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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