Benjamin Holmes 38, was arrested last week for the 2001 murder of an Orlando student after his relatives submitted their DNA to an ancestry website

An arrest has been made in a 17-year-old murder case after police matched DNA samples found at the crime scene to those of the suspect's relatives through a genealogy website.

Benjamin Holmes, 38, was arrested on Friday for the 2001 murder of Christine Franke in her Orlando apartment. The 25-year-old college student was shot dead during a burglary at her apartment.

For years, her case remained unsolved despite numerous attempts by police to crack it.

Those attempts included teaming up with Parabon Nanolabs, a DNA testing website who were given a sample of DNA found at the crime scene.

In May this year, they found a match with three people on the website GEDMatch, an open data personal genomics database and genealogy website, and notified police who contacted the people who had submitted the samples.

After ruling those relatives out, police narrowed their search to Holmes and his brother.

After taking samples from both men, they arrested Holmes for the murder last week.

He remains in police custody on a single murder charge.

The astonishing sequence of events is the latest in a string of arrests to be made by detectives using the genealogy results of suspects' relatives to crimes.

25-year-old Christine Franke was shot dead in her apartment in a burglary in 2001

Police issued this composite made from DNA left at the scene but it did not lead to any tips

In this case, it began when one of the detectives in charge of the investigation submitted his own test.

Christine's family say they are grateful police never gave up

'I participated in an online ancestry website where they provided me a match of my relatives, those who had committed to the website also.

'I thought to myself, "how can I use this in the Christine Franke case?"' Detective Michael Fields said.

A year later, he started working with Parabon Nanolabs. Through their assessment of the DNA found at the scene, they were able put together a composite of the suspect's image.

It was released publicly but no matches were ever made.

It was only in May this year, when Holmes' relatives submitted their samples, that they had a breakthrough.

At a press conference on Monday, Franke's mother said she was thrilled that police never gave up.

'I am so grateful that these gentlemen and everyone involved never gave up on my daughter's case. This is such a happy for us. We are so overwhelmingly grateful for everything they've done.

'I can't say enough nice things about them,' Tina Franke said.