If I read the article correctly, the mtDNA was only used to correlate that the shawl reasonably belonged to the victim. The story of its provenance coupled with

If I read the article correctly, the mtDNA was only used to correlate that the shawl reasonably belonged to the victim. The story of its provenance coupled with the fact that the mtDNA extracted matched her descendent perfectly. It certainly isn't bulletproof. The male identification came not from mtDNA, but from DNA extracted from epithelial cells.