Hey it's Michael this week were revisiting our favorite episodes of the year. Listening back and hearing what's happened since they first tram today the unexpected story of how genetic databases are being used by law enforcement. It's Friday December, twenty seventh from New York Times, amicable borrow this is the daily. This is really too good for just my little Roger churning group. Let's start another website and share this with other people. We know the suspect kidnapper, but we don't know who she is. Should we in fact again, if I some body who had no clue who she was when are we really would have his her dna? My concerns were that there could be a violation of privacy polices case, basically laid the groundwork for where everything go. Now it's like when they first discovered the fingerprints, can be

used. We ve now start a whole new way of finding people. Today, police identified a suspected double murderer after com. Through dna profiles on a website designed to connect family members. What his trial will tell us about the future of genetic genealogy in solving crimes it's Friday June, seventh, so other Murphy Yuvan covering a story for the times we left off with court Rogers Food just seen, the site he had built get match. This database of dna profiles that people are mostly using to connect to their relatives was used to crack the case of the golden stay killer. Yeah Kurt then decided to change. Get me.

Just use your agreement and officially allow for law enforcement to use his side to find people suspected of murder and rape? So what happened next, so? What happened next is that law enforcement agencies across the country. Looking at this and thinking who let kid this technique do for me, so one of the people that they were, talk to flow ACC, its Heather High Heather. How are you is: is genetic genealogist named Cecy, more The only other way that they can learn about their heritage and their birth families is DNA Seymour was already very well known in the genetic genealogy community, she's been on tv she's running this facebook group that helps people use these techniques. Genealogist Cecy more says, jets only hope is dead, and offered to how she's one of the leading genealogist

using dna testing and get back to help adoptees to find their biological parents. So it was the day of the coins to color announcement. I remember I got lucky in randomly called you and you are very upset and you were very concerned. Why were you upset and concern at that moment? I have had many sleepless nights over the last few years, because many law enforcement professionals had approached me and asked me if I thought I could use my techniques to help them stop a serial killer, and it was something I really wanted to do something deep down. I felt was the right thing, but I didn't feel it was the right time. She knew what was possible with genetic genealogy techniques, but she and others in this little world that there and of sort of advanced genealogical puzzle masters. You could say they had some concerns. I was pretty anticipatory, you know. How is this going to go when people see this as a good

are a bad thing. Would they think it was an invasion of privacy, she's wondering what Curt Rogers of get matches wondering, which is our people going to be upset? People have joined these sites to find relatives. It's feels very personal. How are people feel when they learn that law enforcement is also using not cite coming through. All that information and using it to arrest motives they may or may not have ever met for crime that they may or may not have ever done? I fell to responsibility and ethical responsibility to my community in part, because I had helped grow these databases. I think I was certainly one of the biggest promoters, if not the biggest promoter, encouraging people to upload to Jed match, specifically if this went badly using it for a murder case than what, if there were sums

of legal objections and the site got shut down and it. If people were upset about it and started to leave the site, then the site would cease being useful for all the things that different genealogical researchers needed at foreign. Many bio emphasis that I expected to be concerned about it. Many of them had been quite negative in the in the past. So I was really quite surprised to see the really enthusiastic action in what she sees is up. People are pretty positive, and so, when Kurt decides to open up the site explicitly to law enforcement, he decides to get on board That was really important to me, and that was one of the big reasons I was able to move forward. So what to shut up doing so right after the rest in the case of the golden state killer sees it gets.

In this company called pair bond Rwanda, unaware of Russian Virginia S, develop sophisticated software capable of unlocking information contained in DNA left at a crime scene. Up until this point, their primary service involves taking somebody's dna and making predictions about their eye, color, hair race and turning them into this sort of monks. Because of parabolic snapshot, investigators will have their first clue of what a suspect looks like not all scientists, totally convinced that these facial predictions are really accurate, but they have made a successful business of doing this for a long forcemeat agencies across the country. When a lot of police departments are desperate, they come to Para bond to have something, and so, when this company comes to her and says we like you to work with us, we decide.

