8 ms·

How the Golden State Killer was found: A covert operation and private DNA

66 points by burnthrow 6y ago

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Previous discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=golden+state+killer https://hn.algolia.com/?q=golden+state+killer
- burnthrow 6y ago
  The article was published this morning and contains new journalism about the specific methods employed by the FBI, and some legal analysis of those methods. Previous discussions are based on the false, simplified account presented by the prosecution. > Rae-Venter also said she encountered efforts to revise the account of how DeAngelo was captured when she was asked to omit references to the “match lists” — names of genetic relatives to the killer — she had seen during the investigation.
  - tremon 6y ago
    when she was asked to omit references to the [..] names of genetic relatives to the killer That's a stretch. What possible journalistic purpose could it serve to publish the names of the (distant) relatives of a murderer?
JKCalhoun 6y ago
It is interesting to consider a future where crimes like this will be nearly impossible to "get away with". To be sure there will always be human ineptitude and bungling of cases but it does seem that DNA forensics, security cameras, the prevalence of cell phones, digital messaging surveillance, etc. have brought to justice many killers very quickly that might have gone on to kill again were this 50 years ago. While there are a lot of nuances to privacy in the 21s Century, I am not so stalwart of a privacy advocate to disregard the utility of finding killers by means that are somewhat privacy invasive.
- Exmoor 6y ago
  It would be very interesting to know what impact this will have on these preventing these types of violent rapes and murders in the first place. On one hand, if you've seen the progress made in the last few decades you'd have to think that if you leave even a trace of DNA around you stand an increasing chance of being caught in the future. On the other hand, does someone who is willing to commit a crime like that have enough sense to realize that at the point where they can avoid the crime?
  - 48r7d63y 6y ago
    Probably not much of an impact given that anything that makes law enforcement more efficient in the US gets labeled either racist or orwellian by advocacy groups since equity is all that matters now.
    - djmips 6y ago
      Why are you using a throwaway? Worried about your privacy?
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    If the first time you take cocaine you roll over and die, then that’s the end of the abuse of your body. It’s only when you don’t die that you fulfill the meaning of abuse. We may not able to stop the first murder, but we can stop the abuse on the first hit.
  - est31 6y ago
    Had the GSK been caught after his first rape/murder, there wouldn't have been any subsequent ones, simply because he'd be behind bars. So maybe he'd be a killer/rapist, but he'd have had way less victims, and every victim is one too many.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  That world may also be a place where it will be nearly impossible to get away with homosexuality, Judaism, or sympathy for the Chinese, though.
deviation 6y ago
Is there an article without a paywall?
- Merman_Mike 6y ago
  https://archive.is/bdcaG https://archive.is/bdcaG
Merman_Mike 6y ago
I'll Be Gone in the Dark is a great book about an author's obsession with the GSK. [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/books/michelle-mcnamara-patton-oswalt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/books/michelle-mcnamara-p...
- AdamTReineke 6y ago
  There's also an HBO docuseries by the same name based on the book.
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/bdcaG https://archive.is/bdcaG
malwarebytess 6y ago
Anyone else seriously dislike this? It makes me really uncomfortable. Swear I'm not a serial killer.
- marchenko 6y ago
  Right now we're in a transitional phase where DNA data is integrated with traditional police work, where there may be a priori reasons to suspect someone before invoking DNA data to strengthen the case. Even this raises serious questions about privacy (the BTK killer even moreso than this case: they found him using his daughter's pap smear). What is more worrying is the incentive to go straight to DNA in the future, entangling lots of innocent people in DNA dragnets because of the birthday problem at scale.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ACS_Solver 6y ago
After the successful arrest of this killer, Swedish police applied a similar technique and were, this summer, able to solve one of Sweden's most mysterious murders that had been the second-largest investigation in Sweden's history. Back in 2004, two people were stabbed in Linköping, in an apparently random attack. The first victim was an elementary schooler, the other a middle-aged woman, and it happened in a quiet residential side street. The police had the murder weapon, the killer's DNA and some witness descriptions, but were unable to find a suspect. What they did this year was an impressive combination of genealogy research and forensics. The police got permission to query private companies in the US for a DNA profile, so they were able to establish that the killer and certain Americans had a common ancestor. Then they traversed those multiple trees upwards until finding a Swedish family circa 1800 that should be the ancestors of the killer. Finally they traced that family tree back down to modern day and identified a suspect who did in fact turn out to be the killer. I think that was a fascinating investigation, in how it combined modern high-tech DNA forensics with going through 200 year old church records.
- filleokus 6y ago
  Just to add: Before this breakthrough, Police had gathered the DNA from about 6000 people via voluntary interrogations without any match. They even collected DNA form mothers of men who had killed themselves (and matched the description/profile etc) in the years after the murder. In fact, they had actually sent a letter to the murder asking for a sample in the months before starting the new approach, but he didn't show up and they hadn't gotten to taking it further. So in the end, they might have had a chance of solving it the traditional way. But at the same time, it takes a lot of evidence in Sweden to forcibly collect a DNA sample, which probably is not so easy for a 16 year old case.
  - ACS_Solver 6y ago
    Right, this is also important info. They did, early this year, ask the murderer for a voluntary DNA sample, and they had received a tip that placed the murderer on the police radar. It's possible they would have solved it eventually, but it's unlikely the police would have been allowed to forcibly collect DNA based on a vague tip that amounted to "he owned a similar hat and had discussed violence in his teens". To forcibly collect someone's DNA, the authorities need to establish the person as a reasonable suspect (skäligen misstänkt), which requires a preponderance of evidence and isn't that easy to establish. In this case, the police would have definitely needed more than the person fitting the same vague profile as thousands of others, and it was definitely hard to obtain any extra evidence given that the murderer indeed lacked any connection to the victims or to the crime scene.
monoideism 6y ago
"when there is no such privacy debate about adoptees and the children of sperm donors using the same methods [ie, DNA searches] to find their parents" I'm actually as concerned with the moral implications of children of sperm donors. I'm not a sperm donor, it just seems wrong to open up doors that were never agreed to under the original terms of the sperm donor agreement. And regarding using the technology to search for criminals - it's a classic slippery slope issue. Many of us are happy that a serial killer or other murderer/rapist was found using the technology, but already police have used it to find a burglar. I'm assuming that they'll use it for non-violent drug crimes next.
- 542354234235 6y ago
  > And regarding using the technology to search for criminals - it's a classic slippery slope issue. Many of us are happy that a serial killer or other murderer/rapist was found using the technology, but already police have used it to find a burglar. I'm assuming that they'll use it for non-violent drug crimes next. My big concern is that when the new thing that whittles down the 4th amendment is talked about, it is almost always with a slam dunk case that is also an incredibly serious case. But the average investigation rarely ends in a slam dunk. Allowing police to bypass protections of privacy and checks and balances to their scope of investigation also destroys lives. Semen found inside a person is pretty obvious, but what about just DNA found at a crime scene. If someone is stabbed in a back alley and police just sweep up DNA and run a massive database and tie it to a homeless person without an alibi. It might not matter that the homeless person slept there a week before, in the absence of a better lead, they might push for a conviction. Or just sweeping up all phones in the area during the crime. Maybe someone was in the neighborhood but was completely unrelated. In the absence of a better lead, an innocent person could be targeted. An innocent person railroaded by the police is as much a victim as the original victim of the crime. There is a reason police need “probable cause”. To prevent wide net fishing that can be used just to turn up something to tie someone to a crime, guilty or not.
acvny 6y ago
Confusingly written article. But you've got to like this: "investigative team had uploaded semen from a rape kit".

