[HN Gopher] Detectives Just Used DNA to Solve a 1956 Double Homi...
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Detectives Just Used DNA to Solve a 1956 Double Homicide
Author : yskchu
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-06-12 16:22 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| uvesten wrote:
| Who involved really is better off, after hearing of the
| "solution" to this crime? Except for maybe the police department,
| possibly a detective with an itch to scratch, and definitely the
| firm used for the genealogical dna profile (mentioned by name in
| the article), I can think of no one.
| liquidify wrote:
| The first thing that comes to mind after reading this article is
| that they don't have enough evidence to conclude that the fact
| that there were sperm in the victim that weren't from her
| boyfriend actually means that they were murdered by the creator
| of said sperm.
|
| It seems likely, but calling the case 'solved' just based on that
| is a bit of a stretch to me. Maybe the article is leaving out
| some important details.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Come on, we all know that any woman who cheats on her boyfriend
| is immediately murdered by the same guy she cheated with.
| vmception wrote:
| Just like we know that the spouse that has a life insurance
| policy opened on them is immediately murdered by the
| surviving spouse, instead of the life insurance agent
|
| We don't! We just assume!
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| What would happen if I swiped my murder weapon thru rack of
| clothes in a second hand shop?
| awb wrote:
| I can't find the link but apparently there was a case of
| someone riding an escalator with gloves later used in a murder
| and several people's DNA being found on the gloves.
|
| I think the police then track down each of these individuals
| and establish a motive or an alibi.
|
| But DNA alone shouldn't convict someone.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Ignoring for a moment the obvious hitch that sperm does not
| automatically equal murder, there's also the problem that DNA
| forensics suffers from the same fakery problem that other
| criminal forensic techniques suffer from especially when samples
| are old and mixed
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733-500-fallible...
|
| DNA matching from a decades old mixed tissue slide is not an
| exact process and many factors from handling to a desire to close
| the case can lead to a wrong conclusion.
|
| The most that can be said is that the detectives are satisfied
| enough to stop digging, not that the case is solved. Let's
| remember that a posthumous process allows for zero defense and
| criminal justice depends on defense.
|
| And besides all of that, it strikes me as wildly unethical to
| burden the family with this information just to satisfy detective
| curiosity and desire for closure. I see zero benefit to going
| through the final steps after they determined that their suspect
| had already died. The corpse's ashes can't go to prison. The
| family just lives with this now. That's a negative outcome.
| fairity wrote:
| > I see zero benefit to going through the final steps after
| they determined that their suspect had already died
|
| If the victim has living friends & family, it provides closure.
| Additionally, solving cases, however old, boosts public
| confidence that crimes will not go unpunished, which in turn
| acts as a deterrent for future crime.
| moron4hire wrote:
| The threat of punishment has never been shown to be a
| deterrent to crime.
|
| EDIT: I would have thought this was a well-known issue by
| now, but for those who are disagreeing, "punishments do not
| deter crime" is also the opinion of the National Institute of
| Justice: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-
| about-deterr...
| rightbyte wrote:
| Do more drivers turn right at red lights in the US than in
| say UK were it is illegal?
| moron4hire wrote:
| The legality of the action is not the only difference
| between those two locales. A right turn on red is
| significantly more dangerous in the UK than in the US.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Oh ... ye well lets pretend I wrote "turn left at red
| lights in UK" shall we?
| krrrh wrote:
| I think you're getting downvotes for the statement "never
| been shown". It's an overly broad claim, and even the link
| you posted talks more about the severity of punishment
| being a weaker deterrent than the certainty of being caught
| (and punished). There's still no doubt that if theft was
| suddenly not punished _at all_ then there would be more
| theft.
|
| From other reading I've done the consistency of punishment
| is more important, and it's better for criminal justice
| systems to provide a certain small punishment than an
| inconsistent outsized punishment, and this has a lot to do
| with the way humans evaluate risks, and improved paths
| towards helping criminals becoming non-criminals.
|
| Anyway, I learned a bit from the link you posted, mostly
| that this sort of thinking is mainstream enough to be
| presented like this by the DoJ. So have my upvote.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The potential benefits here are that it's possible the assumed
| culprit has committed other crimes, and this knowledge could
| solve other cases, some where potentially the crime has been
| pinned to an innocent person.
|
| I'm unsure how this potentially positive match would enter
| databases though, and find it very unlikely that any
| potentially "solved" case would have DNA tested against such a
| database.
|
| Publishing the assumed culprit's name and details seems fairly
| egregious though.
| lolinder wrote:
| Yes, the publishing of the details is what gets to me.
| Throughout the article they treat the case as solved and the
| man as the guilty party, which they would never do to a
| living person before a verdict. To thousands of NPR readers,
| this man is not only the prime suspect but also the guilty
| party, in spite of the fact that charges will never be filed
| and guilt or innocence will never be formally determined.
| temp8964 wrote:
| A. They tested the suspect's children's DNA and got a positive.
