Episode Transcript
The below text transcription was is intended for audience reference and search purposes. Because it is generated automatically by computer, please forgive mis-translations, spelling and the lack of really any structured grammar.
this woman is best known for her
groundbreaking work in the golden state
killer case what people don’t know however is that
she also played an integral role in
solving a -year-old cold case
[Music]
this is episode 26 the barbara ray
venter story
[Music]
hi megan hi amy how are you excellent
good to see you
always this is my first case in which
i’m not covering an offender or a victim
i know i was pretty excited about it the
kathleen zellner case megan wright is
the only one that we’ve
covered so far that was a woman who
works in the system
yes i’m trying to think about that yes
i’m pretty sure
i would love to hear from the listeners
if they enjoy these type of cases
because we can do more of them because
there is no shortage of amazing women
who are working
in the system or whose work has impacted
the criminal justice field in some way
i agree i have a list right now and i
have about three or four other women
that i intend to cover at some point
i have to say it took me a really long
time to pick because i have a list as
well
and there’s a lot of good ones however i
did land on barbara ray venter
and i think you will understand why she
is incredible can’t wait to hear this
so as always i want to start off by
talking a little bit about barbara’s
background
and what led her to her amazing career
as a genetic genealogist
who of course helps solve cold cases
which is why we’re talking about her
here
okay barbara was born in new zealand in
and around the age of she moved
to the u.s
and she was at the university of
california and she studied psychology
and biochemistry
very smart lady and she got her phd
there as well lovely
clearly she is motivated she is smart
she spent a few years in academia as a
professor at the university of texas
then she enrolled in law school she went
to law school and then somewhere around
the mid-s she began working as a
patent lawyer
okay she was working in the biotech
space she also taught at stanford for a
number of years where she conducted
cancer research
wow so we could actually stop here and
say wow what a career
but i really could this is nothing
compared to what she would become
okay so somewhere around she
developed an interest in finding
relatives
you see how a lot of people are
interested in ancestry.com and you know
just
it was actually just a hobby for her
nothing more than a hobby remember back
in the day when you made your family
tree projects
yes yes she actually joined the dna
family tree website
got it and she came across a distant
cousin who she started talking to and
her distant cousin
expressed some interest in finding his
birth parents she thought it would be
really fun to help him so she found a
website called dnaadoption.org
and she actually enrolled in a class on
how to use dna matches
develop family trees and use public
records to find one’s biological parents
i love that because i love people who
are as interested in like learning and
doing
as i am so that’s very cool so not only
did she want to help him she was going
to get educated to do so i know
after she completed the course she began
teaching it oh yes
so she became really excited about what
she considered this new hobby
but little did she know there was a
growing field called genetic
genealogy in addition to working on her
own family tree
she began working as a volunteer as a
search angel have you ever heard that
before oh i have what do they do
so they help adoptees find their birth
families i did know that okay
sweet it’s so cool yeah so she was
working i already love her i know so she
was working as a volunteer helping
people
find their birth parents and again doing
this as a hobby because she was a
successful patent lawyer at this time
wow soon after she began doing this she
started getting approached by law
enforcement
oh of course because they want to be
able to track
dna and they want to be able to track
you know family
criminal history they’re looking to
locate offenders essentially
using genealogy and using the family
tree and as you know megan it’s not
possible for law enforcement to search a
genealogy site like andme without a
court order
i did know that right we’ll talk about
this later things have changed
this issue is going to come into play oh
yeah we have a lot of talk on that
genealogists who solve adoption cases
knew that there was this work around
they could upload crime scene evidence
to something called jed match
so gedmatch is an online service and
what it does is it compares dna data
files
across different testing companies
ancestry.com
andme those are all independent sites
right
gedmatch is a site where if you have
uploaded to any one of those you can
voluntarily upload to that site and it
could connect you to people that use
these other sites
that makes perfect sense so it’s almost
like uh based on what you said it’s
almost
like it’s almost like trip advisor or
like
kayak where they’re literally giving you
a central
