A change to GEDmatch, a third-party genealogy site that's helped crack cold cases through user's DNA, may hinder law enforcement's ability to use the database to catch killers.
A change to GEDmatch, a third-party genealogy site that's helped crack cold cases through user's DNA, may hinder law enforcement's ability to use the database to catch killers.
Direct-to-consumer DNA companies, including AncestryDNA and 23AndMe, do not allow their DNA samples to be searched by authorities, Moore said. GEDmatch's new policy requiring participants to manually allow law enforcement access to the information will make it harder to solve crimes, according to one police officer.
In November 2018, after police say they used the unknown killer's DNA to trace a family tree through GEDmatch, a suspect was arrested. "It's going to make our cases a lot harder to solve," Detective Fields told ABC News of GEDmatch's new policy."It's a shame it could leave a murderer running on the streets, but I perfectly understand why they'd want to change that."
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