66 points by burnthrow 6y ago

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Previous discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=golden+state+killer https://hn.algolia.com/?q=golden+state+killer

burnthrow 6y ago
The article was published this morning and contains new journalism about the specific methods employed by the FBI, and some legal analysis of those methods. Previous discussions are based on the false, simplified account presented by the prosecution. > Rae-Venter also said she encountered efforts to revise the account of how DeAngelo was captured when she was asked to omit references to the “match lists” — names of genetic relatives to the killer — she had seen during the investigation.
- tremon 6y ago
  when she was asked to omit references to the [..] names of genetic relatives to the killer That's a stretch. What possible journalistic purpose could it serve to publish the names of the (distant) relatives of a murderer?

JKCalhoun 6y ago

It is interesting to consider a future where crimes like this will be nearly impossible to "get away with". To be sure there will always be human ineptitude and bungling of cases but it does seem that DNA forensics, security cameras, the prevalence of cell phones, digital messaging surveillance, etc. have brought to justice many killers very quickly that might have gone on to kill again were this 50 years ago. While there are a lot of nuances to privacy in the 21s Century, I am not so stalwart of a privacy advocate to disregard the utility of finding killers by means that are somewhat privacy invasive.

Exmoor 6y ago
It would be very interesting to know what impact this will have on these preventing these types of violent rapes and murders in the first place. On one hand, if you've seen the progress made in the last few decades you'd have to think that if you leave even a trace of DNA around you stand an increasing chance of being caught in the future. On the other hand, does someone who is willing to commit a crime like that have enough sense to realize that at the point where they can avoid the crime?
- 48r7d63y 6y ago
  Probably not much of an impact given that anything that makes law enforcement more efficient in the US gets labeled either racist or orwellian by advocacy groups since equity is all that matters now.
  - djmips 6y ago
    Why are you using a throwaway? Worried about your privacy?
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  If the first time you take cocaine you roll over and die, then that’s the end of the abuse of your body. It’s only when you don’t die that you fulfill the meaning of abuse. We may not able to stop the first murder, but we can stop the abuse on the first hit.
- est31 6y ago
  Had the GSK been caught after his first rape/murder, there wouldn't have been any subsequent ones, simply because he'd be behind bars. So maybe he'd be a killer/rapist, but he'd have had way less victims, and every victim is one too many.
pessimizer 6y ago
That world may also be a place where it will be nearly impossible to get away with homosexuality, Judaism, or sympathy for the Chinese, though.

deviation 6y ago

Is there an article without a paywall?

