Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/52-years-seattle-woman-killed-police-use-family-dna-latest-science-identify-killer/

by curtis • 7 years ago

146 157 7 years ago

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect. This is one of many reasons to have your remains cremated, I suppose. It also avoids wasting space in a graveyard and whatnot.

I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things that would contain DNA to add people to databases. Such arguments are usually emotional and follow the ''If just one person is saved'' trope.

This is rather harrowing, don't you agree?

freedomben• 7 years ago

I do agree. The "if just one person is saved" argument and "why do I care about privacy if I'm doing nothing wrong" are the worst. I try very hard to keep emotion out of arguments but those two really trigger me and make it hard to stay calm.

I'm deeply concerned about the potential surveillance state that is emerging. I just read an article about a smart city attempt in Toronto that is becoming a nightmare.

There has been some pushback, but mostly by niche groups like the EFF and FSF (please join/donate if you can). I wish more people would think through the possibilities and stop trusting the corporations and governments that are driving this so much.

xfitm3• 7 years ago

Have you been to Shenzhen lately? You must swipe your ID card before buying a train pass, mandatory random police checkpoints, tens of thousands of cameras+facial recognition laser scanners. All in the name of "reducing crime". It's complete bullshit. Crime stats are pumped up and these measures are slowly introduced with little to no pushback from citizens.

mikeash10• 7 years ago

If you’re dead, what do you care what happens to your remains?

I see no problem with exhuming a corpse to solve a murder case as long as there’s probable cause and a warrant, which there was here.

maxerickson2• 7 years ago

I agree with you about not caring, but I wonder if you've really not noticed that lots of people do care about how remains are handled?

dd36• 7 years ago

Well, could they sue your estate or assets that were inherited by your family?

vkou• 7 years ago

If you’re dead, what do you care what happens to your remains?

Because our society believes in body autonomy, to the point that it won't use your body's organs to save other human beings, without your express consent.

Your body is your property, and it takes a damn good reason for someone else to access your property, contrary to your will.

mehrdadn• 7 years ago

If you’re dead, what do you care what happens to your remains?

Not speaking for this case in particular, but regarding the general question, maybe it's something you don't want your loved ones to have to think about/go through?

oh_sigh• 7 years ago

"When I'm dead, just throw me in the trash"

-Diogenes of Sinope

NeedMoreTea• 7 years ago

It's not like it's a new development either - police and justice systems around the world have long had the possibility, and right, to ask to exhume a body to further an investigation. It has most often been the victim historically.

So I don't see why this would be viewed as any different.

ekianjo• 7 years ago

If you’re dead, what do you care what happens to your remains?

Consider how your family members might feel about it? It's not just about dead you.

hrktb• 7 years ago

It’s just moving the issue to the family. Cremating a body basically became a privacy/security best practice I guess.

kurthr• 7 years ago

If you were innocent, wouldn't you want your body exhumed so that people didn't assume you were guilty and the victim's family could have closure?

I guess if one was guilty and dead with other living accomplices...

stirlo• 7 years ago

When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have, if there’s probable cause and a warrant and it can bring closure to the victims then it’s 100% acceptable.

skookumchuck2• 7 years ago

When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have

When you're convicted of it. Not before.

bring closure

This seems to be a very recent thing. First off, I don't think the justice system is meant to "bring closure" to the victims, whatever that means. And secondly, if someone close to me was murdered, I seriously doubt that "closure" would make me feel any better about it.

oaththrowaway• 7 years ago

When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have

Does that include the state?

TheSpiceIsLife3• 7 years ago

When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have

Any rights? I firmly believe you still have the right to not be tortured. Can you think of any others?

technofiend• 7 years ago

Don't presume to speak for victims because you're painting with too broad of a brush. My sister's killer was convicted and sent to prison. Justice may have been served but for me the day after his conviction was the same as the day before: she was still dead and nothing can change that.

There are too many downsides to putting causal DNA collection into the law enforcement toolkit. Starting with the fact the frankly anything given to law enforcement is often abused and used out of context to the fact that a false positive means anything from financial ruin to possibly a plea bargain for a crime the person didn't commit due to the abusive charge stacking prosecutors use the days.

And although it may feel righteous to you to punish the guilty it should never been done at the cost of due process. We really can't afford the erosion of any more civil liberties, IMHO.

simple_phrases• 7 years ago

This is rather harrowing, don't you agree?

