Retrospect
Retrospect
Genetic Genealogy Finding Criminals | Retrospect Ep.152
In this week’s episode we discussed genetic genealogy in crime solving. Which is the use of genealogical DNA tests, in combination with traditional genealogical methods, to infer genetic relationships between individuals. This discussion also opened up a lot of questions about privacy as well.
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Keywords
dna, database, privacy, law enforcement, usury, police, genealogy, dna sample, murder, person, find, people, technology, crimes, kimball, data, genetic information, killer, information, solved
Speakers
Jason (46%), Stoney (28%), Ian (26%)
Ian
Ian, welcome to the retrospect podcast, a show where people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generation's perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Jason.
Jason
Hello, everyone
Ian
and Stoney
Stoney
, hello.
Ian
Welcome to the 152nd episode.
Stoney
Wow, that's
Jason
crazy. It's amazing how these things add up over time.
Stoney
I would like to say, starting off that we got some fan mail. What was it? A text, yeah, one of our websites. Where was it from? Indianapolis? No,
Ian
yes,
Stoney
I think Indianapolis. And I apologize, we're still trying to figure that out. We can't respond, but we will post a website. They the the fan ask if Brandon Iglesias had a website, and we will be posting that and putting that up for everybody. So we apologize for not being able to respond to that, but we are working on it. Yeah, I
Jason
think he has a sub stack that he that he uses to kind of publish his or to kind of gather all that material together. I think if you want a little bit more in depth. There's a fee you can register to some and
Stoney
I have it, but part of my brain damage with the accident, I forgot my phone, and it was on my phone, and that's my fault, and I apologize. I own my mistake. So y'all please bear with me and forgive me on that one, but we will have it for y'all
Jason
that those episodes seem to trend. Well, yes, it's very interesting material. And, you know, kind of makes me think about some of the things he talks about with all this stuff in our food and water and electronics, electronics and everything. Yeah, it kind of touches on something that's happened recently with the with Robert F Kennedy suspending his his race and endorsing Donald Trump for president, but some of his things that he's championed for many years, while so many On the left have kind of distanced themselves from him is his insistence on the contamination of our food and stuff like that, which I can imagine how far those tendrils reach through our society, and what sort of industries would be affected if you start banning this and banning that and and I don't think a lot of people want to know, oh,
Stoney
you know, simple thing, you know, the bread made in America is illegal in Europe, 100% illegal in Europe. You can't sell it. You can't bring it, nothing. Well, that's our bread. Because there's so many things in our bread that Europe doesn't want it
Jason
alone. Bread I eat is Ezekiel bread from that's frozen bread. Yeah? You can't leave it out. It has to be frozen. So I take it out when I need it and, well, it
Stoney
only has like seven ingredients where normal white bread here in America has got 39 Yeah, I don't use white bread anymore. 36 of them are petroleum based chemicals, yeah? So
Jason
I don't, I don't do that, so it's, uh, I've tried to do my part, but yeah, just talking about that just kind of reminds me of just, kind of think there's this kind of this awakening that's happening about, okay, which kind of going on here, right? And so neither here nor there. But another topic for another time. Yeah, you
Stoney
know what I did find out talking about food, and I think I may have known this before the accident, but it just came back to me in my realm a couple of days ago. You know, baby carrots are not actually baby carrots, right? They're the misshapen carrots just kind of carved down so when they can't sell the ugly carrot, right? Becomes a baby becomes a
Jason
baby carrot. About that, let's change the nomenclature. Same thing. Look
Stoney
at this wee baby carrot. So, Okay, interesting. Sorry about that. No, you're good. So what do we got on the dock for today? Ancestry.com and the crimes that have been solved using ancestry.com and it's really interesting because they have a term for it, now called genetic genealogy. You
That's right. Pretty recently, the big one was the Golden State killer Joseph D'Angelo. This we had talked about this on our previous episode a couple weeks ago, about how they found his cousin over here and followed it all the way over, you know, a couple of states away, to where he was. And it's fascinating stuff. And the early, the early numbers right now is over 600 cases have been solved using genetic genealogy. Wow,
Jason
yeah, it's, it's, it's. It's, it's a technology that has definitely, really started taking off since 2018 Wow,
Stoney
that recent, yes, interesting, very recent.
