Familial DNA searching Familial DNA searching (sometimes referred to as "familial DNA" or "familial DNA database searching") is the practice of creating new investigative leads in cases where DNA evidence found at the scene of a crime (forensic profile) strongly resembles that of an existing DNA profile (offender profile) in a state DNA database but there is not an exact match. After all other leads have been exhausted, investigators may use specially developed software to compare the forensic profile to all profiles taken from a state's DNA database to generate a list of those offenders already in the database who are most likely to be a very close relative of the individual whose DNA is in the forensic profile. Familial DNA database searching was first used in an investigation leading to the conviction of Jeffrey Gafoor of the
murder of Lynette White in the United Kingdom on 4 July 2003. DNA evidence was matched to Gafoor's nephew, who at 14 years old had not been born at the time of the murder in 1988. It was used again in 2004 to find a man who threw a brick from a motorway bridge and hit a lorry driver, killing him. DNA found on the brick matched that found at the scene of a car theft earlier in the day, but there were no good matches on the national DNA database. A wider search found a partial match to an individual; on being questioned, this man revealed he had a brother, Craig Harman, who lived very close to the original crime scene. Harman voluntarily submitted a DNA sample, and confessed when it matched the sample from the brick. As of 2011, familial DNA database searching is not conducted on a national level in the United States, where states determine how and when to conduct familial searches. The first familial DNA search with a subsequent conviction in the United States was conducted in
Denver, Colorado, in 2008, using software developed under the leadership of
Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey and Denver Police Department Crime Lab Director Gregg LaBerge. California was the first state to implement a policy for familial searching under then-Attorney General
Jerry Brown, who later became Governor. In his role as consultant to the Familial Search Working Group of the
California Department of Justice, former
Alameda County Prosecutor Rock Harmon is widely considered to have been the catalyst in the adoption of familial search technology in California. The technique was used to catch the Los Angeles serial killer known as the "
Grim Sleeper" in 2010. It was not a witness or informant that tipped off law enforcement to the identity of the "Grim Sleeper" serial killer, who had eluded police for more than two decades, but DNA from the suspect's own son. The suspect's son had been arrested and convicted in a felony weapons charge and swabbed for DNA the year before. When his DNA was entered into the database of convicted felons, detectives were alerted to a partial match to evidence found at the "Grim Sleeper" crime scenes. David Franklin Jr., also known as the Grim Sleeper, was charged with ten counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. More recently, familial DNA led to the arrest of 21-year-old Elvis Garcia on charges of sexual assault and false imprisonment of a woman in
Santa Cruz in 2008. In March 2011
Virginia Governor
Bob McDonnell announced that Virginia would begin using familial DNA searches. At a press conference in Virginia on 7 March 2011, regarding the
East Coast Rapist, Prince William County prosecutor Paul Ebert and Fairfax County Police Detective John Kelly said the case would have been solved years ago if Virginia had used familial DNA searching. Aaron Thomas, the suspected East Coast Rapist, was arrested in connection with the rape of 17 women from Virginia to Rhode Island, but familial DNA was not used in the case. Critics of familial DNA database searches argue that the technique is an invasion of an individual's
4th Amendment rights. Privacy advocates are petitioning for DNA database restrictions, arguing that the only fair way to search for possible DNA matches to relatives of offenders or arrestees would be to have a population-wide DNA database. and most have concluded that the practice is constitutional. The
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in
United States v. Pool (vacated as moot) suggested that this practice is somewhat analogous to a witness looking at a photograph of one person and stating that it looked like the perpetrator, which leads law enforcement to show the witness photos of similar looking individuals, one of whom is identified as the perpetrator. Critics also state that racial profiling could occur on account of familial DNA testing. In the United States, the conviction rates of racial minorities are much higher than that of the overall population. It is unclear whether this is due to discrimination from police officers and the courts, as opposed to a simple higher rate of offence among minorities. Arrest-based databases, which are found in the majority of the United States, lead to an even greater level of racial discrimination. An arrest, as opposed to conviction, relies much more heavily on police discretion. Partial matching does not involve the use of familial search software, such as those used in the United Kingdom and the United States, or additional
Y-STR analysis and therefore often misses sibling relationships. Partial matching has been used to identify suspects in several cases in both countries and has also been used as a tool to exonerate the falsely accused.