Yep. Once the process becomes streamlined, these data-sharing companies will have their own Room 641A like we saw with AT&T and streamlined dragnet surveillance of telecommunications.

cachvico• 7 years ago

Less harrowing than being murdered.

BurningFrog• 7 years ago

There might be good arguments on your side, but this post only brings forth "it makes me feel uneasy", which isn't good enough for me.

For one thing, an unconsidered emotional reaction can often be reversed by thinking things through and hearing good arguments from all sides.

rootusrootus• 7 years ago

I have a problem with the recent practice of using innocuous places like ancestry.com as a tool to find murderers through their familial relationships. Definitely I think we need to see some more regulation there.

But, as a separate issue, when there is enough evidence to convince a judge to sign a warrant, I do not have an objection to exhuming a body. I have to trust the judicial system to handle this sanely.

criddell• 7 years ago

What are the downsides of using databases like ancestry.com to solve crimes?

Data_Junkie• 7 years ago

Regulation is only to stop harm. Who does this hurt ? I don't think capturing criminals counts as harm. It's not trust that's needed, what's not to trust ?

droithomme3• 7 years ago

I agree with what you say but more interesting to me is that the way DNA is used in forensics is pseudoscientific nonsense, along with bite and footprint matching.

As a separate issue, this guy is dead and has no ability to defend himself in court such as by providing an alibi. In the Golden State Killer case, the first "match" they found in their cold hit/blind match search (using an extremely small number of 9 to 13 SNPs) found a guy that had a solid alibi. They shrugged, kept looking, and found some other guy who didn't have an alibi. Which proves nothing given the state of cold hit against massive databank methodology combined with a bare minimum of competence at genetics and statistics. Such is the unprofessional state of so-called DNA forensic "science".

Frank Wypych, as an undisputable legal fact, is innocent until proven guilty. Since there's no been trial or jury verdict LEGALLY HE IS INNOCENT. That is the legal fact. Anyone claiming otherwise, such as the experts in this article, is lying and should forever more not be trusted to speak their own weight much less decide who is guilty of a capital crime.

dahinds2• 7 years ago

You seem to think that these cases are being solved using old school CODIS database matching but that's just false. This case and the Golden State Killer case were solved using modern distant relative matching methods that are widely used in the genetic genealogy community and are far more powerful than traditional forensic DNA matching and typically use 500,000 or more markers.

Dylan168073• 7 years ago

It's not lying to call someone guilty based on sufficiently high non-court standards. Sometimes things skip courts, sometimes the prosecutor doesn't do their job, sometimes courts or juries get it wrong.

They shrugged, kept looking, and found some other guy who didn't have an alibi.

And based on that, they got a search warrant.

Don't imply that their claim is based on the preliminary test.

wpietri• 7 years ago

I don't agree at all. They're not digging people up willy nilly. They had to get a warrant. It's reasonable to have our interest in catching murderers sometimes override our right to privacy. As long as there's a reasonable apparatus for determining the balance, I'm fine with it.

I'm also not particularly troubled by DNA technology as such. If I'm going to worry about totalitarian control of society, I think it's one of the least scary technologies out there. Face recognition, gait analysis, voice recognition, financial tracking, cellphone tracking, spyware, and hoovering up social media are much better suited as instruments of instruments of control.

conanbatt12• 7 years ago

Yeah but they are now also using services like 23andme and such, where the people are living and have not consented to such a thing.

I'm not too privacy conscious but that information definitely moved me away from that kind of dna anaylsis.

duxup2• 7 years ago

I would worry about a mistake.

If the dna match comes back as a match, is anyone going to disbelieve some super cool CSI stuff?

pfdietz4• 7 years ago

Forensic DNA is used to find a suspect, who is then confirmed by traditional DNA testing. It's lead generation, and is not itself used in court.

If you are ok with traditional DNA testing, this should not cause you are concern. Unless you have something to hide, like say you fathered a child somewhere and ran off, your identity unknown to the mother.

dontbenebby2• 7 years ago

I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things that would contain DNA to add people to databases. Such arguments are usually emotional

It's also "emotional" to not want your remains to be compared to a serial killer's DNA.

There is admittedly a property rights argument to be made. (In a way, your decendants have the "rights" to your remains, displayed in the manner you bequeathed them, traditionally a cemetery plot in western cultures.)

But it's even more emotional to have attachment to random bits of litter.

conanbatt12• 7 years ago

It's not bits of litter, is information you may not want to share.

What if they use it to convict your descendants for sending their kid to the wrong school district?

