Searching the Family DNA Tree to Solve Crime

What if I told you there was a powerful crime-fighting tool that could help find, convict and put away violent criminals that most of our 50 states are NOT using? Your first question would likely be, "Why not?!"

That's what I'd like to know.

We all get how important the discovery of DNA has been in identifying rapists, murderers and other criminals over the years. But DNA technology has now graduated, and for the most part states just haven't kept up.

Colorado has been leading the way on a technology called Familial DNA Search. Crime scene scientists and police investigators who have used it swear by its usefulness. Colorado has offered up special computer software it developed, along with its experts to train others to use the new forensic technology — for free.

Here's how it works. When DNA is taken from a crime scene, it is run through a computer program called CODIS (short for combined DNA Index System) to see if there is a match. If the owner of the suspect DNA has ever given a sample to law enforcement, it is in this database. But what if the forensic scientist doesn't find a match within CODIS? Are they dead in the DNA water? Not anymore.

With the new Colorado software, scientists can search CODIS again. The second time they can look for DNA that has so many familial similarities to the unknown crime scene sample that scientists can determine they are blood relatives. The familial DNA might come from a parent, sibling, child or even a cousin or uncle. Armed with the DNA family connection, detectives staring at a cold case file suddenly find a whole new group of people to question.

Sounds like a fantastic new tool! Yet Familial DNA Searches are only being routinely used in Colorado and California.

In Colorado, the method has helped identify 10 subjects wanted on a variety of charges.

In California, a serial killer suspect in Los Angeles was identified using this method. Police called him the "Grim Sleeper" because he seemed to go dormant in between murdering at least 10 women over more than 20 years. Saddled with an ice cold case, California authorities decided to run DNA samples collected from saliva left on the bodies through a Familial DNA Search. Voila! They identified a young man named Christopher who was in the system for doing time on a felony weapons charge. Further investigation led police to 57-year-old Lonnie David Franklin, Christopher's father.

Once police had him as a suspect, an undercover detective posing as a waiter collected the elder Franklin's plate, utensils and leftover food from a restaurant, and the suspect's DNA found on a discarded pizza crust matched the DNA left long ago on the bodies of the dead women.

The state of Illinois is thinking about using the method to help solve a cold case from 2008, the mysterious murders of five women working at a Lane Bryant clothing store.

Both Pennsylvania and Virginia have already taken up Colorado's generous offer to share the familial DNA software. Officials in both states are studying the possible legal ramifications before plunging into this brave new world. They understand there are cautions about using familial DNA.

The state of Maryland, for example, has flat out rejected the idea because, as the chief of forensics for the Public Defender's office declared — it would have placed half the state's African-American families under possible scrutiny because of the sheer number of black men who've been arrested and who have given DNA samples to the CODIS system.

This promising new technology couldn't be approved fast enough for Dan and Gil Harrington, a Virginia couple who have been agonizing over who might have murdered their beautiful daughter, Morgan. She left a concert in October 2009 and disappeared. That is, until her badly decomposed body was found months later in a field nine miles south of Charlottesville.

DNA found on Morgan's body was ultimately linked to whoever committed a brutal rape in Fairfax, Va., some 90 miles away and four years earlier. Who is that person who would rape and murder young women? The Harringtons believe a Familial DNA Search might hold the clue, and they don't understand what's taking so long to use it. I don't understand it, either.

The American Civil Liberties Union commented after the "Grim Sleeper" suspect was arrested to warn that Familial DNA Search is not the "silver bullet" that prosecutors suggest. The ACLU worries that privacy and civil rights concerns have not been adequately addressed, and they worry that blacks might be unfairly singled out.

The district attorney of Denver said it best in a recent debate when he reminded that while African Americans account for 13 percent of the population, they were the victims in nearly half of America's homicides in 2005.

Don't they deserve the best forensic investigations have to offer, too? And let's not forget DNA evidence also exonerates innocent people.

I vote for every state to adopt Familial DNA Search techniques ASAP!

Diane Dimond's book, "Cirque Du Salahi — Be Careful Who You Trust," can be ordered at Amazon.com. Visit Diane Dimond's official website at www.dianedimond.com for investigative reporting, polls and more. To find out more about Diane Dimond and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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