Familial DNA search might unlock Delphi killer's identity

Ron Wilkins | Journal & Courier

Show Caption Hide Caption It's been one year since the Delphi slayings. Libby German and Abby Williams bodies were found on February 14, 2017 and their killer remains at large.

DELPHI, Ind. — DNA holds the secrets of life, what diseases lie in our future, what we look like — and for suspects in crimes, it often holds the key to conviction or freedom.

Hidden in our bodily fluids might be the identity of suspected criminals whom we call family.

DNA tests for suspects are not being used to the fullest potential, explains Rockne P. Harmon, a retired district attorney for Alameda County, California, and nationally known advocate for familial DNA searches.

Most people know that DNA identifies a specific person, but because of shared genetics between brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, familial DNA searches can lead police to suspects.

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Typically, police run a DNA search through CODIS – Combined DNA Index System, which is a national database, Harmon said.

That search looks for an exact match, but in order for there to be an exact match, the suspect's DNA must already be in the system, which many times isn't the case.

If there is DNA from the suspect in the Feb. 13, 2017, killing of Libby German and Abby Williams, it appears a match has not turned up since they have not made an arrest. But then, police have been tight lipped about what evidence they might have in that particular case.

If there is DNA evidence from Libby and Abby's killing, what if police ran a search using familial DNA? If the suspect's family member — a brother or father, for example — has been arrested or convicted of felony charges, familial DNA might be the break that's needed in the case that shook the country.

“Crime runs in families,” he said. “No one disputes that. Ask any beat cop.”

When CODIS fails to get a direct match, a second search — a familial DNA search — looks for markers in DNA that might indicate a family member. The familial search creates a list of possible links, Harmon said. If someone on that list is a close match, a second DNA search examines the Y chromosome.

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Y chromosomes are passed down father to son and are identical. So if the familial search finds someone who has the same Y chromosome as a suspect, it's likely that the suspect is a father, son or brother of the person who turned up in the familial search, Harmon said.

Recently asked about familial DNA searches and the homicide investigation into German and Williams' death, Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby said, “Obviously the answer hasn‘t come to the surface, yet.

“This is out of the box, so what can it hurt?”

Leazenby said Indiana State Police Maj. Steve Holland telephoned Leazenby after the Journal & Courier interviewed Holland, who is director of the Indiana State Police laboratories. Leazenby said Holland was giving him a courtesy call to expect the J&C's questions about familial DNA.

“That’s being discussed," Leazenby said of the outcome of Holland's call, "but there hasn’t been a decision made yet. It’s on the table.

“It might help us reach success.”

Indiana State Police laboratories are overworked, and does not have the equipment or manpower yet to begin familial DNA.

Harmon disputes that.

DNA that is run through the CODIS data bank is digitized, Harmon said. It doesn't take new equipment or much training. It's a software program that can be installed on current computers, Harmon said.

There is a cost to search a sample DNA through databases for a familial match and then to do the Y search, but it isn't cost prohibitive, Harmon said, pinning that number at about $40 per sample.

If a familial search of the Delphi killings turns up 150 possible family matches, which then must be run through a Y search, the taxpayers are on the hook for $6,000.

Given the number of federal, state, county and municipal law enforcement officers from across Indiana who investigated Libby and Abby's killing, it's a safe bet that the cost of this particular investigation exceeded that amount in the first few days.

“It all boils down to resources,” Holland said. “I think it would not be prudent to ignore this.

“For us, we’re able to do with what the resources are provided.”

Those resources do not yet include money, training and equipment for familial DNA, Holland said, although he admitted, the state police laboratories are moving quickly in that direction.

In 2014, Holland authored a report for the General Assembly about familial DNA searches.

Much has changed since then, but Indiana doesn't have familial DNA yet.

But it does have probabilistics genotyping, which can sort out several DNAs found at a scene. Those whose DNA are not suspected can, therefore, be eliminated from the CODIS search, while the DNA that cannot be eliminated can be searched DNA through databases, Holland said.

ISP labs also can do the Y searches, Holland said. And they have increased the number of markers found in these searches, which narrows the field of suspects.

Advances such as familial DNA searches and phenotype DNA searches are in the near future — perhaps as soon as two years, Holland said.

Phenotype DNA creates a description of the suspect through DNA markers. It can indicate race, eye color, hair color, and other physical traits of a suspect, Holland said.

“Until we have the ability to have space and instrumentation then we have to do with the resources provided,” Holland said.

Harmon, however, dismisses the delay in familial DNA and the explanation of space and instrumentation.

Familial DNA is a software program that finds similarities in a sample DNA with known DNA. And there's likely a licensing fee for the program, Harmon said.

Indiana State Police lab already digitize DNA to run CODIS searches, so this digitized DNA sample just needs to be run through a familial search.

Does familial DNA work?

Yes, Harmon emphatically answered. But he adds a qualifier: There must be a DNA sample from a family member in the database. If there's no family member in there, then police will not find a match after all of the tests are finished.

Wading through the list of possible familial DNA matches usually turns up viable suspects who never would have been thought of as a suspect, Harmon said.

In some instances, the suspects lived near the victim, Harmon said.

Familial searches led to the arrest of a suspect in April for a 2015 killing in Scotsdale, Arizona.

Familial DNA led to the Grim Sleeper, who killed more than a dozen women in south Los Angeles between 1985 and 2007. He's on California's death row.

If familial DNA finds a likely match, then detectives are tasked with tracking down the suspect's "discarded or abandoned" DNA, Harmon said. That's a matter of finding a glass a suspect drank from, a fork he used or a cigarette butt from the suspect.

In the case of the Grim Sleeper, it was a partially eaten piece of pizza, according to news accounts.

Investigators then compare the abandoned DNA with the DNA from the crime, Harmon said. If they match, a warrant is secured and the suspect is arrested.

There is an important distinction between familial DNA searches and the April arrest of a Golden State Killer suspect after a DNA search of a genealogy site, Harmon said.

In that instant, police ran a digitized DNA code through a public genealogy website that had DNA people donated as a means to find distant relatives, according to news reports.

In April, police arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., charging him with being the Golden State Killer who preyed on women between 1976 and 1986.

Harmon said two states explicitly ban familial DNA searches. Most of the states that use it do so under the implicit authority to identify suspects in crimes.

Harmon said there are no ethical challenges to familial DNA. It's not an invasion of privacy or violation of the Fourth Amendment since the comparison DNA is obtained through abandoned DNA, he said.

“No one’s ever asserted a legal challenge to this on a privacy issue,” Harmon said, and there are no legal challenges to a DNA match. It either does or doesn’t, he noted.

Holland said, “This is a technology we want to embrace.”

Harmon argues the technology is here, is affordable and can solve crimes, so it should be used now.

Meanwhile, if there's DNA from the Delphi killings, it's not been run through familial DNA search. Yet.

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