Merman_Mike 6y ago
https://archive.is/bdcaG https://archive.is/bdcaG

Merman_Mike 6y ago

I'll Be Gone in the Dark is a great book about an author's obsession with the GSK. [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/books/michelle-mcnamara-patton-oswalt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/books/michelle-mcnamara-p...

AdamTReineke 6y ago
There's also an HBO docuseries by the same name based on the book.

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/bdcaG https://archive.is/bdcaG

malwarebytess 6y ago

Anyone else seriously dislike this? It makes me really uncomfortable. Swear I'm not a serial killer.

marchenko 6y ago
Right now we're in a transitional phase where DNA data is integrated with traditional police work, where there may be a priori reasons to suspect someone before invoking DNA data to strengthen the case. Even this raises serious questions about privacy (the BTK killer even moreso than this case: they found him using his daughter's pap smear). What is more worrying is the incentive to go straight to DNA in the future, entangling lots of innocent people in DNA dragnets because of the birthday problem at scale.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ACS_Solver 6y ago

After the successful arrest of this killer, Swedish police applied a similar technique and were, this summer, able to solve one of Sweden's most mysterious murders that had been the second-largest investigation in Sweden's history. Back in 2004, two people were stabbed in Linköping, in an apparently random attack. The first victim was an elementary schooler, the other a middle-aged woman, and it happened in a quiet residential side street. The police had the murder weapon, the killer's DNA and some witness descriptions, but were unable to find a suspect. What they did this year was an impressive combination of genealogy research and forensics. The police got permission to query private companies in the US for a DNA profile, so they were able to establish that the killer and certain Americans had a common ancestor. Then they traversed those multiple trees upwards until finding a Swedish family circa 1800 that should be the ancestors of the killer. Finally they traced that family tree back down to modern day and identified a suspect who did in fact turn out to be the killer. I think that was a fascinating investigation, in how it combined modern high-tech DNA forensics with going through 200 year old church records.

filleokus 6y ago
Just to add: Before this breakthrough, Police had gathered the DNA from about 6000 people via voluntary interrogations without any match. They even collected DNA form mothers of men who had killed themselves (and matched the description/profile etc) in the years after the murder. In fact, they had actually sent a letter to the murder asking for a sample in the months before starting the new approach, but he didn't show up and they hadn't gotten to taking it further. So in the end, they might have had a chance of solving it the traditional way. But at the same time, it takes a lot of evidence in Sweden to forcibly collect a DNA sample, which probably is not so easy for a 16 year old case.
- ACS_Solver 6y ago
  Right, this is also important info. They did, early this year, ask the murderer for a voluntary DNA sample, and they had received a tip that placed the murderer on the police radar. It's possible they would have solved it eventually, but it's unlikely the police would have been allowed to forcibly collect DNA based on a vague tip that amounted to "he owned a similar hat and had discussed violence in his teens". To forcibly collect someone's DNA, the authorities need to establish the person as a reasonable suspect (skäligen misstänkt), which requires a preponderance of evidence and isn't that easy to establish. In this case, the police would have definitely needed more than the person fitting the same vague profile as thousands of others, and it was definitely hard to obtain any extra evidence given that the murderer indeed lacked any connection to the victims or to the crime scene.

monoideism 6y ago

"when there is no such privacy debate about adoptees and the children of sperm donors using the same methods [ie, DNA searches] to find their parents" I'm actually as concerned with the moral implications of children of sperm donors. I'm not a sperm donor, it just seems wrong to open up doors that were never agreed to under the original terms of the sperm donor agreement. And regarding using the technology to search for criminals - it's a classic slippery slope issue. Many of us are happy that a serial killer or other murderer/rapist was found using the technology, but already police have used it to find a burglar. I'm assuming that they'll use it for non-violent drug crimes next.

542354234235 6y ago
> And regarding using the technology to search for criminals - it's a classic slippery slope issue. Many of us are happy that a serial killer or other murderer/rapist was found using the technology, but already police have used it to find a burglar. I'm assuming that they'll use it for non-violent drug crimes next. My big concern is that when the new thing that whittles down the 4th amendment is talked about, it is almost always with a slam dunk case that is also an incredibly serious case. But the average investigation rarely ends in a slam dunk. Allowing police to bypass protections of privacy and checks and balances to their scope of investigation also destroys lives. Semen found inside a person is pretty obvious, but what about just DNA found at a crime scene. If someone is stabbed in a back alley and police just sweep up DNA and run a massive database and tie it to a homeless person without an alibi. It might not matter that the homeless person slept there a week before, in the absence of a better lead, they might push for a conviction. Or just sweeping up all phones in the area during the crime. Maybe someone was in the neighborhood but was completely unrelated. In the absence of a better lead, an innocent person could be targeted. An innocent person railroaded by the police is as much a victim as the original victim of the crime. There is a reason police need “probable cause”. To prevent wide net fishing that can be used just to turn up something to tie someone to a crime, guilty or not.

acvny 6y ago

Confusingly written article. But you've got to like this: "investigative team had uploaded semen from a rape kit".