data a central database or place to look
but comparing all the different exactly
and they have or at the time they had a
looser customer service agreement
where they were sharing information with
law enforcement and lots more on this
later okay because you know some people
feel that
helping law enforcement navigate ged
match really is exploiting a loophole
and violating users trust
but others think it’s okay and to just
kind of proceed quietly so that you
don’t drive other people off the site
and
as i said we’ll dive very deep into that
oh yeah so her first criminal case
involvement it was in
and she assisted a detective who was
trying to figure out the identity of a
woman named lisa who had been kidnapped
as a baby
it took more than hours and the
assistance of over volunteers
but ultimately using barbara’s
techniques
they found and connected lisa with her
grandfather who was the closest living
relative
who was interested in a connection okay
so lisa finally knew her origins but the
story of lisa was just beginning
oh my goodness in fact it’s very hard to
believe what followed after this
so it turns out that lisa’s birth name
was actually dawn okay
so as a child dawn lived in an rv park
in california
with who people were led to believe was
her father a handyman who went by the
name of gordon jensen
stop me if you’ve heard this as i get
into it you’re going to i think i
maybe go ahead there was an older couple
who also lived in the rv park and they
started caring for lisa because they
were concerned about her well-being
things just didn’t seem right
they were so concerned that they tried
helping their own daughter
adopt this little girl so at the time
she was only four or five years old
okay and this was okay with her
quote-unquote father
gordon jensen so they brought lisa to
their own daughter in southern
california
very quickly they called the police
because lisa was saying things that
seemed to indicate that she had been
abused
oh gosh okay soon after they also
discovered that gordon jensen had fled
the rv park
so in other words this couple were
taking lisa on a trip
and the second they took her he fled i
think he thought people might be on to
him
police realized that gordon jensen was a
false identity and fingerprint records
from previous
arrests matched him to curtis kimball oh
i think you know where this is going
to be keep going so he was captured and
charged with child abandonment as curtis
kimball in march
two months later he pled guilty to child
abandonment and received three years in
prison
he only served two years and he was
paroled in october of .
he disappears again but he resurfaces in
california
as larry vanner in the late s oh gosh
okay so you with me here there’s
three aliases got it got it okay so he
marries
and later murders you sun june so in
yusun jun was found buried in
cat litter at their home in california
i’m sorry
you said buried in cat litter yes in
their home so when she disappeared
so she disappeared in okay so they
were married for
you know they were married for a couple
of years she disappeared police
questioned the man who said his name was
larry vanner
but once they took his fingerprints he
was a match for curtis kimball
he was arrested and he pled no contest
to the murder and dismemberment of you
son june
all right i remember she was dismembered
that was going to be my next question i
just do not recall this uh
fact about the cat letter but okay go
ahead so he ends up being sentenced
years to life
for this murder big range years to
life whenever they do this i’m like wow
that could be you know as little as
years or the rest of your life that’s a
very wide range too wide for me but okay
go ahead i agree
in california authorities now knew
that
kimball vanner and jensen were all
aliases for the same man
but it would be another decade before
they found out his real name
what his real name terence known as
terry rasmussen
oh yes also known as the chameleon
killer
okay god i knew that you were going to
know this yeah and one of my favorite
podcasts
bear bruh bear brook yep so how does
this all come together now because
remember we’re talking about lisa here
yes
okay so let’s so how did this all come
back to
the identification of lisa it led
authorities to link her kidnapper to a
series of murders in new hampshire known
as the bear brook murders
so the bear brook murders for those of
you who aren’t aware
it was an adult female and a female
child were found in a barrel
in bear brook state park in allenstown
new hampshire
years later two additional victims were
found in barrels again and they
contained two female children
all victims were found to have died of
blunt force trauma to their heads
sometime
around and . it took
decades to figure out their identities
and it turned out that three of the four
were biologically related i remember
this yeah
like the revelation of that was like
shocking shocking so it was mother and
daughter unfortunately in the first
barrel and then one additional daughter
yes the fourth victim was never id’d so
now we have another alias
while known as bob evans terry rasmussen
dated lisa’s mom denise bowden lisa
and her mom denise disappeared from
manchester new hampshire in .