|
| B. It's true sperm doesn't equal murder. But in this case the
| victim was asexually assaulted and then murdered. The
| likelihood of both crimes committed by the same person is way
| higher than two different persons.
| vmception wrote:
| Does _my_ reasonable doubt count?
|
| The fall guy they pulled in for a raped and murdered jogger
| in NYC was willing to confess and then was like "woah woah I
| didn't do the rape where did that charge come from"
|
| There could just as easily be a Brock Turner in the woods
| seeing an incapacitated girl and fiddling around, except this
| time the victim would already be or about to be dead.
|
| Too many examples for me to make that conclusion. So, my
| reasonable doubt would count if I was on the jury.
| Convicting/Acquitting someone is one thing, we all pat
| ourselves on the back, but the thing that _really_ bothers me
| is when the dangerous person is still out there. Who cares
| about debating the doubt when there is a greater likelihood
| of ongoing danger in the community but now the investigation
| isn 't even happening. Its debating someone's freedom versus
| debating the safety of the community which is a larger group
| of people, the greater doubt is actually about whether the
| community is now safe instead of whether I like this person's
| alibi.
| valuearb wrote:
| So you think the accused killers family would be much
| happier if they found out he didn't kill either of them,
| just had sex with the dying girl and left her to die?
| vmception wrote:
| That's where your mind went. In this article, it would be
| just as easy for them to have had consensual sex
| beforehand.
|
| The feelings of the family is not a factor in
| investigating and prosecuting the right people.
| [deleted]
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| I agree. I believe this article is to be a "tug your
| heartstrings" to be against the very logical restriction on
| forensic DNA analysis by "reconstructing a reverse family tree"
| which is quite often wrong.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| While it can be wrong the cost of a wrong is minor--they test
| the DNA, it doesn't match, they continue their search, now
| perhaps with better information as to how the tree fits
| together.
| version_five wrote:
| Yeah, what caught my attention was the casual
|
| > although new state legislation restricting forensic
| genealogy could complicate matters
|
| as if affording important privacy protections is a
| "complication" that interferes with their goal of a safer
| world. Much of the article reads like a thinly veiled
| lobbying piece for why police should be less restricted in
| how they use this technique.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| Why is it a burden for the family? The family surely wanted the
| case solved...?
| vorticalbox wrote:
| I believe the comment was about the murders family.
|
| Up until this point they had no idea, they now have to live
| with that knowledge.
|
| The only people being punished now are the these family
| members who did nothing wrong.
| lolinder wrote:
| The worst part for the family is that the media can label
| their father a rapist and murderer without him actually
| having been convicted. The police have strong evidence,
| from the sound of it, but with a living person the news
| media wouldn't be allowed to go around saying unequivocally
| "he's the guy" without a guilty verdict.
|
| The upshot is that _even if there 's been a mistake_, this
| man's name will never be cleared, and his family will just
| have to live with this.
| jiqiren wrote:
| The family agreed to help the police figure it out.
|
| Maybe their reaction to learning the news was more like
| "yeah this makes sense - dad was an abusive asshole my
| whole life. At least I wasn't killed".
| vmception wrote:
| What state restrictions on scouring DNA databases would you like?
| The article points out how incoming state laws would make this
| investigation impossible, but it turns out it was just a few
| states being referenced.
|
| I think this needs to be treated as property of the individual as
| well, or even of an individual's estate, and there must be
| consent granted for each use and compensation for it. Consent can
| be revokable and a record of the consent's state should be
| attached to every piece of data.
|
| It leaves the avenue open for this same kind of investigation to
| occur.
| drewcoo wrote:
| NPR, totally not a state propaganda organ, runs pro-forensic
| "science" propaganda. Why does this not surprise me anymore?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Are you against forensic science or do you doubt the validity
| of it?
| julienreszka wrote:
| There is plenty of evidence that DNA tests are unreliable.
| https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/forensics-gone-
| wrong...
| zzt123 wrote:
| Much like cryptography, the science of DNA is good, but the
| roll-your-own DNA forensics implementations have had issues.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/thousands-of-criminal-
| cas...
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reaso.
| ..
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/opinion/the-dangers-of-
| dn...
|
| A quote from The NY Times article:
|
| "The first two suspects' DNA was part of the mixture, and
| most labs correctly matched their DNA to the evidence.
| However, 74 labs wrongly said the sample included DNA
| evidence from the third suspect, an "innocent person" who
| should have been cleared of the hypothetical felony."
|
| There were 108 labs tested. 74 of 108 fingered an innocent
| person.
|
| As long as DNA forensics processes are open source, we should
| be good, because the questionable component is the
| implementation, not the base science.
|
| But, closed source DNA forensics is dangerous, I think.
| kolanos wrote:
| Here's a list of suspected perpetrators of crimes identified via
| genealogy databases. [0] This case is not in this list (yet).
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suspected_perpetrators...
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(page generated 2021-06-12 23:01 UTC)