To join forces to take that same crime scene, dna VAT Paraguayan had been using to predict what someone looked like, but now try to actually identify that person. She said yeah sure and because they already have dna from dozens of law enforcement agencies that they were creating these mugshots, for I kind of had my pick of cases right away immediately. She is able to dive into cases and, at the time of the golden Stay killer, suspect arrest. A lot of people were a pining that this was gonna, be a one off that it was too difficult, too much time, investment etc. And I wanted to prove that that wasn't true that, power of genetic genealogy could absolutely be applied to called cases and even active cases. There was no reason that that couldn't happen, and what does he see do when she starts us, which of us

so one of the first cases that lands in her lap involves this couple who was killed and nineteen eighty seven. The very first case I worked on was one up and Snow Hamish County Washington. It was a young couple from Victoria British Columbia, Canada. Their names are Tanya Van cool. In Bergen J Cook, they were travelling from Victoria, British Columbia to Seattle, Washington took a ferry and then they just disappear I believe I was already aware of Jay Cook continuing killing bergs case and she's very entreat by this case, because my families from Washington State a she's from Washington State herself. And be this woman. Kenya was born the same year. I was tat. She survived would have been about the same age. That Cecy was, they were barely adults. Hadji was twenty Tommy over seventeen just starting out their life, and I felt a real connection to this couple.

Even though, of course I never knew them, they were going to pick up something in Seattle and then come home and the more she looks into this case. The stranger again though the woman Tanya was very reliable, she would always call her parents if she wasn't coming back, but one day passes two days pass and she hasn't returned when they expected her and they start to get really worried. Finally, please find time yes body in a ditch and wooded area. She's, partly clothe she's been shot and you ve been raped and they don't find you but until a few days later and he's ninety miles away, indifferent, location and he's been cold through totally different means. He appeared to have been strangled and he has a pack of camel lights, stuffed in his mouth please,

follow many different leads over the years, but none of them go anywhere, and so for thirty years their left without a prime Sus body, and it was a terribly sad horrible crime. So as he sees looking over this file, what she sees is that Paragon has already made this sort of predictive dna mugshots the Sheriff Department, the crime scene, DNA that per one had analyzed was from seamen. I believe it was from a rape kit from Tanya, so she's ready to move forward, and we should do the first thing. She does sort of lake what barber revenge or did in the least the case is she takes that profile and she upload it to get match Kurt site in a few years that have passed,

Barbara, was first trying to solve the LISA case. Damage has grown were now at about a million profiles, just get match alone, so Hereupon uploaded that raw data file on a Friday evening, and so there's a lot of comparison going on heavy algorithm and it takes between about eight hours in two days, and so I was you know, waiting with Bait breath on pins needles, state of really late waiting for finally fell asleep, and so I woke up blood then ruled out a bad right away. Open my computer, blood, then and saw that we had to quite significant matches and she gets lucky both as a matches shared enough dna to be approximately second cousins. This person, who, for thirty years, nobody knows who they are.

Immediately. They find two of their second cousins. I've got match, and second cousin matches are really good on Gedmatch two people that were approximately second cousins with our unknown suspect, who didn't share any dna with each other these cousins different sides of the family ones on the farther side ones on the mother side, so I knew that somehow the family trees of those two people had to converge in order to point me toward the suspect and so from their she proceeds to build her family tree back to the common ancestor, and then she starts building it forward in time, and so This triangulation was pointing at just one family and in that family there is only one male who could have that cracked mix of ancestral dna, and then I found that he lived very close to one of the crime seems in fact really just down. The road is where one of the bodies was found

So once cc has identified a potential suspect what it should do so she's working with the local sheriffs department and what they do is they do some investigation and to make sure this is possible Oh, that this really could be the guy, and then they go out in front of his house and they watch him an eventful discards. A cup they go in grabbed the cup, take it back to the lab, extracted genetic profile and they see doesn't match our crimes in DNA left from thirty years ago, and it does. Yesterday we took the custody of fifty five year old Sea turtle, who is suspected of the nineteen eighty seven murders of Jacob

