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

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

#71

Post by astura »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #37
doesnt_know wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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

GINA also forbids the use of genetic information in health insurance and employment.

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

#72

Post by vixen99 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #65
mikeash wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"When I'm dead, just throw me in the trash" -Diogenes of Sinope

This was the wish also of Hugh Everett, proponent of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory. He wanted his body to be thrown out with the garbage. Following his death and cremation this is apparently what happened when his wife decided to honor his request.

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

#73

Post by seniorivn »

stephenr wrote: post #66
vkou wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Because our society believes in body autonomy Unless you’re a woman of course.

[flagged]

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

#74

Post by seniorivn »

barry-cotter wrote: post #39
mikeash wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Necrophilia, ok, not ok, dodge the question? If you kill someone does eating their heart afterwards mark you out as worse than the average killer? If not, why not?

It does because those are two different crimes in a row, but for the people it doesn't really matter.

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

#75

Post by mkl »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38
gniv wrote: post #35

> 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.

> why didn't they attempt this kind of matching in the first place? There is no palm print database.

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

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

#76

Post by firstplacelast »

seniorivn wrote: post #73
stephenr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because our society believes in body autonomy Unless you’re a woman of course.

[flagged]

I love that this is downvoted. LOL. I'm all for vaccination, but you are 100% correct.

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

#77

Post by cletus »

paxys wrote: post #63
droithomme wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forensic testing of DNA looks at 13 positions. 9 out of 13 is considered a match. When you match against a very large database using such a small number of polymorphisms, you get many matches. Detectives then take that list and look for people who lived sort of in the crime area. The matches who don't happen to have an alibi they can prove for a crime sometimes decades ago are then deemed "guilty". It's complete pseu…

It's not "pseudoscience" but literally how everything is investigated, DNA or not. There is always a process of elimination, strong vs weak evidence, probable cause, and many more factors. Audio/video surveillance, alibis, even eyewitness reports and just about everything else can be unreliable, incorrect or faked. That's why police gather all kinds of evidence and present it to a jury.

The poster you're replying to is referring to the misuse of statistics, essentially. Think about it this way: it's not amazing that someone wins the lottery. It'd be pretty amazing if a specific person won the lottery (statistically speaking).

Here's where DNA evidence shines: through other means you have a suspect or a short list of suspects and you use DNA evidence from the crime scene to eliminate suspects or concur with existing evidence.

Here's where DNA evidence is abused: if you take essentially a "hash" of DNA and look for matches to that same hash. There are enough people that you're likely to find unrelated hits (collisions, essentially) and then law enforcement puts the onus of proving their innocence on those people. This works particularly badly for the poor who are less likely to have credit card receipts and other evidence that might otherwise constitute an alibi.

Don't believe me? Consider [1] for issues in fingerprint matching. DNA databases are getting sufficiently large that adventitious matches are much more common than you might think [2]. I believe there's been at least one murder case in the US where searching the fingerprint database brought up a completely unrelated person who had the exact same fingerprint (based on the markers) but I can't find a reference to it now.

tl;dr Fingerprints and DNA are good for eliminating or indicting someone you otherwise have legal cause to suspect and shouldn't be used as a blanket scan.

[1] https://theconversation.com/fingerprinting-to-solve-crimes-n...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/sep/09/sciencenews....

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

#78

Post by stephenr »

seniorivn wrote: post #73
stephenr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because our society believes in body autonomy Unless you’re a woman of course.

[flagged]

Show me a child who can make an informed decision about vaccinations.

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

#79

Post by mirimir »

mehrdadn wrote: post #64
mikeash wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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?

Cremation would have made little difference in this case. They would still have identified his relatives, and obtained DNA from them. It would have just prevented confirmation.

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

#80

Post by dahinds »

droithomme wrote: post #69
dahinds wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

David, your claim that these cases used 500,000 markers on both sides of the "match" is absolutely incorrect and 100% total nonsense. Hey post your evidence that the police presented a full sequence for the match. You know you don't have that data. Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to formally and publically request that the company you are a high level employee of, 23andme, immediately publish a full disclosur…

Most of this new class of DNA searches, including the one in the article, are being carried out by Parabon NanoLabs:

http://docs.parabon.com/pub/Parabon_Snapshot_Scientific_Post...

https://www.genomeweb.com/applied-markets/parabon-nanolabs-g... [sorry, paywalled]:

"Parabon uses Illumina’s SNP microarray platform. It doesn't disclose which particular array product it uses but said that the array contains more than 98 percent of the SNPs that are on the chip used by Ancestry.com." Ancestry.com uses a ~700K SNP array. I never claimed full sequences were used.

I do work at 23andMe, I'm not aware of criminal activity there, overt or otherwise. I think we try to be responsible and transparent about how we use customer data. We are not a HIPAA covered entity, but we are GDPR compliant.

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