this puts him in new hampshire in the
early to mid s
and authorities believe that he killed
denise
somewhere her body has never been found
and then he left with lisa
got it denise and lisa were not reported
missing at the time because the family
believed that she left town because she
was having some financial issues and
she was dating this guy who went by the
name of bob evans so they didn’t even
know that they were really missing
in however once
the daughter lisa once she resurfaces
alive and well
living in california and then there was
publicity about the murders and
you know bowden’s disappearance now they
start thinking
uh something sinister must have happened
they contacted authorities
so this whole thing is coming together
in terry rasmussen
died in prison and after his death they
used dna obtained from his autopsy and
they were able to establish that he was
the father of that
fourth victim that was found in the
barrel oh my gosh i did not remember
that
so barbara ray venter all because she
was helping this woman
find her biological family that started
this domino effect and got us all the
way here
all four victims were able to be
identified now
well i’m sorry they weren’t able to be
identified because the fourth victim
we still don’t know who this little girl
was we just know that
biologically she is the daughter of
terry rasmussen so he killed his
daughter
he did authorities say it’s possible
that there’s many more victims of his
that they just haven’t been
able to link yet it’s kind of
interesting he wasn’t a when i teach it
he wasn’t a specific
site’s not site-specific or place
specific also not a local it’s funny you
bring that up because i was going to say
since
you teach on serial killers i want to
know your thought on this
because i think what distinguishes him
from most serial killers is he targeted
people with whom he had a relationship
with
absolutely distinguishes him from what i
understand most serial killers
actually have very strong family bonds
and they focus on complete strangers is
that correct
most serial killers will they don’t i
mean some have strong bonds some do not
but
almost always their victims are
strangers or strangers to them i mean
one of the reasons too is because they
don’t want to get caught
and you know they’re picking out like
vulnerable targets but yeah that makes
him that
really makes him unique almost all of
his victims had some sort of
familial or relationship connection yeah
that’s unique
that was a big case for barbara but that
was nothing compared to
what is to come wow barbara’s next case
i already love her
in . paul holes
oh you know where i’m going here right i
do
we’ve had the opportunity to meet paul
holes at crime con and he is
he’s a lovely person he did yes he’s
done some amazing things in the field
he’s cool so paul holes learned about
barbara’s work on the case and he sought
her out
because what case was he working on for
decades the golden state
killer yes so after a review
of his previous cases she says yeah you
know what i think i’ll work with him but
only later was she told
that he actually needed help on what
turns out to be the golden state
killer case so she doesn’t know what
she’s getting herself into
absolutely not so why was she needed in
this case well they had unknown dna
right and they wanted to use this method
called target testing it really just
relies
on analyzing data from individuals who
can centrally agree to do a dna test
right and upload their dna
to these sites and then match his dna to
see if we could find a
well really make a family tree and find
some distant relatives right
so they needed to find someone who could
compare two autosomal dna profiles
and really understand the overlapping
fragments and what those
overlapping fragments are hinting at so
you have to know which branch of a tree
to focus on
and it’s almost like putting together a
puzzle like just because there’s matches
there’s certain got it i understand the
complexities of dna here are so
interesting and i’m like teaching this
i’m gonna start using my forensics class
and i’m reading it going god i really
need to up my game on this too it’s so
interesting because somebody who doesn’t
have experience in genetic genealogy
having this information is really
useless a crucial step involves
following cousins back until a common
ancestor is identified okay
so eventually they begin making progress
and barbara is able to develop a rough
outline of some family trees which would
eventually be merged with other trees
so the way i understand it is there were
dozens of trees
in which this unknown dna sample
overlapped with so
then she helped guide the team on how to
fill out different branches using birth
records
newspaper clippings social media
profiles and family tree data
so it’s really an investigative you know
the family tree is one part of it but
then to find the missing pieces you’re
looking up obituaries and
all this other i mean it’s detective
work but it’s like detective work to
fill
in the families which is really neat
i know so after several months and
hundreds of volunteers
a handful of men start emerging as
candidates for further investigation
because of both their ages and their
histories in california okay so once you