In turn, you then common birth, and so just three weeks after the Gordons take killer announcement. There's a new Iraq really other Earl tablet, the second William Earl Talbot, the second. He stands charged with two counts of murder from nineteen eighty seven they have their suspect starts now and for all the law enforcement agencies that I've been watching and thinking was not just a fluke what they did in the Gordons date killer case. Could this ever be done again? It's what wins most notorious cold hello. Actually, yes, this could be done again. Police have made an arrest and ninety idiot homicide, and so suddenly this sets off. Dna from condoms found twenty fourteen arrest after rest, after rightly say, dna evidence, help them find there more than forty people have been.

Dennis side from murders in sexual. That's when Miller admitted to exact intensely, some of them are stirring to plead guilty, which is also reinforcing. Okay, this is working on a loved one is the victim of a violent crime? Families want answers pretty soon site, that's quite similar to get match called Fairly Treaty a day decides that they are all ready to start openly cooperating with law enforcement. You don't have to buy anything just purchased, they even advertise that their customers can help find a killer to join dont family tree DNA. And all the meanwhile. None of these cases have gone to trial earlier, not know. Until now the case of William Talbot. The second, the person

the alleged killer of Jan Tanya, will be the first to go to trial. This will be the first time that genetic genealogies tested in court will they re back the disks between Washington in Wall Street get shorter all the time. Our finances portfolios and the markets are affected daily by the policies in politics coming out of the nation's capital, MIKE Townsend, Charles Schwab's. Vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs hosts the original podcast Washington, wise investor, where he takes a non partisan. Let the stories that matter most to investors, down the latest episode in subscribe at swapped out palm Slash, Washington, wise or wherever you listen, I'm Wendy Door and I'm an editor on the daily for most my adult life, I thought of the New York Times as a giant

news machine that spit out news stories all day, long kind of like a vending machine and embarrassed to say that it wasn't really until I came to work here at the times that I started to think about the reporters behind those news stories and what it takes to get the story in the first place, sometimes reporters risked their lives. Sometimes they talk to two in the morning. Sometimes they call us from a war zone and nodded do they tell us what's happening on the ground wherever they are, but they also give us the context that we need to understand it. If you like hearing from these orders. Every day, which I know I do the work

The thing that you can do to support them and the daily is to subscribe to the New York Times if you'd like to do that, go to and why times dot com slash subscribe. So in just a few years this website called get batch created by Kurt Rogers. This retiree interested in genealogy is used to help a kidnap girl find her. We and the ground who she herself is its then used to solve the golden stay killer is, and now it's being used by sea more to find a suspect in a double murder case. William tablet, the second and he's now about to go on trial in pretty incredible. And what do we know about William Tab? The second the suspect. So what we know is that he tends to go by bill among friends he's been a lot of his life working as a truck driver and he's never gotten in trouble with the law and then he's no one's know in any serious way.

And what we know is that what connects him to these two murders are two pieces of genetic evidence. One is the seamen found on tyres body and another is seamen found on tyres pants there were found in the van that tunnel Jade took on their trip. That's it! That's the only dna evidence, at least in the court documents that I've seen connecting him to the crime. So there's actually is no dna evidence connecting him to the second murder to jail. Mourner. That's right, and when you read through these court documents, what you see is he's a man who has a lot of friends and he's known to be an angry guy. Here I mean just read you really quickly something that stood out to me from one of his friends. This was in the court documents. I've never seen bilge upset with or even raised his voice with anyone. He never would. I would trust

though, with my life with everything I hold nearing dear to me, I would trust bill with my daughter. He a caring, loving, sweet, compassionate person and a good friend who, wouldn't you harmed anyone ever he's, always confident and a happy sweet soul. This is from a friend who goes on camping trips and rise on a harley with them times is known him since two thousand and six so there's a lot of notes like that and so You can imagine that all of this has come as a big shock to the people who know bill, and so is there any possibility that this dna doesn't color, to the crime that there's another plausible explanation for why it was found there. So all genetic genealogy can really claim to do is to identify a bit DNA to put a name to a bit of dna, that's founded a crime scene, but just because DNA is present somewhere,