All headways into new ways to use technology and pry into privacy will start with the most egregious cases, murders and serial killers, and eventually wind up being used for anything. It is a tool from the state against the citizenry: I personally find the state to be powerful enough already. It can kill anyone, seize almost all their assets and hell, they don't even need to have a reason to kill you!

shrikant2• 7 years ago

You say

Such arguments are usually emotional [...]

But start off your comment with

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect.

I guess I'm struggling to see the non-emotional component of your feeling disconcerted. Would you mind clarifying?

wallace_f2• 7 years ago

To a large extent, I guess isn't almost everything emotional? Even our entire monetary system, as scientific as we prefer to call it, is ultimately a kind of emotional accounting system for merits deserved, and debts owed.

But what I think the author meant was what I hear colloquially when people say others are "thinking emotionally:" that they're relying on a first-order emotional reaction.

So I guess living in an extreme surveillance state is also bad because we feel like we want humanity to continue to to live with prosperity, dignity, and liberty... And that's arguably a more-compelling thought than disagreeing because in the short-term, one life could be saved.

bryanrasmussen• 7 years ago

I think it's more if just one person is avenged, isn't it?

At any rate considering the difficulties there are in getting a correct match from DNA adding samples collected from the trash does sound like a problem.

umvi• 7 years ago

In what way are they being "violated"? You make it really hard to make advances in police work because literally every form of police work is a "privacy violation", even if you are dead!

saagarjha• 7 years ago

Getting your DNA sequenced is a bit like letting an app have access to your contacts: in both, your choice has consequences for hundreds of other people. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it’s possible to undo the effects of something your friends/family might have done :/

maxerickson2• 7 years ago

It doesn't undo anything, but the solution is to work towards a just society.

iwasakabukiman• 7 years ago

That's a good analogy.

At what point does what we're giving up become worth it to solve all these crimes?

I don't have an answer, I'm just wondering.

Obviously solving 1 or 2 crimes isn't worth giving up so much private information. But 10,000? 100,000? Is there even a number?

jeffdavis• 7 years ago

Crime is a declining problem in the U.S. and many other areas. Most of the criminals left have poor impulse control and/or are involved in gangs -- not exactly CSI material. Cops on the beat will do a good job without the fancy lab.

m-p-32• 7 years ago

For me it was a choice between privacy and not knowing who my distant relatives might be since my father was adopted and never searched for his biological parents.

TheSpiceIsLife3• 7 years ago

And what did you choose?

maxheadroom• 7 years ago

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it’s possible to undo the effects of something your friends/family might have done :/

To further your analogy, one could make a comparative to Cambridge Analytica - where your Facebook data could have been harvested through the seemingly innocuous behaviour of your friend(s).

Creationer• 7 years ago

What possible concern could you have unless you are a serial killer?

somebodythere• 7 years ago

This is data that can't be taken back once the government has it. I wish people would take the concept of the government as adversary more seriously. For example, technology is used as a tool of oppression against Uighurs in Xinjiang, LGBT people in the middle east, malcontents in any number of regimes around the world.

The US is comparatively not so oppressive, but there are still plenty of unjust laws on the books and plenty of vengeful prosecutors out there. Even for those convicted of what one might rightly consider a crime, in the vast majority of those cases the punishments are designed to be more effective at "retribution" than "correction". I think it matters to be vigilant when governments are probing the boundaries of what techniques are acceptable.

carbocation4• 7 years ago

The use of DNA in ways not anticipated by informed[1] consent is wrong.

1 = Not just a signature on the form. But a real understanding of what we're going to use it for.

ebg134• 7 years ago

Even with a warrant?

carbocation4• 7 years ago

How well were the participants informed about how warrants would be used to access their information?

superbaconman2• 7 years ago

Voluntarily shared third party info isn't private (at least under the law). This may actually end up being a good thing long term for healthcare.

doesnt_know• 7 years ago

A decade or two (probably less) and health insurance will plug your details into some shared DNA database and automatically disqualify you because your genetics predispose you to a laundry list of conditions, not worth the risk. Or, we will cover you but not for these genetic disorders as they are considered "preexisting conditions".

superbaconman2• 7 years ago

I have a congenital heart defect; If the doctor didn't find it, wouldn't that more likely fall on them? Plus if you know it from birth, isn't just a higher premium (I suppose it could be too high)?

lotsofpulp• 7 years ago

Affordable Care Act does not allow for discrimination based on pre existing conditions in the US.

jayalpha3• 7 years ago

From a behavioral perspective it is odd that a guy would do this and then stop doing it.

duxup2• 7 years ago

Is it?