get the overlapping
dna then you start narrowing it down by
other things that the police knew
so now they’re starting to use
old-school detective work to narrow
the suspects down there were some men
that emerged as
a highly likely suspect and a lot of
those men voluntarily gave up their dna
so they were very easily able to take
the dna sample from these crime scenes
we’re talking years ago and compare
it with these men and rule them out is
it that they gave their dna years ago
because they didn’t think anything of it
no they gave their dna today they
gave their dna today okay yep a lot of
these men of course were not matches
but one of them was closely related to
this unknown dna of the golden state
killer oh my goodness
they also started using have you ever
heard of an eye there was like an eye
color prediction tool that you could use
on gen match
that can predict based on dna profiles
what color eyes an individual would have
this sounds familiar it sounds like
something james told me about to be
honest because you know
yeah they also used information from
another site that created a health risk
analysis
suggesting that the suspect would bald
prematurely
so now they’re working with a suspect
that they know has blue eyes and
likely balding so again everything
they’re getting is just narrowing it
down
i didn’t realize that that’s really cool
because of this information they’re
looking at one man
a man named joseph james d’angelo
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so d’angelo had blue eyes a dmv photo
that they were able to get as public
records showed that he had a receding
hairline
so they’re thinking okay this is
interesting from there they did
traditional detective work you know what
they did
oh gosh i don’t even want to can i just
tell you it’s so exciting yeah
surveillance but that doesn’t yes no
you’re right oh so they started doing
heavy surveillance on him because what
did they want to get
oh they want to get his dna they want to
get a dna they want to see if he’s going
to throw out a cup
or a cigarette butt or anything that
will give them a sample yes okay yes so
they want to be able to confirm a match
so they follow him around long enough to
get a tissue
yes and they compare the dna and guess
what
it’s a matter it’s a match so at
this point i think they narrowed it down
to about six people
but they start so they start like honing
in i guess on these six but they
they get this tissue and it’s just a
slam dunk they were doing the same
things though right surveilling the
other side you’re trying to get the yeah
i believe so but i think that because of
the blue eyes and the receding hairline
it was
they had these other people in the mix
because of course i guess there could be
maybe someone shaves there who knows
there could have been some other reasons
but it was so interesting
joseph james deangelo was living with
his daughter and his granddaughter
now in his mid-seventies they arrest him
and megan he just recently pled guilty
you saw this it was all over the papers
june .
i did see that we’re talking a couple of
months ago remember he’s wearing the
face shield because of covid it was
which made it even creepier and his
killing spree oh my goodness i mean he
was a police officer
he was that’s right he was but he so he
was also
a serial rapist and a serial killer what
over from the s to the
s or so he he was interesting because
he would have these sleepy periods which
we often see
he he started out just raping if you
recall he was
the east area rapist right okay the
original night stalker he didn’t start
killing until
i think some decades later he moved down
south and that’s when the killing
started so his rapes happened closer to
i believe sacramento okay
and then he went down south and start
that’s when his killing spree began
but he had children a wife you know
that’s often why they have sleepy
periods by the way people go like why do
they go
you know it’s often a time where they’ve
like they’ve just married right so
they’re
they’re they’re more bound or they have
more social bonds and they don’t have as
much freedom or they just have a child
so yeah and and then they say like you
know i wanted to stop
because you know i felt this um you know
i wanted to be connected i wanted to
give it up but then there’s a draw that
most of them feel
and if i remember correctly they did see
a lag after each child he ended up
having three girls which is
so ironic considering he was so brutal
against women
he ends up pleading guilty to counts
of first degree murder and he also
admitted to
more than uncharged offenses
including brutal rapes that date all the
way back to the s
he would plead guilty to counts of
first-degree murder
and again he admitted to the brutal
rapes and the burglaries but because of
the statue of limitations
unfortunately those victims are not
going to get justice as far as the legal
system goes that’s unfortunate i
i mean the statue of limitations is one
of those other things i go back and
forth with all the time
you know it you know if you’re able to
identify someone what should it matter
what the time frame is
it’s a whole other episode megan i know
so going back to barbara
after this she was quoted as saying i