Jason
Yeah, it's, well, what's happening is law enforcement now are utilizing a lot of these public databases. And, you know, I know people that have submitted their DNA to ancestry.com or to their other, right? Other 23 me, yeah, there's a lot of companies out there that deal with this. So what's happening is, slowly by slowly, you're having third party databases being created of DNA that the police are looking at and going, you know, we might be able to utilize this to help us identify Cold Case, cold cases that there's just no leads. You know, things have kind of dried up, but yes, it's a
Stoney
well, it's been a lot
Jason
of this going on now. It's an
Stoney
increasingly as being used as this powerful forensic tool that works on cold cases. Its success when used, is high. This is growing and just a widespread application for it. For a number of you know, ways to use this is fascinating, and it's getting, you know, as when DNA started, or fingerprint started, the right, the technology is getting growing exponential on what they can do with it. And now they're having a whole new platform on training and infrastructure on how to use it, and people gonna how you can use it. Because, you know, some of the these old guys, you know, they're, they're wanting to use it, but how do you really do it right, right? And so they're having new training programs just to help people understand the whole, the whole platform, the whole, you know, use of it. Well, you mentioned
Jason
the Golden State killer that you know, was interesting. He was a former police
Stoney
officer. Yes, he was, wow, yeah. Matter
Jason
of fact, he he entered a plea to avoid the death penalty age 70, but he was given 12 life sentences. Oh, but there have been other kind of famous cases that have been solved, the Boston Strangler the death of Helen przynski, yes, that was one that I saw. She went missing in 1980 she was believed to have vanished on the way to the bus stop, and the next time anyone saw her is when her body was discovered in a field. She had been raped and stabbed to death, and they were just unable to find any leads on her, but not until many years later, and then made use of the site 23 me Wow in 2018 in an effort to learn more about his family. His name was Jesse still and like many other people, submitted his thing. I want to find out my cousins and grandparents and great grandparents and all that other stuff, and what she couldn't have none of the times that she was tipping off the police of what happened 40 years earlier stills, DNA was flagged by law enforcement. It shared some of the DNA with genetic material on file for the murder, not stills herself, of course, but a family member stills turned out to be the cousin of Helen przynski killer. Wow, ironically, still added her DNA to the site because she was a fan of true crime and had been very interested in the case of the Golden State killer. Wow, she knew that the killer had been caught thanks to DNA from a genealogy site, and want to upload her own in hopes of maybe it would be helpful to somehow find you know another one. So two months later, law enforcement contact everybody in connection to the killer. With stills help, law enforcement built a family tree and came up with James Clanton, our relative. She didn't even know she had, wow. So
Ian
yeah, and that was that, that crime happened in the 80s. He said,
Jason
happened in the 80s. 1980 Yeah,
Stoney
another one in 89 George and Katherine peacock were brutally murdered in their Vermont home, and that sat unsolved for 30 years until genetic genealogy led to the arrest of Michael Louise in 2020 and that was another fascinating case, because they had zero clues. They had well, you
Jason
know, in a lot of these cases, they're not going to have a, you know, like a smoking gun, so to speak, right to go to I mean, because, look, some of these people that commit these crimes, they're, they kind of know, okay, what I need to do to cover my tracks the best way possible. But it's, you know, now with the. Nay, I might dive into another, another topic, but, you know, I can almost now see a point in the future where everybody's DNA will be taken at birth. Oh, oh no,
Stoney
hold on now, hold on now, okay, we can go there. All right, I'm ready to go there already because I would like to explore now that ancestry.com has been bought. Guess who bought them? Wouldn't it? BlackRock, BlackRock. So they seem to be a why a lot of wood Blackrock want to have people's DNA and genetic information? What purpose they
Jason
I can definitely see the beginnings of mandatory maybe. I
Ian
mean, I take a obviously on this show, and a lot of times with situations like that, I think I take a more opposite side approach. I think it's a lot of to a lot to do with money. I think especially now that, like the law enforcement is getting involved, I think there's probably more money involved now, especially if you're able to kind of tighten down on the reins a little bit, hey,
Stoney
that little chump change.
Ian
I'm not talking, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about law enforcement
Stoney
is going to do. Is going to be chump change, compared to the $69 trillion that Blackrock Vanguard State Street my
Ian
I got you. I got you. But what I'm saying is, is like if you hold all of 23 me's database, anytime someone wants to give they're going to pay to you. Anytime the government wants to try and take they're going to have to pay to you. What I'm saying is that the second now you have it all, and you're the owner of it. The second the government's like, Hey, we got to get DNA. Go, like, oh, it's going to be a pretty high margin, you know, to get that kind of stuff. That's all I'm saying, is like, it's all just, like, leverage, is what I'm saying. Well, I'm
Jason
going to tell you some of these cases that, some of these more famous cases that that have been solved. I think we'll
Stoney
revisit this toward the end of the show, because I'm not done with that.
Jason
The Cobb County rapist, yes, 1999 there was a series of three unsolved rapes that took place in Cobb County, Georgia. The police would have their DNA from the crimes, but there was no match in the criminal database. To narrow down the field to a suspect, law enforcement went to parabon Nano labs, a company that specializes in something called DNA phenotyping. That's a whole different thing, which can assist law enforcement in solving crimes. Phenotyping is being able to predict the appearance of something based on genetic marker. So essentially, the company can analyze DNA and then predict what the suspect looks like. I could see how that could possibly can go wrong, but it's promising. It can't give a precise photo of the person, but it can tell you things like hair color, eye color and skin color, mixing DNA, ancestry data, and you have a very solid tool for catching killers. With the help of parabomb, law enforcement was able to find a distant ancestor of the killer on the GED match that allowed them to narrow the field to a suspect in the rape case. Police found a suspect who already had a criminal history of burglary and being a peeping Tom. They took a DNA sample from the suspect for a comparison and confirmed that he was, in fact, the rapist. However, shortly after providing the sample to law enforcement, the man committed suicide. Oh, wow, preventing the case from going any further.