How many times would we know it happened if it was a thing?

jayalpha3• 7 years ago

Once the rubric is crossed it would happen again and again with increasing frequency.

partiallypro• 7 years ago

The "serial killers never stop" is a myth. In fact it's pretty common. Life happens to even the worst people, and they are unable to carry out their previous hobbies... In this car being murder.

jayalpha3• 7 years ago

Source?

Once you cross the bridge for "your thing", it feels to good to stop. Be it murder, rape or sex with minors. This is actually one of the reasons why it is so important to catch a criminal. Not to punish for previous crimes but to prevent new ones.

gniv• 7 years ago

She was able to match a palm print recovered from the elevator control panel, and lifted during initial crime scene processing, to those taken from Wypych in 1971 when he was arrested for larceny, SPD said.

So, why didn't they attempt this kind of matching in the first place? Much easier than DNA.

JumpCrisscross• 7 years ago

why didn't they attempt this kind of matching in the first place?

There is no palm print database.

mkl2• 7 years ago

But there was reason to suspect him, so could they not have looked at the evidence from his other crimes?

sparky_z• 7 years ago

Is it really easier, though? I don't know if there's a palm print database (like I think there is for fingerprints), and even if there were, there's no guarantee the murderer would be in it. So pursuing this would involve opening up a lot of old physical records, looking at a complex whirling pattern and trying to see if there's anywhere in it that lines up with the print found at the crime scene. Not feasible at scale. I don't know if palm prints even have an easy classification system like fingerprints do (loop, whorl, etc) to help organize a search. So this really only works if you already have a name and are trying to confirm it.

Also, it's not like palm prints follow mathematical heredity patterns. DNA worked here because they didn't need a hit on the guy, just somebody, distantly related to him. Much lower bar for success. Any they didn't even have to spend time and money building a searchable database and populating it with samples. It was handed to them on a silver platter.

thrax• 7 years ago

Quelle surprise.. another military/police type.. just like EAR/ONS... Seems like we could save some time and just check dna against known mil/police dna first.

macinjosh• 7 years ago

I agree. If you’re going to be a police officer we should use all means necessary to ensure you’re not a rapist/murderer. Seems like a low bar to me.

mirimir3• 7 years ago

There are further implications.

For example, since WWII, there have been huge efforts to identify and locate war criminals. So now, where there's DNA evidence, that could continue, even though such criminals had died. And in future wars, combatants will perhaps make efforts to retain DNA evidence.

Having war be less anonymous is arguably a great thing.

anthuman• 7 years ago

There have been efforts to identify and locate "war criminals" of one side. No effort has been made to identify, locate and charge war criminals of the other side ( which has far more war criminals if we are being honest ).

mirimir3• 7 years ago

I was aiming for neutrality.

But yes, you're probably right. Although I'm not sure which "other side" you mean. And still, none of that is relevant to the point about anonymity of war.

Iamhisalt• 7 years ago

Buried in there:

“Do you realize, for example, that when you upload your DNA, you’re potentially becoming a genetic informant on the rest of your family?” Elizabeth Joh, a UC Davis law professor who studies the Fourth Amendment and technology, told the magazine.

pfdietz4• 7 years ago

I can inform on a serial killer in my family even if I didn't know they were a serial killer?

Shut up and take my DNA.

homonculus1• 7 years ago

Bold of you to assume this will only ever be used to hunt serial killers.

Fnoord3• 7 years ago

I've been part of the group who got asked to give a DNA sample in the Nicky Verstappen [1] case. This was voluntarily, and I reluctantly did this (for [mostly ethical] reasons which would make this post very long), and had a good discussion about it with the 2 policemen who came to my house to take the sample. The technique used (family DNA) is the same in that case as in the topic we discuss.

Now, I knew I didn't do it, and I knew it would be highly unlikely (but not impossible) that a male member of my family did this (not emotional but practical reasons: my uncle didn't quite live near the region, my father was almost blind and could barely walk, and my cousin was like 10 or so when this happened). So I didn't quite get the point. However, because I volunteered, the police could flag my entire family off the list of suspects. This narrowed the net around the perpetrator.

Thanks to people like me, not to mention the hard work of hundreds of policemen, the case is now solved (or well, to be precise there's a suspect on trial; not yet a convict). Because there was a match with a family member of him. And as you can read at [1] the bird had flown cause it got too hot around him.

