A 38-year-old cold case in Jefferson County has been solved using genealogy DNA testing. Investigators say they’ve identified the killer of 18-year-old Jeannie Moore as Donald Perea, who was born in 1957 and died in 2012.
“Based on the statistics and the DNA, this is the guy,” investigator Mitch Morrissey said. Morrissey is the former District Attorney of Colorado’s Second Judicial District in Denver.
Investigator say genealogy DNA and reverse paternity testing led them to Perea. They used programs called
GEDmatch, an open-source website, and
Family Tree DNA to find people who shared common DNA to the suspect. GEDmatch was used by law enforcement to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case in California.
“It was Family Tree DNA that gave us the most significant lead in this case. For a few hundred dollars, law enforcement can upload their sample into Family Tree… and then you search for people with common DNA to the DNA that you’re looking for.”
“Then there’s a whole system where genealogist can look at it and say ‘OK, based on how much you share, this is likely a first cousin,’ or ‘This is likely an uncle’ or ‘This is likely, you know, some other relative.'” Morrissey explained. “What this allows you to do is go out to about fourth cousins. On average, a person has about 850 cousins out there in the world.”
Morrissey said they used DNA from Perea’s biological daughter to match him to samples taken from the crime scene.
Morrissey said Perea was accused of a kidnapping and rape in Wesminster and was out on bond when he raped and murdered Moore. He was 23 years old at the time.
“He had been arrested for sexual assault where he had a weapon and he had been charged but he had posted bond and was out when he picked up this victim and did what he did to her.”
Perea was eventually convicted for the rape and was in prison from 1982 to 1985. Investigators say he died from health problems in 2012.
Genealogy DNA Identifies Donald Perea As Suspect In 1981 Murder Of Jeannie Moore