Darryl Hunt was wrongly convicted in connection with the rape and the murder of a young woman in 1984 in
North Carolina.
Surreptitious DNA collecting Police forces may collect DNA samples without a suspect's knowledge, and use it as evidence. The legality of the practice has been questioned in
Australia. In the
United States, where it has been accepted, courts often rule that there is no
expectation of privacy and cite
California v. Greenwood (1988), in which the
Supreme Court held that the
Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the
warrantless search and seizure of
garbage left for collection outside the
curtilage of a
home. Critics of this practice underline that this analogy ignores that "most people have no idea that they risk surrendering their genetic identity to the police by, for instance, failing to destroy a used coffee cup. Moreover, even if they do realize it, there is no way to avoid abandoning one's DNA in public." The United States Supreme Court ruled in
Maryland v. King (2013) that DNA sampling of prisoners arrested for serious crimes is constitutional. In the
United Kingdom, the
Human Tissue Act 2004 prohibits private individuals from covertly collecting biological samples (hair, fingernails, etc.) for DNA analysis but exempts medical and criminal investigations from the prohibition.
England and Wales Evidence from an expert who has compared DNA samples must be accompanied by evidence as to the sources of the samples and the procedures for obtaining the DNA profiles. The judge must ensure that the jury must understand the significance of DNA matches and mismatches in the profiles. The judge must also ensure that the jury does not confuse the match probability (the probability that a person that is chosen at random has a matching DNA profile to the sample from the scene) with the probability that a person with matching DNA committed the crime. In 1996
R v. Doheny Juries should weigh up conflicting and corroborative evidence, using their own common sense and not by using mathematical formulae, such as
Bayes' theorem, so as to avoid "confusion, misunderstanding and misjudgment".
Presentation and evaluation of evidence of partial or incomplete DNA profiles In
R v Bates, Moore-Bick LJ said:
DNA testing in the United States chemist reads a DNA profile to determine the origin of a commodity. There are state laws on DNA profiling in all 50
states of the
United States. Detailed information on database laws in each state can be found at the
National Conference of State Legislatures website.
Development of artificial DNA In August 2009, scientists in
Israel raised serious doubts concerning the use of DNA by law enforcement as the ultimate method of identification. In a paper published in the journal
Forensic Science International: Genetics, the Israeli researchers demonstrated that it is possible to manufacture DNA in a laboratory, thus falsifying DNA evidence. The scientists fabricated saliva and blood samples, which originally contained DNA from a person other than the supposed donor of the blood and saliva. The researchers also showed that, using a DNA database, it is possible to take information from a profile and manufacture DNA to match it, and that this can be done without access to any actual DNA from the person whose DNA they are duplicating. The synthetic DNA
oligos required for the procedure are common in molecular laboratories. Seventy percent of the DNA in any human genome is methylated, meaning it contains
methyl group modifications within a
CpG dinucleotide context. Methylation at the promoter region is associated with gene silencing. The synthetic DNA lacks this
epigenetic modification, which allows the test to distinguish manufactured DNA from genuine DNA. Researchers at the University of Tokyo integrated an artificial DNA replication scheme with a rebuilt gene expression system and micro-compartmentalization utilizing cell-free materials alone for the first time. Multiple cycles of serial dilution were performed on a system contained in microscale water-in-oil droplets.
