A Navy and Vietnam veteran with a degree in criminal justice and a background in law enforcement, Joseph DeAngelo should in theory be a shining example of service to one’s country and the pursuit of justice.
Instead, the 72-year-old retiree now stands to be the face of a wave of terror, rape and murder that swept both Southern and Northern California from 1974 to 1986.
Known to many as the “East Area Rapist,” the “Original Night Stalker,” and now most notably, the “Golden State Killer,” DeAngelo marks the resolution of many years of work by law enforcement with answers for the many families affected by his horrific crimes, and a landmark case for its usage of DNA evidence.
The Washington Post reported via the one remaining rape kit, that the killer’s DNA was uploaded to the genealogy website GEDmatch in hopes of getting a hit on a suspect. With a DNA match to a distant relative, investigators narrowed down the matches to a single family and then to a match with DeAngelo from evidence discarded outside his Sacramento home.
While an impressive feat of detective work, especially so many years later, this method of police work sparks an understandable amount of controversy.
“This was a shot in the dark, definitely,” said Ruth Dickover, director of the UC Davis forensic science program. “If that’s what they did, that approach is very new and innovative and explains how they were able to crack a case when the more traditional types of DNA testing couldn’t.”
A shot in the dark, on a database filled with the willingly given compilation of millions of Americans genetic markers. Seems almost dystopian, right? Big Brother isn’t just watching, he’s building your family tree and collecting trash from outside your house to make sure you’re not a notorious serial killer.
“You allow that low-quality potential evidence to start being searched in these unregulated databases, you’re casting a wide net of suspicion over many, many people.”
This is what Stephen Mercer, an opponent of familiar searches and former public defender told the Washington Post.
As someone who has participated in Ancestry.com, a very popular genealogy website, with interest in my distant relative, I have to agree. The idea of investigators combing through data that shows who I am as a person at the most basic genetic level feels very uncomfortable.
An article by The New York Times cited a study in which the ACLU voiced concerns over the effectiveness of this practice. With a success rate of about 10 percent in the UK, they claimed these genetic searches are even less effective in California when it comes to arrestees.
I see this becoming a more common method of conviction, especially as technology and our understanding of genomics advances. Alongside this forensic growth, we need an equal increase of restriction and regulation when it comes to the information available and how one can use it. With the risk of sounding paranoid, I would prefer to know how they are using my genetic data before it ends up in some X-Files-esque underground bunker.
I want to believe that’s possible.