Stoney
It's been that that process has kind of been compared to like the VIN number of a vehicle, right? Because you can take that VIN number of the vehicle, enter it into the computer, and it can tell you exactly how that vehicle left the factory, right? You know, hair color, you know, some facial structures, height, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then you have to take it in the next step on yourself, and hopefully they can change their hair color or paint the car or whatever, right? So, but it's still fascinating stuff.
Jason
Yeah, here's another one, the chameleon. Did you read about this one? Yes, Curtis Kimball is a murderer. So is Larry veneer and Gordon Jensen. Of course, they're all the same person. Yep, Kimball famously admitted at a pre trial hearing in 2003 that he had murdered in sun June, despite pleading no contest to second degree murder. Previously, Kimball, whose name is actually Terry padier ramison, had previously served time for child abandonment and other crimes and no other than no one knew at the time that he had a host of aliases and had been a prolific serial killer of women and children for years. This led to law enforcement calling him the. Chameleon. Police were able to conduct connect the man to abandon a five year old daughter in the in the 1980s to the murder of in soon June, and determined that Kimball veneer and Jensen were all the same man, but they still didn't know. Who did not know he was Terry Padilla ramison At this point, and wouldn't learn as much for over a decade later, when police performed a paternity test on Lisa, the girl was arrested. He was arrested for abandoning in the 80s, they found that ramison was not the father. The man he claimed to be, Curtis Kemp Kimball simply did not exist before the arrest, police had the girl, now in her 20s, put her DNA on ancestry.com and 23 me the data turned up some distant cousins, and a family tree was built from the data they found they were able to find the girl's grandfather, whose own daughter had long, had long ago gone missing. The daughter ended up being Lisa's mother, the grandfather, last saw his granddaughter in 1981 when she left with her mother and her mother's boyfriend, a man named Bob Evans. Evans was, of course, Ramson. Wow. One
Stoney
of the things I kind of remember about that case was serial killers are very specific in what their target is, and it was women and children, and he had different personalities. And there was some speculation on if he was not two or three serial killers, not just the one serial killer one body, but each personality had a different target. And that's one of the things that kind of threw them off, because it would be a murder of a child or then a woman, and then they were trying to, you know, thinking they had multiple situations going on, and it was just one guy who possibly could have been two or three serial killers in the same brain. Well, I don't know if that was ever discussed. You know how far they went with that, once they realized it was just him, and you know, if they hit the psychology about that or not. But can you imagine that having three serial killers in the same person?
Ian
Yeah, yeah. No, thanks, yeah. I'm
Jason
gonna tell you what. This is a this is truly a fascinating topic because of the implications of of the amount of people that are inputting DNA, voluntarily inputting, you know, their DNA data that is being collected by these third party vendors and now the police are utilizing that. Now it's interesting that this is happening, but I also pulled up an article here. I'm looking at it's called, is it ethical to use genealogy data to solve crimes?
Stoney
Why would it not be?
Jason
You know, it says authorities recently arrested the suspected Golden State killer, serial rapist and murder who terrorized California decades ago, armed with DNA from several crime scenes, the police cracked this cold case utilizing a new resource, online genealogy data, although criminal investigators have long used DNA analysis, this case is notable because the implicating genetic information was not obtained from forensic resource created specifically for criminal justice purposes. Since the excitement of solving this infamous case subsided, public conversation increasingly has become focused on the ethics of using genealogy data for crime solving. Ethics discussions include three interrelated topics, informed consent, privacy and justice.
Ian
I get that I was going to say, if you allow, if you accepted, that you are giving your DNA over to this database. I almost assume that's what it's going to be used for, or, I mean, it's going to be stored and cataloged. And if I guess the government wants to try and look into it, that's okay. But I do see how, like, if you're signing up for that service, you probably should have, like, a waiver. That's like, I I consent to having my but then at that point, I don't know, just basically
Stoney
you're doing that. When you're putting your name in this site, right? You're saying, please use my information to find other people in my family tree, right? So you're kind of actually doing that, but let's just say someone, let's say a long lost cousin you don't know, puts their information in. How comfortable are you now being part of a possible criminal investigation because of somebody you may have never, may or may not have ever met, and now that part of a criminal investigation.
Ian
But again, for me. So like, let's say, for instance, my my mom uses one of those sites, and she has, I'm not sure if she put, I think she put her DNA into it, but she, she likes to find the whole family tree situation. So I have, like, a direct relative, and if, for some reason, like a cousin of mine, that's able to be connected to me is on a crime. I mean, unless I'm being blamed for it or less, I have to, like, go, you know, I'm going to go. I have to pay for it. Like, or, you know, like, Justice wise, I'd say that's, I'm fine with it, like, especially if it's going to help, like, keep, especially going to keep down killers and rapists. Like, I mean, two of the biggest things that I would I don't want people, those kind of people to be around anyways. Well, and if my DNA can kind of help that happen, like I'm I'm okay with it, but, or if my family tree can somehow find that out, but I know that maybe I understand people are maybe I'm just thinking of this from a different perspective. I understand people being concerned about privacy and security and all that kind of stuff. And I guess the government having the access. But like, you carry on this, and like this, I think, is, and by this I mean your cell phone. You carry on cell phones like, know your location and know your algorithm, and it's like, so I think people I don't like, I don't think people like the action of the government, or I don't say government, but like law enforcement entities being able to access your stuff. Whenever I think the World Wide Web knows more about you than
Stoney
you know, in a way, you're spot on there, because if you think about it, what was it the when you watch the TV the Nielsen report, you filled out this information, and then they put this box on your TV, and it monitored what you were watching, etc, etc. And that's how they gathered their information before. And now it's all on your phone, right? What are you looking at? What are you buying? Everything. And so they take that information. This is just another way to get information. Hottie, Dr Miranda, she does the little receipt photograph thing where you get, you know, so many points, yeah, and all that is, is they're paying you for the right to track your purchasing habits, right or, and I like to put this in parentheses, the receipts that you find on the ground or left in the gas pump or whatever, because you get 25 points for any receipt, right? And so whenever I find a receipt, I hand them to her and get her little 25 points. So. But that's just another information gathering tool, right? And in a way, kind of what that would be one of the things that we will explore later with Black Rock van, Garden State Street. It is gathering information gathering, right? And then it becomes into what purpose are you going to do that far right?