think the really big thing is that in
almost all of the cases at least those
that i have worked on the person that we
end up identifying was never on
anybody’s radar
they were somebody that without any
investigative genetic genealogy
they would have completely gotten away
with it and that is
so clear in this case i think that’s
crystal clear in this case and i’ve
heard it in
other cases i’m going to go over the
other cases megan okay
don’t you worry all right all right i
know there’s so much this might be a
two-parter
you can get it done
since he was now in his mid s not
surprisingly he he just about aged out
he hadn’t killed anyone for decades
so as barbara was saying he could have
very easily gotten away with this had it
not been for genetic genealogy he
probably thought he would
probably thought he was way past getting
caught yeah i’d say so
this case really brought the use of
investigative genetic genealogy into the
spotlight
it wasn’t the first some people
incorrectly say that the golden state
killer case was the first to use genetic
genealogy it was the first high-profile
case to use right but it did highlight
the power that the tool can have
in cracking cases that have been cold
for decades in the immediate aftermath
of the arrest barbara chose not to
publicly identify
because she was fearful of her personal
safety yeah i’ll bet not surprisingly
she probably didn’t want the whole
world’s spotlight attention on her
but several months after the arrest she
allowed paul holtz to identify her
publicly i don’t know if you recall this
but paul holes named her in a tweet back
in august
thanking her for her structure and
expertise in the case
i don’t remember that she also says she
felt safe coming forward because
other women have been public about their
work such as who’s a famous
genetic genealogist we always hear from
cece moore cece moore
she’s also a genetic genealogist known
for her work starting on adoption cases
just like barbara
but she also had recently announced
breakthroughs in six murder cases and
two
sexual assault cases right and then
there was yet another woman who all
these women are just
amazing colleen fitzpatrick she was a
rocket scientist
turned genetic genealogist and she came
out publicly regarding her work on a
dozen murder cases
and she now has an organization which
we’ll talk about later look at women
paving the way
amazing and fitzpatrick was quoted as
saying that the golden state killers
case
really opened the door to say that we
can now go into homicides in genetic
genealogy because it was a little
unclear
after her role in the golden state
killer case she became well known and
she was approached to assist in at least
unsolved cases including homicides and
unidentified
victims wow so in a moment we’re going
to talk about where she is now but i
just want to highlight some other
noteworthy cases that she helped solve
because
one is more shocking than the next oh
okay in port washington wisconsin she
helped police solve the year old cold
case of a murder of an
year old tracy hammerberg who was
sexually assaulted and murdered by
a former classmate another case out of
wisconsin the identification of peggy
lynn johnson she was the jane doe for
over years
and it helped police identify the
suspected killer and
not only the victim’s identity but the
killer’s identity as well goodness
and then in california a longtime
neighbor and grandfather was arrested
as the suspect in two rape cases from
the late s
and she used again investigative genetic
genealogy to help the police department
identify him and just last month she was
instrumental in solving a year old
cold case
there was a newborn baby that was found
in a bag in the bay area and the baby
was never
identified guess who um it was revealed
is responsible after years his mother
was charged with the murder it turns out
that she had hid the pregnancy from
family and friends and then killed the
baby and dumped him in the bay
so it’s really unfortunate and then the
last one i just want to highlight
is have you ever heard of the case the
boy in the box something that sounds
familiar
it’s very interesting because it dates
back to . so there was an
unknown murder victim a four to six year
old boy whose naked battered body was
found in a bassinet box
in the fox chase section of philadelphia
pennsylvania he was also commonly
referred to as america’s unknown child
his identity had never been discovered
and the case remains open
but probably not for long now that
barbara is working on it wow
i can keep going i have lists and lists
of cases but for the sake of time i’ll
stop with the highlighting of cases
there and just turn
to the controversy with i feel like
sorry i feel like this reminds me of
when we
did cover kathleen zellner i was like
let me go see every case these are women
that
are they’re rock stars so inspiring i
think i’m really glad we’re featuring
them in
these episodes okay so you are going to
stop there and go to
the controversy although these methods
help solve crimes
it’s not without controversy these cases
have highlighted how dna samples
that have been volunteered for one
purpose in this case genealogy can be
used for other reasons without
the donor’s explicit consent there have
