Announcing the ISHI 31 Keynote: CeCe Moore and Paul Fronczak
“How do you like the name Jack?” the woman on the phone asked. On April 27, 1964, a nurse came into the hospital room of Dora Fronczak, who had just given birth to her young son, Paul. She told Mrs. Fronczak that it was time to take the baby to the nursery (at that […]
Unraveling the Twisted Case of Angie Dodge
CeCe Moore helped create the genetic genealogy team at Parabon Nanolabs and has been involved in 69 cases over the course of 17 months at Parabon. She’s also something of a celebrity in forensic circles, with many television appearances and articles published in the news media. There’s one case, however, that stands out for her. […]
Advancements in Technology Are Warming Up Cold Cases
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), in its guidelines National Best Practices for Implementing and Sustaining a Cold Case Investigation Unit, defines a cold case as a case, “…such as a violent crime, missing person, or unidentified person, that has remained unsolved for at least three years and has the potential to be solved through […]
Identifying the Golden State Killer: An Interview with Paul Holes and Barbara Rae-Venter
In April of 2018, news broke that the elusive Golden State Killer had been identified through a new technique called genetic genealogy (or investigative genealogy). In just 4 ½ months, Paul Holes and his team (including genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter) put a name to the man who had terrorized California for years. In this interview, […]
Beyond Genetic Genealogy: Building Family Trees to Investigate Crime
“Class! Class!” Diahan Southard raises her voice and claps twice, cutting through the buzz of conversation that fills the room. Dutifully, her class responds. “Yes! Yes!” It’s a technique that Southard has learned from her experience with raising three children and over 20 years of teaching. Her audience is broken up into small […]
Genetic Genealogy – What Does the Future Hold?
Across the United States, and increasingly internationally, detectives are closing cases that have long since grown cold using investigative genealogy. Killers and other predators who have managed to escape justice due to a lack of leads are now finding themselves behind bars. Investigative genealogy relies heavily on open-source DNA databases, such as GEDMatch, […]
Privacy Concerns Don’t Stop People from Putting Their DNA on the Internet to Help Solve Crimes
Sarah Esther Lageson, Rutgers University Americans are embracing the use of DNA databases to solve crimes. Over the past year DNA submitted to ancestry websites have helped police in the United States identify the killers in several unsolved crimes, including the Golden State Killer case – a longtime subject of internet sleuthing. […]
Forensic Genealogy: What Your Second Cousin’s DNA May Say about You
“The DNA people said, ‘That was him. You got him.’ And the whole room just exploded. Some detectives were crying. Some detectives were sitting there with their mouths open, staring into space.” Thanks to Colleen Fitzpatrick, a cold case that had baffled investigators for over two decades finally reached a breakthrough in 2014. She […]
To Catch a Predator – An Interview with Paul Holes
In his keynote address at ISHI 30 this September, Paul Holes will detail how investigative genealogy techniques, determination, and more than a little bit of patience led to the identification and capture of the Golden State Killer. We recently interviewed Paul and asked him what drew him to the Golden State Killer case, how he […]