Ian
For me, I again, I get the whole conversation with that. And here's where I here's where my hypothetical scenarios always come in and probably shoot me in the foot when I look at it. I think you have the lesser of two evils. I believe I understand that people probably don't like the fact that their privacy is being breached in some way, even though, like I would do, I would wager that whenever you sign up for one of these DNA services that you probably do accept some sort of terms and conditions that do say in the fine print somewhere. So I get what you're saying with that, but to be honest, you probably already have consented to something that you probably didn't read in the terms and conditions. Quote, unquote. But when I think about it, in like, in my, in my spheres of like, the lesser of two evils, you have tick tock, which, like, I know is, like, tracking a bunch of stuff, even they claim they don't like, I just, I don't even, I don't know the depths in which, like, something like that is operating on your phone, or, like, tracking your history, or, no, it's half or no way you look at it, the deep tendrils into knowing everything about you that you just like because it's entertainment, it's fun. I wonder how many of those people are also saying, like, I don't like the fact law enforcement can access my DNA, but they have Tiktok. You know what I mean, where it's like this, like juxtaposition of like, you, you stand on this apple box and preach this about ancestor.com, or whatever, but like, but yet you're a hypocrite because you have like, well, most people don't
Stoney
realize that's how they make most of their money. Exactly. One day, little while ago, um, Miranda and I were talking, you know, one of the things that attracted to me, to her, was we're both avid readers. We have a multi 1000 book library together. And I just jokingly said one weekend, you know, what we need in our life? We need a rolling ladder, rolling ladder wall. And the very next weekend, it pops up on the thing on marketplace, right, right on top of her page, a rolling ladder, yep, a whole 12 foot wall. Big thing, huge. And you know, they're listening. You. Yeah, they're listening. And
Ian
all I'm trying to say is, you can I, you can consent to that over here, in that realm, or in my personal opinion, like I have my potential, my DNA, in a database that then is able to crack down on rapists and serial killers. And I'm like, I'm far more okay, this was actually
Stoney
going to be one of the questions I had for y'all, okay, from a generational perspective, given that Gen X and millennials are more accustomed to sharing personal information online, because, see, I don't, I don't like to do that. I said, How do you feel about sharing something as personal as genetic data? Is it different from sharing other types of data?
Ian
I do. I'm just trying to save the lesser of two eagles. I don't have my personal DNA in that database, but I know that my mom does. Then you do so but again, and that was, I didn't consent to that, so I mean, but at the same time, it's not like they have my connection to her. They don't have my DNA in the database. So, like, that's,
Stoney
how about you? Jason, would you send your DNA? Well,
Jason
I almost actually did it not long ago, because my sister's all into this stuff, yeah, and and she submitted her stuff. Got back. I had registered. I paid for it, but I never, kind of followed through, and I never got the kit to submit the DNA. But I do think,
Ian
I do think it is helpful, I will say to, like, find out some pre existing conditions or health benefits, like, there are, well,
Jason
it's like, look, it's like, with any of this stuff, it's how it's used. It's like, technology, of course, you know, technology's neutral. It's the intent of the person behind it always going to drive this so. But you know, just some trends here. You know those kits are about $100 right on average, but consumers purchase purchased the same number of at home DNA kits in 2018 as in all previous years since 2012 combined. So this thing is kind of growing quite rapidly. And CNBC reported in 2019 at that point, researchers found that 26 million people had shared DNA samples with four of the most prominent ancestry and health databases. But it's not clear how often criminal investigators actually use those databases. So that's now. Some of them basically say they got, they have to have a warrant. They'll come out and say, We don't share your your personal health information. Then you get into to HIPAA and those kind of you know issues that you, you talk about, but they're projecting the 100 million Wow of Americans that will have their data. They have their DNA in some sort of either ancestry, 23 any one of those type of those databases. So, yeah, they said, If I'm reading something here, this was reported in an article in science. This was reported in 2020, if you're white, live in the United States and a distant relative has uploaded their DNA to a public ancestry database, there's a good chance an internet sleuth can identify you from a DNA sample you left somewhere. Wow.
