Thank you so much for this sleuther. I even checked before I posted about GEDmatch and still didn't see Indiana was now one of the states using it. I'm unfamiliar with the April Tinsley case so that's probably how I missed this.
Golden State Killer DNA technology has been used in Indiana to provide the missing pieces that led police to arrest a man for the murder of April Tinsley. Two samples, each more than 30 years old, provided investigators with the name of a likely suspect.
How controversial DNA technology helped solve the April Tinsley cold case
What saddens me now is that it hasn’t helped establish who BG is. IIRC the lab was able to identify the Golden State Killer suspect in one or two days.
This is JMO, but I think there's a learning curve or something similar when it comes to using these new tools to solve crimes. This isn't the only high profile criminal case where LE and prosecutors have DNA from the perp, but haven't used it to track them down. Hopefully, once these experts learn more about the science of DNA evidence and how it applies to family trees, they'll become more comfortable in using it. Perhaps it has to do with the comfort level of prosecutors in knowing how to present this type of evidence to juries to secure convictions. IDK.
ETA: Maybe that's a good suggestion for one of Tricia's podcasts - reach out to some DNA experts and prosecutors to have them discuss the future of this technology in law enforcement and criminal justice.