been several ethical concerns brought up
or sorry
i know you’re gonna go into it but isn’t
number one the invasion of privacy
fourth amendment
issues or no it is but there’s
workarounds which in the case of the
golden state killer for example
d’angelo’s relatives submitted their dna
for the specific purpose of genealogy
which by definition requires the
information to be shared
and compared however it was used for
something else without their consent
right so they found that they’ve ended
up solving this case because a distant
relative of d’angelo
updated their dna hoping to find family
tree
i completely understand that but then
doesn’t don’t they have an expectation
of privacy
is the issue here that is the actual
that is the issue
that’s why law enforcement goes to
genealogists because law enforcement
cannot
do this themselves although there have
been cases where law enforcement
has been accused of creating fake
profiles
and uploading cold case dna so gedmatch
is what we talked about before and
gedmatch is the site that collects
data from all the other sites they have
since changed their policy
because they face a lot of backlash so
now they require people to opt in to
share their dna with law enforcement if
you go on their website it’s a big
banner but their total number of samples
dropped from over a million before
d’angelo to
about today right so for the
most part
each site really has their own user
agreement and
many allow people to opt out of dna
sharing for law enforcement purposes
but you have to actually read the fine
print a lot of times yeah but
you’ll see they’re being responsible and
instead of making it in the fine print
like i said sites like
family tree dna they offer law
enforcement services
so that could increase the pool of
potential matches but others like
myheritage
and me and ancestry they do not allow
law enforcement access
so some people feel that law enforcement
navigating jed match
is an exploitation of a loophole that
violates trust
others feel like it’s okay because it’s
solving these heinous crimes
the fact is actually because of these
databases some estimates say that over
violent crimes have been solved just
since the golden state killer
yeah and the question is do you want to
give up some of your rights for the
greater good
or not you know what i mean this is a
slippery slope though this is a hard one
for me i do
are we going to get to our opinions
about this yeah we will i’m almost done
i’m sorry megan hang in there
no i am i’m here i’m excited you’re
always there megan
always kim always so what does the
department of justice say about this
oh that’s the authority yep in they
issued guidelines for federal
investigations we know that there’s a
difference between state and federal
the doj says that you could only use
genetic genealogy to track down suspects
in serious
violent crimes and or though because
it’s confusing there have been different
ways to interpret this
it could also be used as a last resort
oh that’s so
i hate when they give vague language i
know i know because it you know like i
said it’s such a slippery slope if it’s
not specified serious violent crime
so we’re talking just murder and rape
some people would say they probably have
a category if they say serious violent i
bet they’re gonna have a schedule of
offenses that they consider there and
it’s going to be like your top you know
the the
fbi’s top eight you know including
homicide robbery
the index crimes rape you know the eight
most serious so now we’re seeing states
also developing some language about what
can be done with these sites
so a couple of months ago there was a
warrant by a florida law enforcement
agency demanding access to all dna
profiles
even those who did not opt in well they
probably couldn’t yeah and they complied
what yep we’re going to see a lot of
movement on the state level because this
is so
new and it brings up so many issues
we’re going to see people starting to
press for laws to protect the privacy
rights of all people
and limit access to everyone’s genetic
material
however the other side of this is not
only are we able to
to find unknown offenders we’re able to
solve the cases of
jane does and this is also helping in
the wrongful conviction area as well
because if someone else is implicated
and you’re in prison for that crime then
that’s going to help you too so this has
far-reaching
benefits there’s some talk about having
genetic genealogy
is leading to more white offenders being
apprehended
is it because um black ones were falsely
accused and now
that genealogy reveals the truth that’s
an interesting theory that could be
but before this everyone was using codis
so codis
is this federal system where they have
the dna of people that have been
arrested or charged of crimes and
because that’s predominantly
minority black males right so if you
found so for example the golden state
killer’s dna
never matters right so they’re saying
that
if you look at who’s using these sites i
would bet you would find that it’s
people that are you know middle class
you have to afford to have a computer
afford to
have the privilege to poke around on the
internet looking for relatives
so because of this you’re having more
white people submitting their dna