Stoney
Interesting. Yeah. Now the Blackrock CEO, Steven Schwartzman, is a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, which now means the World Economic Forum, has access to millions of DNA records and billions of identifying records, and this is an organization dedicated to controlling the world's healthcare finances, food consumption and population. And just for the record, they paid $4.7 billion for those records. And as this point in my research, Blackrock is also actively trying to buy up the other DNA systems. Oh,
Jason
because they're probably looking at that, because they see the popularity of it, of course, monopoly. It's a money thing. Yeah, you know, hey, I'm gonna buy up those things, because ultimately, people are not gonna stop doing it,
Ian
of course. And like I said, and I'm not saying I have any inside information, but like I said, the second that, you know, the government or, you know, a law enforcement agency wants to try to access it, you know, put it behind a paywall for them. Not only do you get money from your customers, but also the people trying to access the data be like, access the data be like, we'll get money on both sides. And I hold all
Stoney
of them, I still think That's chump change compared to their end game. And they're in game, if you look at it through population control and the fact that the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization and all of this. Want to buy 2050, in the life of two to 4 billion people on this planet? What are they going to do with this information? Well, how
Ian
is that going to make them money?
Stoney
They're not going to have to spend money on poor people. They're going to be able to target and control exactly their money rent. Why are they buying homes? Because they're only going to rent them to you because you won't be able to own anything. And while there are so many people, and I wish I had my phone, I had some more information on here from the CEO of one of these organizations. And he called it wasteful people, how much money they're spending on wasteful people. And is that not? How do you target somebody?
Jason
I think that ties into some of the fears that people had, you know, the ethics of using this stuff, yep, when it comes to insurance purposes, in in identifying genetic defects, you know, as this technology gets, you know, more and more refined, you know, it always does, right it, you know, kind of wants to Keep sparking
Stoney
huge debates on privacy and the Fourth Amendment, right? Crazy.
Jason
Well, the argument they would say is, you know, you know, there is some, where is it at? I had it here that they were talking about the US, the Fourth Amendment, the use of, you know, in essence, they're looking at it and saying, the minute you submit your DNA, in essence, you're abandoning it. It's sort of like throwing your garbage. There's no expectation of privacy. You have
Stoney
a right to privacy in your home, but the minute you walk out of your house, your privacy, the
Jason
minute I put my garbage out on the street, it's Yep, it's been. The question is, is there an expectation of privacy? No, there's not. No, there's not. And I think that's what they're saying with this, this DNA, once you put it out, once you put it out there, you're putting out on a public you know, deal. So they say, I say, a study in 2020 looked at the at the MyHeritage database, which contain just 1.2 8 million DNA samples, and determine if you live in the United States and of your European ancestry, there's 60% chance you have a third cousin or closer relative in the database, which is incredible, right? Again,
Ian
I I'm just, I think I'm a little bit lost here about the whole privacy thing. Maybe it's because I feel like we live in a world where you don't have privacy to begin with. So, like, I don't understand why I think there's a lot of people that assume they have more privacy than they actually do. Well, I
Jason
think this goes back to a something else that I put in that I thought was, there is this idea people are let me see if I can find exactly here it is. It said in biomedical research, substantial support exists for allowing broad consent evidence. Broad consent evidence suggests that people want researchers to ask permission to use their materials, but are comfortable with wide ranging use thereafter. A distinction exists, however, between biomedical research and forensics, a person given broad consent to future biomedical research has a basic understanding that scientists will use his or her materials to produce generalizable medical knowledge, even if the exact details of that endeavor are unclear. In contrast, person might reasonably be surprised if his or her genealogical data were used in a criminal investment. Well,
Stoney
think about it, what's the Fifth Amendment? Because right?
