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Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later
- verisimilitudes 7y agoI 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 7y agoI 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 7y agoHave 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.
- jacquesm 7y agoThere is a book by Ira Levin called 'This Perfect Day', it contains some scenes that are pretty much what you describe.
- colejohnson66 7y ago> ...with little to no pushback from citizens. Probably because they don’t want to die
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 7y agoIf 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.
- maxerickson 7y agoI 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?
- mikeash 7y agoI have, but I’m still going to question it when someone bases a comment on it. In any case, the second half of my comment should apply just as well for such folks. We allow much worse things with a warrant, even from that perspective.
- mindcrime 7y agoI have, but I’m still going to question it when someone bases a comment on it. And what do you hope to accomplish by doing so?
- veidr 7y agoFurthering the cause of logic and reasonability? Advocating for evidence-based forensic science winning out over superstition and other lesser concerns?
- mindcrime 7y agoFurthering the cause of logic and reasonability? Advocating for evidence-based forensic science winning out over superstition and other lesser concerns? Calling somebody out over something incredibly subjective, on an HN comment, seems like a terribly weak effort towards that end.
- stirlo 7y agoWhen 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.
- skookumchuck 7y 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.
- ebg13 7y ago> When you're convicted of it. Not before. A warrant does change your rights a bit.
- berkut 7y ago> 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. As someone who had a parent murdered ~15 years ago and still doesn't know for certain what happened, I can tell you that personally the fact that I haven't had closure regarding the incident has severely affected my life for the worse.
- skookumchuck 7y agoI am sorry for what happened to you. But can you know in advance what having further information would do to your feelings? And there'll always be gaps in that information, even in the case the article was about. For example, when my father died, I was presented with the option of having an autopsy done to find out just what had killed him. I declined, because it wouldn't change anything. He was just as gone, I'd miss him just as much, and I'd still think about him every day.
- simple_phrases 7y 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.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cachvico 7y agoLess harrowing than being murdered.
- BurningFrog 7y agoThere 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 7y agoI 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 7y agoWhat are the downsides of using databases like ancestry.com to solve crimes?
- droithomme 7y agoForensic 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 pseudoscience. If they did a full DNA sequence and matched that, sure. But they never do. Also there is the problem that many DNA samples contain DNA from multiple individuals, in which the match can be assembled piecemeal. This completely destroys the statistical validity. DNA forensics are absolute pseudoscience. Any court case relying on DNA should be discarded by the jury.
- dahinds 7y agoThese are not conventional forensic DNA tests.
- paxys 7y agoIt'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.
- droithomme 7y agoI 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.
- dahinds 7y agoYou 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.
- droithomme 7y agoDavid, 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 disclosure of exactly what they are doing with their victims (sometimes called client's) personal private medical data. Especially with regard to your company's total and complete lack of HIPAA compliance. I'm also interested in your opinion as to whether all or just a portion of your rogue company should be criminally prosecuted and sent to prison for your overt crimes.
- wpietri 7y agoI 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.
- conanbatt 7y agoYeah 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.
- duxup 7y agoI would worry about a mistake. If the dna match comes back as a match, is anyone going to disbelieve some super cool CSI stuff?
- pfdietz 7y agoForensic 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.
- dontbenebby 7y 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.
- conanbatt 7y agoIt'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!
- dontbenebby 7y ago> It's not bits of litter, is information you may not want to share. I'm sympathetic to that, and if someone wants to draw up legislation around the use of DNA without some kind of due process I'd be supportive of that idea. But it would be very difficult to regulate the collection of DNA, given existing law on property rights + the fact we spew it everywhere we go in the form of spittle, skin cells, sweat, etc. Also, the utility of DNA for the purposes in the article is only present when it's tied to a person. It would be a massive undertaking to plan out sifting through everyone's garbage 1 by 1 to build a DNA database. There's much less of a privacy threat from someone collecting unknown garbage, and if you're not a suspect in a murder it's unlikely in the near future anyone will steal your trash specifically.
- shrikant 7y agoYou 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_f 7y agoTo 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.
- shrikant 7y agoYes, this was my read as well, but parent commenter was implying that an emotional argument by itself isn't good enough in face of (presumably) more logical/rational arguments (in this case, against a surveillance state). But parent's original point about having ones remains "violated" was in itself a first-order emotional reaction. So I suppose my point is that I'm not quite seeing why their emotional response is more valid than other people's emotional responses -- presumably they've left the non-emotional part of their reaction as an "exercise for the reader"? I don't really know, and would be interested to understand correctly (more for my edification than anything else -- I'm not great at grokking people's intentions most times).
- wallace_f 7y agoIn other words, it's not a problem that it is emotionally-motivated, but that it relied solely on emotional intuition without considering second-...n-number consequences.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoI 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 7y agoIn 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 7y agoGetting 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 :/
- maxerickson 7y agoIt doesn't undo anything, but the solution is to work towards a just society.
- iwasakabukiman 7y agoThat'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 7y agoCrime 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-3 7y agoFor 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.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoAnd what did you choose?
- m-p-3 7y agoI chose to find out.
- carbocation 7y agoThe 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.
- ebg13 7y agoEven with a warrant?
- carbocation 7y agoHow well were the participants informed about how warrants would be used to access their information?
- ebg13 7y agoThe state has decided that you don't need to be informed in advance that a warrant will let them search through your things. The whole point of a warrant is that it lets them search. "I didn't know they could look inside my bag" isn't a legal defense.
- carbocation 7y agoYou're talking about malum prohibitum and I'm talking about malum in se.
- ebg13 7y agoI don't understand. Are you saying that it's wrong for the state to grant search warrants in the course of investigating murders? Because it seems to me that the alternative is that then all one needs to do to never be convicted of a crime is to just not consent to being investigated. So which is the lesser problem, invading privacy with a warrant or never being able to prosecute any crimes?
- carbocation 7y ago
- superbaconman 7y agoVoluntarily 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 7y agoA 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".
- lotsofpulp 7y agoAffordable Care Act does not allow for discrimination based on pre existing conditions in the US.
- astura 7y agoGINA also forbids the use of genetic information in health insurance and employment.
- Dylan16807 7y agoThat part of the law is in an extremely fragile state.
- superbaconman 7y agoI 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)?
- jayalpha 7y agoFrom a behavioral perspective it is odd that a guy would do this and then stop doing it.
- duxup 7y agoIs it? How many times would we know it happened if it was a thing?
- jayalpha 7y agoOnce the rubric is crossed it would happen again and again with increasing frequency.
- partiallypro 7y agoThe "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.
- jayalpha 7y agoSource? 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.
- astura 7y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/health/serial-killers-golden-state.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/health/serial-killers-gol...
- gniv 7y 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 7y ago> why didn't they attempt this kind of matching in the first place? There is no palm print database.
- sparky_z 7y agoIs 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 7y agoQuelle 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 7y agoI 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.
- mirimir 7y agoThere 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 7y agoThere 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 ).
- mirimir 7y agoI 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.
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- Iamhisalt 7y agoBuried 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.
- pfdietz 7y agoI 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 7y agoBold of you to assume this will only ever be used to hunt serial killers.
- pfdietz 7y agoIt could also be used to hunt for deadbeat fathers, or rapists who didn't murder anyone, or... Why exactly am I supposed to be opposed to this? Your feelings and inchoate fears?
- Fnoord 7y agoI'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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Nicky_Verstappen
- conanbatt 7y ago