Police Say They Used Genealogy Database to Arrest Idaho Murder Suspect

The murders of four University of Idaho students have been the subject of intense national coverage. All but one of the students were killed in their beds. Police didn't have a suspect or motive for the crimes for weeks.

Maybe until now. According to ABC News, police used public genealogy databases to link the alleged killer's genetic material to the crime scene.

The evidence led to the arrest of a Washington State University graduate student in Pennsylvania, thousands of miles away from where the killings occurred. According to ABC, law enforcement can't reveal any information, including a motive or further details about how they tracked down the man.

Due to the fact that suspects don't need to have sent their own DNA to an ancestry database, genealogy databases have proven to be a boon to investigators who may otherwise run into dead ends. The databases allow investigators to follow genetic threads and connect dots between distant relatives until they can identify a viable suspect.

There's a good chance an internet sleuth can identify you from a DNA sample you left somewhere if you're white.

Someone with a pension for doing crime may see the value in keeping their genetic information away from 23andMe, but if their distant aunt decides that she wants to map her family tree. The people are in trouble.

This isn't the first time that such databases have been used to identify a high-profile murderer, such as the Golden State Killer, who was finally named, charged, and convicted by California law enforcement decades after his reign of violent sexual crimes in the 1970s. In some cases, DNA samples have been used to solve crimes that have been going on for decades.

The man is going back to Idaho to face trial for the murders. While it will be fascinating to learn more about how the case against him was built, one thing is clear: genealogy databases have found a lasting position in the toolbelt. We should expect more arrests like that in the future.

The suspect in the Idaho murders was identified through genealogy databases.

Cops use a newborn baby's genetic makeup to nail a dad for crimes from the 90s.