Jason
Because they use the use as far afield from the original purpose from which the information was given. So I think where the question comes in is, when I submit my thing to answer my The reason I'm doing this, and in my brain, I think the only reason I'm doing this because I'm trying to find cousins, possibly, you know, medical issues that might exist in my family tree somewhere, not that I might be drawn into a criminal investigation, which has happened. Well, the
Stoney
Fifth Amendment says I'm not gonna I plead the fifth. Okay, I plead the fifth. I'm not gonna answer that for fear I may incriminate myself. Well, I'm not gonna put my DNA somebody you know. Are you opening yourself up for that? I. Well, think about it like this. When covid first came out, the big thing was that it was genetically designed by the Chinese to attack their elderly people. I don't know if that was ever proven or not, but now that companies and institutions and governments fighting over this information, how easy it gonna be to target somebody with this massive amounts of information? Because that's what you need to target somebody, is you need their genetic information. Maybe
Ian
I am the wrong person for this, but, like, I know that, like, aside from maybe a couple of speeding tickets in my late teens, early 20s, I have a I have a pretty clean record. Like, I'm not a criminal. So, like, maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective of like, I maybe if I did have a criminal past, I would be more at words, right? But right now I'm thinking, like, like, what happens if I get pulled into a some sort of criminal case because of a fourth cousin I never met, I'd be like, yeah, go ahead, go for it. Let's figure it out, especially if that person, like, had actually done a very bad, serious crime. That's part of me being a citizen of the US. Let's, let's go ahead and like, let's make justice happen, even though, I mean, now it probably be different. I think I may have a little bit harder time if it was like immediate family. But that still doesn't mean that I would want justice to happen well and again. Now, like I said, if I did have a, you know, criminal dealings, drug dealing, car stealing, heaven forbid, raping or killing somebody, then I would have a real problem with that. It's like, oh, my fourth cousin is in the database, and now they can track it down to me. That's what, that's where I'm coming from. Is it these people that are, I say, these people this conversation of like, this worrying about privacy comes from this place of like, your thou doest protest too much. You're, you're, you're awfully defensive over there about, you know, this privacy that you think you have, when in actuality, I don't think you
Stoney
do, then you're on a slippery slope of what's best for the mass. I got you Okay, now you're going, Hey, we're going to take this right, we're going to slowly Whittle this right away, and slowly this right away. You're right, because it's better for the mass. This
Jason
is where, I think this is where people are kind of little uneasy or not fully aware of how their DNA could be used once it's kind of put out right back in 2014 a guy by the name of Michael usury. He was a filmmaker based in New Orleans. Okay, he was visiting his parents house when he received a phone call from the police. Usury said the officers wanted to check his vehicle because it matched a description of a car involved in a hit and run. Okay, the cops swung by and he agreed to head on down to the station. When I was walking out the door with them, I turned to the sergeant who ended up being the sergeant of Idaho Falls Police Department, and I said, so this is about a hit and run, usually said. And he goes, Well, actually, miss, usually we want to talk to you about some other things as well. The other thing was Angie dodge, a young woman who was raped and murdered in Idaho in 1996 but genetic genealogy, which pointed to usury, is not foolproof, and it went wrong.
Ian
I see. So
Jason
what happened? It ended up being tied to his father. Wow, but he was drug in and kind of given the
Stoney
the business, he got the business about
Jason
trying to right, find out. But that's
Ian
part of that process. Part of that process. I'm not saying I'm not trying. Saying, I'm not trying to condone that because, I mean, that is, that is a mistake. But I think that, you know, with it being the first few iterations, I think things like that are gonna happen. Like I said it, maybe I'm just a, maybe just a lap dog for the government, but I'm like, I don't for me when it comes to that sort of stuff. Maybe it's because I haven't really had a, you know, any kind of dealings with the police that I've ever had is either been because I did something wrong, either, you know, speeding in a section I shouldn't have been, or though there was one time, and I'll tell this Brie storm, not sure if I told him this on the show or not, or if I have, it's probably been long enough, there was one time where I was driving back, I was performing at a at a bar as a musician, running sound for bands and all that stuff and all that, and the bar closes down at what 2am give or take. So I'm driving back home probably 30 minutes away. So at this point, it's probably 230 at night, and I am almost home, I mean, I mean, like, a block or two away, and there are these two police officers that are at this gas station that I passed by on my way home at this time, and I'm in my dad's old truck. I think I was, you know, again, late teens, early 20s. I don't think I own my own vehicle. My dad had this old truck that he let me use, old maroon, kind of beat up truck. And as I was driving, I noticed the police lights behind me, and I mean, like I said, it's 230 at night, and I wasn't driving erratically. So I was like, Oh man, here we go. Who knows what a guy did? So I pulled into like a church parking lot or something. And before I know it, it's not just one police officer, it's three of them, and they have the exit blocked off, and they have a they got the spotlight on me, and they're like, Please exit the vehicle. And I'm like, Oh man, here we go. So I do, I do what I've been taught and what I've learned from movies and all that kind of stuff. I exit the vehicle hands up, going, Hey, I don't got them to hide. I'm in an old beat up truck, and I'm coming home. My alibi is, I'm a musician. You can check the trunk, there's, there's a guitar back there. And he was like, he asked for my ID, and I gave him all my stuff and everything. And come to find out there was a stolen vehicle by a similar description. And he's like, now that we see the license plate and your ID, none of that matches the stuff, but like, we've been we're looking for a truck that matches this description. Sorry to scare you so late at night, what you what you're doing out? I was like, musician performing, you know, downtown at a bar, and he's like, all right? And again, I said I was, I didn't. I had nothing to drink. I didn't do nothing else. I was like, I'm I'm clean, everything's fine. And he was like, and then, funny enough, I was shaken up, you know? And then one of the other police officers kind of threw out little remarks saying, hope it didn't scare you. Too bad. I was like, well, you definitely did well,
Jason
continuing my story with this. Michael usury, the filmmaker from New Orleans. He was 19 years old. He had traveled through Idaho Falls on a couple of occasions around the same time as Angie George's murder, really once for Mormon once for a Mormon mission trip, and another time for a ski vacation in Utah. But in 2014 detectives were interested in usury because of his dad's DNA. 16 years ago, usury's father had been convinced to submit a to a cheek swab to the Sorenson database as part of a genealogy project in which participation was encouraged by the Mormon church. This DNA database was public, but only containing profiles of Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA, thus it could only trace paternal or maternal heritage. Wow. But police in Idaho Falls, which has a large Mormon population, saw an opening when they ran semen from Dodge's murder scene through the database, they found a close match. 34 of the 35 letters belonging to usury's father. Now that's referring to the actual technology itself, which is, that's a lot of scientific stuff, and we're not really Right, right? We're qualified to really talk about all that. But just say 3434 those 35 markers belonged to usury father. They immediately eliminated my dad because he was too old, usually said, but when they started doing research, they saw my short film say usury, who had CO produced a slasher film? Oh no, murder billia, which includes the murder of a young girl, wow. Usually said police grilled him for a couple hours before asking him for a cheek swab. He goes, Well, do you see this warrant right here? It's signed by this judge, and that means you have to do this for us right here and right now. Usury was released, but he said he spent a worried, filled month before the police called to say his DNA wasn't a match. Wow. There's a long and documented history of the misuse of forensic evidence in criminal justice said Aaron Murphy, a law professor at New York University, it's important point to remember, because DNA too can be misused. So I can understand why people, after hearing about these kind of stories, would be like, I don't necessarily, when I submitted my DNA for this, that it could possibly involve me in something, right? I could, as I said, as an individual. Yeah. Would anybody want to go through that about your life? You want to be side rail for a month going, Oh, my God, these people going to pin me for murder. And
Stoney
what does that do for your job? When they come pick you up at your job now, and they handcuff you and they bring you in, or your apartment complex, or wherever you live.
