Experts said the process is common and a helpful tool that can help authorities pin down those who they are already suspicious of to connect them to a dangerous crime.
is one of many in recent years when a long-unsolved homicide got a break from an unlikely source: discarded DNA.
Police didn’t need a court order or a warrant to grab the DNA from public property. They took the food remains that Heuermann trashed in a pizza box without his knowledge and matched it to DNA found on a piece of hair from one of the murder victims. Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney called it a "watershed event" in the mystery.
"Most people would be happy to have these types of crimes solved," said Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, adding it's a trend her group has noticed particularly in cold cases.
Joseph Cress, left, the public defender for Joseph James DeAngelo, charged with being the Golden State Killer, adjusts the microphone for his client during a hearing in Sacramento Superior Court in Sacramento, Calif. Monday June 29, 2020.When do police use surreptitious DNA collection? That sort of abandoned DNA can help solve a cold murder case, Valentin said, but such crimes are ultimately often solved years later with because of new staffers who resurrect the search for a suspect with a fresh outlook on the details of the case and pursue them. There's also another tactic, in which police hand people clean items during interviews, to obtain their DNA without their knowledge, he said.
Bryan Kohberger, facing first-degree murder charges in the deaths of four University of Idaho students last fall, is taken by sheriff's deputies from the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg, Pa., Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023.The method used to solve the cases has stirred controversy among criminal justice advocates. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed several amicus briefs citing opposition to the police use of extracting DNA without a warrant citing fourth amendment violations.
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