2019-01-01_Discover

Q

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38 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

TOP: SCOTT DALTON. BOTTOM: RICH PEDRONCELLI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

GENETICS

Genealogy Data Cracks Golden State Killer Case,

But Is It Ethical?

In April,

detectives

finally

identified

Joseph James DeAngelo

as the Golden State

Killer, the man they

think was behind

more than a dozen

murders and 50

rapes in California

in the 1970s and ’80s.

Police got a break in the

case using a public genealogy

website: They uploaded DNA

samples from the crime scene

to find distant relatives

of the suspect. After

building a family

tree, investiga-

tors identified

DeAngelo and

confirmed the

match. But now,

many are wonder-

ing if the genetic

sleuthing went too far. Discover

asked Baylor College of Medicine

bioethicist Amy McGuire, who

wrote about the issue in June in

the journal Science, to weigh in.

Q

What ethical and legal

questions does this case

raise?

A

The biggest question it raises is

one of privacy and expectations

about privacy. Law enforcement

identified a suspect based on

matching DNA not to that suspect,

Joseph James

DeAngelo

Amy McGuire