Jason
And I think this goes back to what they were talking about, that possibly using for genetic markers and for insurance purposes. And the insurance can be like, you know, I can see how this would evolve to a point where insurance will be like, well, we need to see if you're predisposed to certain things, and if you are, well, you know, your insurance is going to go up. Your insurance is going to go up. And so I. You know, I can, I can see where the fee,
Ian
but I can also see, again, maybe I'm being devil's advocate. I could also see in the future, where, if that is more ubiquitous, we kind of move on to that, that, like there are anti discrimination policies that are in place where, like, now that we have all this idea, all this stuff, I find it hard to believe that in a world where we're trying to be more inclusive towards everything, that we allow insurance companies to
Stoney
well, until they make it marketplace. Well, if you want insurance, you have to submit your genetic DNA, and the insurance company will now give you a estimate on what it's going to be based on that. So you just took out your your laws there. Maybe that's where they're going. Maybe,
Ian
or, like I said, or having some, I don't know, like I said, I'm more optimistic that I think I tried to, I choose to go
Jason
some of the largest these third party DNA databases, Ancestry DNA is, course the largest. It was origins here in the United States. It launched in 2012 at 23 million national DNA Index. That's law enforcement has 20.6 he's even less than what the private one. I mean the private one, 23andme also United States company, 2006 14 million. Yeah, my heritage in Israel, 2003 7.4 million. National DNA database, I see that kingdom. That's a law enforcement database, 7.1 and I believe they're the largest one in Europe. Family Tree DNA, also United States company 1999 2 million. And GED match, United States, 2010, 1.4 million. I was reading about the founder of GED match. He down in Florida. It's actually not far from Mar a Lago, really. Yeah, of where that company is. So, yeah. I mean, it's a, I said, this is a, an interesting, it'd be very interesting to see how this technology unfolds over time. I've always, I've always said, I believe it's coming, that at birth, they're going to be collecting your DNA, and you're gonna have a, well, what
Stoney
did they do? A national Earth they collect your fingerprints and your footprints. Because it was fingerprints and footprints, was the forensic identifying. That's the way you identify you. So now I don't think we're that far from that. Jason, I really don't, right. I
Jason
don't either. I think, and as I said, that could be a good thing. I could see, I could see a lot of positives. If everybody had a DNA sample that they can use you, you could probably eliminate a lot of missing person cases and and a lot of you know, criminal activity could be, could be addressed, right? But I can also see some abuse, some abuse of that and and I
Ian
think that I think in both camps, again, I could be very wrong, and I'm always willing to be wrong, but I think in both camps, I think that there is good and bad that can be done. I'm not saying either one's perfect, but I do think that the technology is interesting. I do think it could help us, maybe more than it can love
Jason
to get somebody on the show that can really talk about the science behind the DNA, and that may be a possibility that would have come in handy on this episode, or really would have been nice to add that, but it's cool that
Ian
we started the conversation, and maybe we can bring Well,
Stoney
we've done that in the past. We start a conversation and have to come back and just the research. And this was kind of funny, and I found something kind of interesting. Do you know what the difference between genealogy and gynecology is?
Ian
I'll stop.
Jason
Oh, here he goes. What? I feel a joke coming.
Stoney
What? Really, what y'all got me that much. Genealogy is looking at the family tree, right? Okay, gynecology is looking at the family bush.