right and so that’s how we got someone
like the golden state killer and also
terry rasmussen was a white man also
so interesting i wonder if it’ll change
anything do research on it sorry
yeah oh that’s a good idea well that’s a
really good idea
and what i’m thinking is i’m wondering
if that will change what we know about
uh the crime rates and how we attribute
them you know when we talk about crime
statistics and crime distribution will
this
actually change but there’s all other
issues with codis that we could talk
about
of course it’s important to note that
genetic genealogy
is not enough to convict a person it’s
just one piece of the puzzle
but aren’t juries going to equate this
with dna with gold standard with their i
mean this is going to be a powerful
piece of evidence
a lot of these cases we find that people
plead guilty
such as the golden state killer however
there was a case that cece moore worked
on
i don’t know if you recall there were
two victims that got killed
in washington they were canadian
citizens like year old
and their the killer was unknown they
found the killer and the case went to
trial
and this was the first time they used
genetic genealogy to actually get a
conviction
so she did not end up testifying however
the jury was presented the information
of genetic genealogy and
this all happened because cece moore
helped them figure out the profile
okay they were following the guy that
fit
from the profile he threw out a cup they
used the cup to match him
so it’s like the fruit of the poisonous
tree do you remember that yeah
if you obtained if you obtain evidence
and violation of constitutional rights
it’s tainted and can’t be used
it doesn’t matter what it leads to it
could lead to bodies it can’t be
used
but as cc moore was saying this shows
that
it holds up in the court of law and a
jury was able to convict
i think barbara ray and cece moore and a
couple of these other females
are amazing and i hope that they’ll
inspire you know
future females to go into this field as
well here
are here’s my thought on the genetic
genealogy
and i struggle with a lot of these
issues when we were talking about
law enforcement the powers of law
enforcement how far should they be
allowed to go
when is it an invasion into our fourth
amendment rights and other
constitutional rights
i think my feeling is is this is such a
powerful tool that can help to solve
such substantial crimes that it has to
be used
but i think what they need is i think
there should be
strong oversight and limitations
in a way that are able to still preserve
you know our rights so i think it should
be used but it has to be
much i think it’s gonna have to be very
highly regulated and i do think that
there should be a special consideration
given to how to not um
trample on our rights to privacy i think
we’re going to see a lot of movement in
the courts
on this issue both at the state level
and the federal level you know what it
reminds me of after .
all the questions between what you know
liberty and safety
getting stopped in search in the subway
people were complaining that it violated
their right to privacy
but it was for the greater good because
of what was going on right uh you’re
right i mean
when i teach about the patriot act it
was a total loosening of fourth and
fifth amendment rights and it happened
very quickly
again i would like to see as i teach in
policy i’d love to see
long-term real planning for this if this
is going to be a valuable tool great
let’s figure out the benefit of it the
the consequences of it and then let’s
design a policy that actually works
in you know balancing these two concerns
that’s why this episode
just branches off yeah no it’s great pun
intended get it family
yeah i get it okay where is barbara
today i was gonna ask that
so today she is the director of gene by
jeans
investigative genetic genealogy she also
consults on
several cases i read somewhere and
then i read somewhere
that she has almost active cases she
also provides commentary on the ethics
of using shared community data for law
law enforcement purposes and addresses
ethical questions about the use of
shared genetic data
the only other thing i want to add is i
want to plug the dna dough project have
you heard of the dna dough project i
have but
okay so the dna doe project it was
established in
going back to fitzgerald that we talked
about before
this would start by two genealogists
researchers who work to identify
unknown victims using ged match it’s
volunteers that construct these family
trees based on dna
so instead of having those search angels
or helping you find your adoptive
parents they have a group of people that
are working to identify all of these
unknown victims from over the years
amy amazing episode thank you so much
thank you
i think i want to go into genetic
genealogy oh i’m going with you
imagine we found out we were like
cousins or something i think we clearly
are
anyway thank you so much to all of our
listeners
yes thanks megan
[Music]
women & crime is written and hosted by
megan sacks and amy schlosberg
our producer and editor is james varga
our music is composed by dessert media
[Music]
sources for today’s episode comes from
the new york times
genealogy consult.com barbara’s website
oxygen abc news