doesn't necessarily mean that somebody killed somebody? So, yes, it is possible that we will see an argument made by the defence that bill had sex with this woman, but didn't kill her or was indeed in something that happened with Tanya but was not involved with something involving J, because what they may point out is there is no physical evidence, at least as of a month ago, in the court documents tying him to that, seen so how much emphasis and wave or the investigators putting on the dna evidence in the absence of any other crop rating of it. Yes. So this is an interesting case because in a case like the guns to color, you have multiple crime scenes with dna evidence, and so this aspect has been connected through multiple crime scenes. In this case, you just

really see that our suspect is connected to one of the murders and yet he's charged with both murders, and what it reminds us of is how much Kurt site in genetic genealogy have shifted. The nature of these investigations, often before dna something that comes in later, an investigation once you have a list of suspects to either confer or deny that somebody should continue to be investigated. In this case, DNA is actually a starting point. Bill was not on the radar of investigators. Ever it was only once they put a named this dna that they began to look into him into. It shows this sort of flip in the order of operations of how an entire investigation is going to work, and it seems so compelling on the surface dna it's very present somewhere, but in the absence of additional evidence, the question becomes

what is it really mean exactly, for example, there's no time element to DNA. We actually dont know when it was left behind in the timeline of this period of days in which they both died, and it just raises a lot of questions. I think that's one of the things will see with this case, is dna enough. I wonder why weren't police able to do anything with this aspect using traditional investigative techniques. Yeah they tried and they did have. Dna and police do have their own dna databases that they ve been using long before they realise that they could use Kurt site, get match its called code S, it's the criminal dna databases and through a few reasons why quotas didn't do it for them. One is that, in order to find a person in quotas in some states, you need to find an exact Now, just a relative exactly so, if they have this crime scene, DNA from William Talbot, the second you'd need William Talbot. The second

already be in their database. In order to find him, and in order for that to happen in Washington state he would have had to be convicted for a felony or some other major crime, and he wasn't. He wasn't because bill is not a convicted fine, and so this actually highlights another piece of this, which is that quotas traditionally has skewed word certain populations, including its disproportionately african American. Meanwhile, the population is fuelling. These genealogy sites tend to be honestly white retirees, and it highlights the fact that lotta the people that we are seeing being arrested for these crimes using genetic genealogy are way and middle class people with no criminal record. So in a sense- and they probably do this unwittingly- they supplied the war. With a much bigger and more racially diverse group of potentials. Aspects. Yes- and I have talked to me,

oh, were very concerned about genetic genealogy, but they say like that. One point a sort of interest, in sort of how it inadvertently managed to sort of balance things out a little bit there. So it should be clear, its very possible that way on top of the second, never uploaded any dna to any the base, and yet he has still been arrested and he's about to be tried based. On DNA that somebody else uploaded, that's what I mean one of the more mine blowing aspects of all of this, I think, is that Kurtz little sight of one million by calculations by several different research, earth could potentially be used to identify most white people on America, actually a good percentage of all people in America If those people have chosen not to take twenty three and meet us not taken ancestry test, just because somewhere out there people in the third cousin range decided upload to get match. Commissioner, you can even escape this if you want to do now,

no more genetic privacy. It's done, and that's because of this I yes because of workers, but because the work her Anders built. Privacy is a big question that people have roundness the specifically if this is a constitutional search and seizure issue, as this is a fourth them. An issue. So one Moyer told me that, because most people on these sites aren't expecting that their profiles are enemy used by law enforcement. They're just looking to find some relative do research or find their biological father, and so because police are building these cases. And identifying the dna of people who have no idea there, too, he's gonna be used that way that the evidence wouldn't hold and not she would challenging in that way, you'd be like an illegal warrantless.