I recently got a letter from the government that my DNA got destroyed. Whether you believe that letter or not is up to you; during my interview I had the chance to decide for it to be kept or destroyed after the case was final, and I went with the latter. I'd like to hope my choice is respected by my government.

I get it though that with common law and in the USA you gotta be very careful when talking to the police but my experience in The Netherlands with the police has been positive or in some occurrences neutral at worst. Could be white male privilege though. YMMV.

As for

If the host is the planet, what is the claim on the other guests to your body.

On Earth's "body" the other guests are alive; you're dead. They can contribute to the future of planet earth and its inhabitants while your time is done for. So it makes sense that whatever is done with your remains and inheritance goes to the inhabitants, with a (slight) prejudice towards your direct ancestors (family). The good news is, our legal systems have law to provide for such as it is.

As for the other inhabitants in your body, we're at the point where pets have a few rights whereas cattle and such have barely none. Lets not think about the rights of bacteria and parasites and such (they don't even have a CNS to begin with, and while their usefulness is up for debate, they're not exactly a dying breed).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Nicky_Verstappen

conanbatt12• 7 years ago

I've been part of the group who got asked to give a DNA sample in the Nicky Verstappen [1] case. This was voluntarily, and I reluctantly did this

Great story and thanks for sharing this. I want to answer why I think this is a bad idea however.

First, I would talk to a legal defense attorney before doing this. A famous video about this topic is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE.

1) The police might have told you it was for one case but it was for another, as the police can lie.

2) The DNA test itself might give a false positive on you or your family members, putting your family to a harsher scrutiny by the police that would have otherwise, and with more judicial justification. In the investigatory zeal they might find other lesser crimes they might want to prosecute just to not be empty handed. In the U.S., they might have charged a family member on a false positive with a ridiculously overblown crime. People have killed themselves over that prosecutorial technique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

3) The police could fiddle with the samples and plant evidence if they thought you or someone else did it. (Steven Avery case)

4) The lab might fake results if they are in tandem with the DA (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/epic-drug-lab-scandal-r...)

You are gambling with your life and the life of your family members when you make that choice. And if you were so sure a family member of yours did not do it, then the police could have come to the same conclusion on their alibis and physical state of your family members.

Even if you believe non of that is "likely to happen" there is a risk you are taking in exchange for a very small benefit (feeling good about assisting in a real investigation). And I assure you that if you had asked that, in exchange for the dna sample, your family and yourself have absolute criminal immunity for any case not related to the Nicky Verstappen, no DA would have signed off on that.

Fnoord3• 7 years ago

Thanks for your interesting reply as well. I recommend Americans to read it thoroughly.

A famous video about this topic is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE.

Yes, I know that video. I've seen it more than once. Its very interesting, and I've seen other videos by ACLU on the matter as well. These videos though are all about the US of A which isn't the country where I live. All your examples are also from the USA. My comment is not about the USA (which kinda makes it off-topic in this thread). I can't comment about the legal system in the USA; I'm far too clueless about it.

1) The police might have told you it was for one case but it was for another, as the police can lie.

True, but I'm not afraid for such. I mean, of course I did a few naughty things in my youth (like running around with a replica plastic colt .45 which had these plastic arrows. I bought it when I was like 3 or 4 in Spain crickets) but there's also statute of limitations.

I myself was part of the target group. And as much as I said it to be unlikely male family members were involved, I could not be sure. Now I am 100% sure.

If the government wants to screw me over, they easily can. They easily can break in my house and plant some evidence in it, or on my computer. Locks aren't hard to pick, for starters. They can MITM my phone as well. What they cannot do is request my data at Facebook, cause I don't have such.

I'm also a father. If my kid was raped and murdered when she was to be 12, I'd want to see the person who did this behind bars (well, if not something else, but lets not get into that, cause that's why its good that I am not the judge on my own case, and why it is good that we have a legal system). Not just for my partner or my loved ones or myself; I don't wish the pain I'd endure as a father on any parent. So I want this perpetrator to be stopped. Family DNA is very costly procedure, so the police only resort to it when all other leads have come to a dead end.

I mean, to me, if I'd die today, that'd be less worse than seeing my (only) kid die. I had my father die a few years ago, I don't think I'll ever fully recuperate over that. But my child, my offspring, is -for me- almost the most important living organism on this planet. (Except for the planet itself.)

Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

Related Stories