Chances of making DNA change on purpose Overall, this study's artificial genomic DNA, which kept copying itself using self-encoded proteins and made its sequence better on its own, is a good starting point for making more complex artificial cells. By adding the genes needed for transcription and translation to artificial genomic DNA, it may be possible in the future to make artificial cells that can grow on their own when fed small molecules like amino acids and nucleotides. Using living organisms to make useful things, like drugs and food, would be more stable and easier to control in these artificial cells. Three different fluorophores—red, green, and blue—were carefully fixed on the DNA rod surface to provide spatial information and create a nanoscale barcode. Epifluorescence and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy reliably deciphered spatial information between fluorophores. By moving the three fluorophores on the DNA rod, this nanoscale barcode created 216 fluorescence patterns.
Cases • In 1986, Richard Buckland was
exonerated, despite having admitted to the
rape and
murder of a teenager near
Leicester, the city where DNA profiling was first developed. This was the first use of DNA fingerprinting in a criminal investigation, and the first to prove a suspect's innocence. The following year
Colin Pitchfork was identified as the perpetrator of the same murder, in addition to another, using the same techniques that had cleared Buckland. • In 1987, genetic fingerprinting was used in a US criminal court for the first time in the trial of a man accused of
unlawful intercourse with a mentally disabled 14-year-old female who gave birth to a baby. • In 1987,
Florida rapist Tommie Lee Andrews was the first person in the United States to be convicted as a result of DNA evidence, for raping a woman during a
burglary; he was convicted on 6 November 1987, and sentenced to 22 years in prison. • In 1990, a violent murder of a young student in
Brno was the first criminal case in
Czechoslovakia solved by DNA evidence, with the murderer sentenced to 23 years in prison. • In 1992, DNA from a
palo verde tree was used to convict Mark Alan Bogan of murder. DNA from seed pods of a tree at the crime scene was found to match that of seed pods found in Bogan's truck. This is the first instance of plant DNA admitted in a criminal case. • In 1994, the claim that
Anna Anderson was
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was tested after her death using samples of her tissue that had been stored at a
Charlottesville hospital following a medical procedure. The tissue was tested using DNA fingerprinting, and showed that she bore no relation to the
Romanovs. • In 1994,
Earl Washington, Jr., of Virginia had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment a week before his scheduled execution date based on DNA evidence. He received a full pardon in 2000 based on more advanced testing. • In 1999, Raymond Easton, a disabled man from
Swindon, England, was arrested and detained for seven hours in connection with a burglary, because the on-site DNA seemed to match his. He was released when a more accurate test showed clear differences. His DNA had been retained on file after an unrelated domestic incident some time previously. • In 2000 Frank Lee Smith was proved innocent by DNA profiling of the murder of an eight-year-old girl after spending 14 years on death row in Florida, USA. However he had died of
cancer just before his innocence was proven. In view of this the Florida state governor ordered that in future any death row inmate claiming innocence should have DNA testing. • In 2001, Wayne Butler was convicted for the
murder of Celia Douty. It was the first murder in
Australia to be solved using DNA profiling. • In 2002, the body of
James Hanratty, hanged in 1962 for the "A6 murder", was exhumed and DNA samples from the body and members of his family were analysed. The results convinced
Court of Appeal judges that Hanratty's guilt, which had been strenuously disputed by campaigners, was proved "beyond doubt". Paul Foot and some other campaigners continued to believe in Hanratty's innocence and argued that the DNA evidence could have been contaminated, noting that the small DNA samples from items of clothing, kept in a police laboratory for over 40 years "in conditions that do not satisfy modern evidential standards", had had to be subjected to very new amplification techniques in order to yield any genetic profile. However, no DNA other than Hanratty's was found on the evidence tested, contrary to what would have been expected had the evidence indeed been contaminated. • In August 2002, Annalisa Vicentini was shot dead in
Tuscany. Bartender Peter Hamkin, 23, was arrested, in
Merseyside in March 2003 on an extradition warrant heard at
Bow Street Magistrates' Court in
London to establish whether he should be taken to