Search of a house anything found in it couldn't be used in court theoretical. Yes, but I will say she was in an you know. Another lawyer spoke to pointed out that really the fourth amendment protects where people have decided not to expose. But his point was that this is a case for people have voluntarily expose their information. So good luck to the defence trying to challenge that law enforcement. Shouldn't use this site in what he said, and I've heard that from a lot of people, but I will say that even these lawyers who are saying that they think that this technique will hold up in court agreed, This is uncharted territory and they're all very curious to see how it plays out, because, usually the law is a bit behind science and technology. So, even if it's not a constitutional issue right now, they said it could be a constitutional issue in the future. Even some of the lawyers who told me

I see this working and holding up legally. They have ethical concerns about it and said we'll just because it hold up in court doesn't mean to then that there shouldn't be some sort of regulation guiding how this works. However, it shakes out it's going to set some kind of precedent that is very important symbolically for law enforcement agencies across the country that are trying to decide whether they feel comfortable with this The end of this, of course, comes back to these sites politically get match that allow the investigation of people's genetic information yet is incredible to think that it all began with current in what is Kurt thing of all Now you know it asked him directly. You essentially became the new default government database that feels like a lot of we on one point:

and is it was not a lot of weight on you. I have given that much thought, and I heard I ion. I don't feel that maybe that's perception outside I just haven't thought about it. I think it's hard for him to feel how big it is, I think he gets it at moments. I think when he gets all the letters from people saying, thank you and I think also when he gets the backlash recently. He He did something that made some people angry, which is that he allowed a detective, a genealogist to use his sight for something that wasn't a murderer. It was an attempted murder. He was very convinced and moved and wanted to help with the case, but it was outside of his privacy whirls. Yes, he violated his own power,

is he rules and people got very angry and he went through a bit of a reckoning undecided. Ok, I'm actually going to listen to people who are saying. There's some issues with the consent agreement and he changed the user agreement. Yet again we decided that we needed to change our terms of service required that people opt in so users now have to choose to opt in to allow their profiles to be used by land. That takes the pool from one million to how many that law enforcement can use girl. Can you explain to you the immediately? We opted everyone out, everyone had you come in, and specifically say to us that they wanted to have their information used by law in force. So you could say: ok is

this story over actually know for two reasons: one there's trying to slowly grow their gotta based backed up by encouraging people to opt in their very quickly at thirty thousand, but the bigger reason is because this is already moved way. Past can match, as current fully recognizes himself treaty and eight has said they can love their database to be used and their databases is big as ours. Family tree DNA also has a pool of one million all available to land. Forests meant an This journey that Kerr has on is already become something much bigger, in other words, what he has created. No matter his intentions them out of their rules. He puts in place the default settings, it can't be under a camp. He rolled back no No going back, I mean I talked to a detective the other day, who said to me the genius out of them

There is no going back. Thank you very much. Thank you will get back. The last thing you want to do in your second track across the city. Looking for a doctor, thankfully, with one medical, you can video chat a health care provider whenever, wherever even if that's at three, a m from your car, you can chat with them as often as you like at no additional cost one medical

also offers same to your next day, appointments at more than seventy five conveniently located offices nationwide. So if you like, the idea of hassle free primary care visit, one medical dot com to become a member of a few weeks after this episode, air a jury in every Washington com. Did William Earl help at the second of murder. In the nineteen eighty seven deaths of J Cook and Tom, you ve in Poland, where it was the first time that a court has convicted a suspect identified through genetic genealogy in the months that followed those pushing to expand the use of genetic data bases in law enforcement. One another victory, a judge in Florida, granted police a search warrant

allowing them to access nearly newly a million clients of get match who had specifically opted to shield their dna from law enforcement? That's it for the daily. I Michael borrowed. See you on Monday, This episode of the daily is supported by the new Showtime original series: penny dreadful city of angels when a gruesome, are shocks. Nineteen thirty eight LOS Angeles detected Tioga Vega, his partner Louis mentioned, or find themselves grappling with nazi spies, crooked politicians and powerful supernatural forces Natalie D.

We're Daniels of Otto Nathan Lane STAR in penny, dreadful city of angels, preparing April twenty six. Only on Showtime, the daily listeners contrive Showtime free for thirty days, go to no time dot com. Now and enter co daily offer expires, may twenty fourth twenty twenty