Ian
So bad,
Stoney
I'm sorry. Y'all gotta know. I gotta throw some humor in here somehow, but it's fascinating too. And and for our listeners, we love getting mail and stuff like that. Let us know what y'all think. Oh, yeah, and I'm telling you all spectrums if you're far, let us know if you're against it. Let us know if you have some fears about it. Let us know what your thought processes or if you have some experiences in this. Let us know that too. Because this is fascinating stuff. Yeah, because we're at this. This is a new technology. I mean, if you think about it, when they first started bringing in fingerprints, oh, yeah, and how fascinating that was for law enforcement and and for people, and when DNA first started popping on the ground, and this is a whole new forensic tool, right? That's just very fascinating. And we're on the world, and that's
Ian
and that's why I was choosing to kind of be a little more. Optimistic than than the opposite well, like, I do think that this is probably going to be more beneficial than it than it is, and that I think they're like, in the future, it may change maybe, and again, with anything, there's always, I guess, room for corruption. But I think that's also our opportunity as citizens to stand up and, you know, and really make sure we hold people accountable for that sort of stuff. But, like, at the same time, like, I don't know, in the short term right now, I just, I It's you give a good point. Whenever you're born, you whether you like it or not, you give fingerprints, footprints, you have a birth certificate, a social security number, and your blood type, your blood type, everything, all and let, I mean, unless you do that, you know, there's really
Jason
no like, there's really no national database that's gathering all that, I mean,
Ian
but like, but there was then what I think, like again, with, with a lot of, with a lot of those touchstones like that, you can identify anybody really, but, I mean, maybe I'm naive, but I don't know. Just I feel like, I feel like, even right now, with just people's use of the internet, it is very easy to find anybody, whether it be Facebook or Google searches or whatever it is like. I mean, I don't know, so maybe I'm wrong, but you're right, though. I think I see what you're saying now that we've had this discussion about like, the implications that you know, kind of I guess, getting you more heavily involved, if it's like a closer relative and again. But I also think some of that's just the struggles of it being a new technology and
Jason
Well, I think just, I think it's, I think the way it's done with some of these companies is just simply, if police want access to them, then they would just have to get a warrant. Yeah, exactly yes. You know, get a warrant. That's a easy way of getting around, yeah, where the police would have to articulate to a judge, you know, hey, we've got reasonable suspicion. We think we'll be able to find some information in these third party databases. And so that option is always there. So I mean, it's right, yeah, yeah, it's
Ian
interesting conversation. I knew this was gonna be fun, but I didn't think I was gonna get as involved as I did.
Stoney
Well, that's what we want. We wanted people being involved, and we want our listeners to what's our email again and get offended together. Email.com There we go and let us know what you think
Ian
we also, again, we've been kind of pushing this a little bit, but we have a YouTube channel at retrospect pod. So if you type that in the little search bar, if you will, to find us and on those episodes as well, you can leave comments there, and I usually try and keep an eye on it. So if you, if you do end up commenting on those videos, I usually respond or try and, you know, throw it to these guys, give a response as well. But yeah, so, I mean, I I'm excited. We have a couple of guests coming up in the next few weeks that I'm excited to hear about. Some have not fully confirmed, and some have, so I think it's going to be, we got a couple episodes coming up in this month that are super exciting. So, well, this
Jason
has been fun, guys, yeah, yeah, I've learned a lot about this.
Stoney
It was fun to research this, but actually it was really fun to research, I
Ian
want to say it was a couple of a week or so ago. You sat down and kind of threw out the idea, and I was like, I've never heard anything about it, but I'm for it sounds like an interesting topic. So Well, yeah, it's,
Jason
there's a lot of info, and I think it's just gonna grow more and more, of course, because this, this is not gonna stop people gonna, you know, as people are more conscious of their health and wanting to know, okay, what potential defects I may have, because we all have them. Of course, you know, what do I need to look out for? I could see a tremendous use on your health care, you know? I know. And
Stoney
then now, okay, prepare, because I'm going to make Ian's head explode when you combine that genetic information in large databases with AI, where does that go? Well, again, I
Ian
think it could be used for good and bad as well. Because, I mean, like something that's like, something that I've been thinking about in recent years is the fact that, like, I think there's some pre existing digestive stuff in my family that, like, with my youngest brother now having ulcerative colitis, my dad, I think my dad has had some issues. I haven't had anything diagnosed so far, but, like, I've been more conscious about my gut health because of that, because now I'm like, I mean, there may be some pre existing stuff there. I need to watch out for so but anyways, it's been, this has been fun. Yes, I'm excited.
Stoney
It was the fun one. I'll say it again. It was fun to research this one, because there's a lot of
Ian
stuff. You're like, Wow. I do think if we were able to find somebody to pick back up on this conversation, or someone else in the audience knows about somebody,
Jason
I may have somebody. Okay, I may to. Do they already
Ian
got them all locked down. I see how it is. So anyways, I think it'd be cool to get that conversation started again.
Stoney
So hey, today's episode, we discussed and highlighted the remarkable role that genetic genealogy is playing in solving today's cold cases and bringing justice to long forgotten crimes. The ability to trace a suspect through family connections has breathed new life into investigations that once seemed hopeless, as we've seen this technology isn't just about connecting the dots in a family tree. It's about giving victims a voice, providing closure to families and ensuring that justice is served no matter how much time has passed, but with the power comes great responsibility, and especially how we handle and protect this sensitive data as we continue to witness the profound impact of genetic genealogy and law enforcement, let's remain vigilant in balancing innovation with privacy, ensuring that the benefits are realized without compromising our ethical standards. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time as we continue to explore the big questions facing our world.
Ian
until next week. Thank you so much for listening. Bye, bye,
Jason
Goodbye, everyone. God bless.
Stoney
You're the best. Peace.