Italy to face a murder charge. DNA "proved" he shot her, but he was cleared on other evidence. • In 2003, Welshman Jeffrey Gafoor was convicted of the 1988
murder of Lynette White, when crime scene evidence collected 12 years earlier was re-examined using
STR techniques, resulting in a match with his nephew. • In June 2003, because of new DNA evidence, Dennis Halstead, John Kogut and John Restivo won a re-trial on their 1986 murder conviction, their convictions were struck down and they were released. • In 2004, DNA testing shed new light into the mysterious 1912
disappearance of Bobby Dunbar, a four-year-old boy who vanished during a fishing trip. He was allegedly found alive eight months later in the custody of William Cantwell Walters, but another woman claimed that the boy was her son, Bruce Anderson, whom she had entrusted in Walters' custody. The courts disbelieved her claim and convicted Walters for the
kidnapping. The boy was raised and known as Bobby Dunbar throughout the rest of his life. However, DNA tests on Dunbar's son and nephew revealed the two were not related, thus establishing that the boy found in 1912 was not Bobby Dunbar, whose real fate remains unknown. • In 2005, Gary Leiterman was convicted of the 1969 murder of Jane Mixer, a law student at the
University of Michigan, after DNA found on Mixer's
pantyhose was matched to Leiterman. DNA in a drop of blood on Mixer's hand was matched to John Ruelas, who was only four years old in 1969 and was never successfully connected to the case in any other way. Leiterman's defense unsuccessfully argued that the unexplained match of the blood spot to Ruelas pointed to cross-contamination and raised doubts about the reliability of the lab's identification of Leiterman. • In November 2008,
Anthony Curcio was arrested for masterminding one of the most elaborately planned armored car heists in history. DNA evidence linked Curcio to the crime. • In March 2009,
Sean Hodgson—convicted of 1979 killing of
Teresa De Simone, 22, in her car in
Southampton—was released after tests proved DNA from the scene was not his. It was later matched to DNA retrieved from the exhumed body of David Lace. Lace had previously confessed to the crime but was not believed by the
detectives. He served time in prison for other crimes committed at the same time as the murder and then committed
suicide in 1988. • In 2012, a case of babies being switched, many decades earlier, was discovered by accident. After undertaking DNA testing for other purposes, Alice Collins Plebuch was advised that her ancestry appeared to include a significant
Ashkenazi Jewish component, despite a belief in her family that they were of predominantly
Irish descent. Profiling of Plebuch's genome suggested that it included distinct and unexpected components associated with Ashkenazi,
Middle Eastern, and
Eastern European populations. This led Plebuch to conduct an extensive investigation, after which she concluded that her father had been switched (possibly accidentally) with another baby soon after birth. Plebuch was also able to identify the biological ancestors of her father. • In 2015, in
X and Anor v Z (Children) and Anor the Court of Appeal for England and Wales decided that it is not lawful for a DNA profile made by the police in the course of a criminal investigation to be used for a paternity test. • In 2016 Anthea Ring, abandoned as a baby, was able to use a DNA sample and DNA matching database to discover her deceased mother's identity and roots in
County Mayo, Ireland. A recently developed forensic test was subsequently used to capture DNA from saliva left on old stamps and envelopes by her suspected father, uncovered through painstaking genealogy research. The DNA in the first three samples was too degraded to use. However, on the fourth, more than enough DNA was found. The test, which has a degree of accuracy acceptable in UK courts, proved that a man named Patrick Coyne was her biological father. • In 2018
the Buckskin girl (a body found in 1981 in
Ohio) was identified as Marcia King from
Arkansas using DNA genealogical techniques • In 2018
Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested as the main suspect for the
Golden State Killer using DNA and genealogy techniques. • In 2018, William Earl Talbott II was arrested as a suspect for the 1987
murders of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg with the assistance of
genealogical DNA testing. The same
genetic genealogist that helped in this case also helped police with 18 other arrests in 2018. • In 2018, with the use of Next Generation Identification System's enhanced biometric capabilities, the
FBI matched the
fingerprint of a suspect named Timothy David Nelson and arrested him 20 years after the alleged
sexual assault. ==DNA evidence as evidence to prove rights of succession to British titles==