Familial DNA used in criminal cases

Eric Yarham wanted to know more about his family tree, so he mailed his saliva to a company called "23 and Me."

"Just trying to unravel the mystery that is your genetics," said Yarham. "That lingering 3 percent is Sub-Saharan-African. So that's swimming around in my DNA."

He did not expect those results and that ancestry databases can disclose his genetic information to law enforcement if they have a warrant.

Kate Black is the Privacy Officer for "23 and Me," the company where Yarham sent his DNA.

"We would always review a request and take it on a case by case basis," said Black. "We try to make information available on the web site in various forms."

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According to the company's self-reported data, law enforcement has requested information from about five American "23 and Me" customers, but so far, Black said no information has been turned over. Another company, "Ancestry" reports that it did comply with a 2014 search warrant to identify a customer based on a DNA sample.

Yarham said he is not sure he likes that sharing of private information, especially if his DNA could be used in a criminal case without his knowledge.

"The police make mistakes and I would rather not be on the unfortunate end of one of those mistakes as a result of my DNA being somewhere that is unlucky," said Yarham.

HOW IT WORKS

If a crime is serious and other leads are exhausted, law enforcement officers may try to find relatives of the perpetrator by looking for DNA profiles with many of the same markers. The search takes into account the rarity of each marker and produces a list of the 200 most likely potential relatives. Criminalists then test the DNA of the potential relatives against the crime scene sample. They look for markers on the Y-chromosome that are shared by fathers, sons and brothers.

Once they identify the likely relative, investigators search records to determine who in that person's family was the right age and in the right place to have committed the crime.

HOW IT WAS DEVELOPED

In the past, when direct DNA matches could not be made because the owner of the DNA had never been arrested or convicted of a crime, police had reached a dead end. But more than a decade ago, British police developed a new way to search for anyone who might be closely related to whoever left DNA at a crime scene.

These searches look for individuals who carry only some genetic markers in common with those found in crime scene DNA. A match of 10 of the 20 critical markers strongly suggests a person is the parent, child or sibling of the suspect. Analysts performing familial searches often provide detectives with a list of near-matches, topped by these "first-degree" relatives.

OHIO'S FIRST SOLVE 

According to the Ohio Attorney General's Office, the state's testing does not use ancestry databases. DNA is only compared to profiles in the law enforcement CODIS database. The protocol mandates that the state use the technology in only the most serious cases in which police have exhausted all potential leads in trying to identify a suspect.

"The crime itself has to involve violence and the suspect must pose a continuous danger to the community," said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Ohio used familial DNA for the first time in 2016 in the arrest and conviction of Justin Christian. He was a child rapist who broke into homes to steal children from their families in Cleveland. He left DNA on a ladder, but he was not in any of the local or national databases. However, someone in his family was and their shared DNA left a trail for investigators that led right to Christian, who is now behind bars.

"When I learned that a predator was breaking into homes to snatch children from their beds, I wanted to immediately launch this new testing in Ohio, " said DeWine.

More than 12 states now have protocols in place to use familial DNA.

ANCESTRY DNA: THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER

California investigators who recently arrested Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, used the DNA of a relative to track him down. DeAngelo is a suspect in the deaths of 12 people and at least 50 rapes in California from 1974 through 1986.

Authorities had the killer's DNA but it did not match anyone in the CODIs system. So, they decided to target a genealogical database that the public uses to search for relatives and ancestors of their suspect and that led them to DeAngelo.

While these new DNA tracking techniques could solve many cold cases, they are not without opponents. The operators of several DNA services, like 23AndMe and Ancestry.com, said they will not turn over DNA testing results to law enforcement without a warrant. And GEDmatch.com, the service detectives used in the Golden State Killer case, told members that they could take down their DNA profiles if they want their information to remain private..

Familial DNA as an investigative tool has also faced opposition from civil libertarians who fear it could be used to target minorities.

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