes).

At any rate, there is no publicly open large database of DNA to compare anyone's DNA with - it would have to be managed by a series of steps by LE.

IMO.

Thanks for the reply and great explanation, and my apologies - I meant investigative database, rather than genealogical database.

No disrespect meant about the GSK moniker either. I guess I was trying to appeal to the modern/mainstream audience. I spent ten years researching EARONS so I should know better.

 

[10ofRods]

Thanks for the reply and great explanation, and my apologies - I meant investigative database, rather than genealogical database.

No disrespect meant about the GSK moniker either. I guess I was trying to appeal to the modern/mainstream audience. I spent ten years researching EARONS so I should know better.

No worries! Everyone else is using GSK. I didn't start researching the case until the GSK book came out. My last living link to the case (my aunt was good friends with one of the victims) died and we all stopped talking about it as much. She had a weird theory about it, but nothing about what we know (now that DeAngelo has been identified) actually contradicts her theory.

 

[Charlot123]

I had to make a screenshot, install Google lens and find the article featuring the photo that is available but everywhere else in the world.

https://inf.news/en/world/5c22de89105f19edfd6ac1dfb198496b.html

It is the second one. For some reason, it interested me. It is the one where the whole family is standing.
It was taken during a vacation, they say. I don't know which one, I only remember that according to the Japanese Wiki, the sand in the pocket of the murderer (not the pouch, the pocket) was from a local seaside and the family had a vacation there two years prior.

Now, I wonder what if that photo was taken by the perpetrator out of courtesy? You know, sometimes you are a passersby asked to make a photo for a family you don't know? Something bothers me in the photo, intuitively, and I don't know what it is. Why would the murderer carry two types of sand? Maybe the family came into his view accidentally, because he was asked to take a photo at that seaside?

Just wanted to post it. I am trying to use logic in this case, but this one is more intuition-driven.

 

[10ofRods]

I don’t have a firm grasp on haplogroups but due to mixing and migration it seems like they are somewhat dubious? From what I’ve found online HV occurs in Europe (unevenly, as it’s rarer in the north and west and increases as you move south and east) but is not originally a European haplogroup? Origin is west Asian and occurs most commonly in the Caucasus and Arabian peninsula regions (so Asia). But years of migration muddies things a bit it seems.

There's nothing dubious about them. It is simply a shorthand way of describing a particular DNA pattern. You have mtDNA (that you got only from your mother) in every living cell in your body (and it can be detected in several different ways after death).

Only men have a Y chromosome. There are only so many different types of Y chromosomes (we know exactly which part of the male chromosome distinguishes clans/groups of individuals). All men on planet Earth (and by extension all women - as all women have fathers) descend from one man living about 60,000 years ago. All other known Y chromosome patterns died out. There's therefore a system that's way more specific than blood type that allows us a window into ethnicity, migration and reproduction between two individuals.

It's not dissimilar than using the ABO blood type system, as was done of yore.

Except that it's way more specific. You do not have anyone else's genes but your own parents (and mutations are relatively rare). 99.999% of men (or more) have a Y chromosome identical to their fathers. This is what enables genetic geneaology for investigative purposes.

They are not affected by migration or mixing, is my point. When you were conceived, your parents "mixed" their DNA - but we can still tell whose was whose DNA (and all of it comes from only those two people). THe chromosomes stay separate, IOW.

 

[vls12345]

I know the theory seems to be that the killer is no longer in Japan. But I was just reading information about Satoshi Kirishima, a Japanese terrorist & criminal who had been hiding in Japan since 1975. He was found only because he confessed. So, I guess it is possible that a highly-wanted criminal (including his mugshot being displayed in police stations across Japan) in Japan could avoid detection....

Satoshi Kirishima (Japanese: 桐島聡, romanized: Kirishima Satoshi, January 9, 1954 – January 28, 2024) was a Japanese anarchist, terrorist, and member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front. He participated in the 1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing that killed eight people.[1]

Kirishima had been hiding from the Japanese police since 1975.[2] He revealed his identity in January 2024 in a hospital in Kanagawa, stating he wanted to spend the final days of his life using his real name.[3][4] It was revealed he had been living under the pseudonym of 'Hiroshi Uchida' (Japanese: 内田洋) in Fujisawa. He died three days later in Kamakura.[5]

Kirishima was considered one of Japan's most wanted criminals for a long time.[6] His mugshot, which could be found at police stations across Japan, was well known for his grin and was often parodied.