DNA Hit of the Year 2022
The DNA Hit of the Year program is an international collaboration that shares the value and successes of DNA Databases on a global scale through discussions of real cases. These case submissions have enlightened us to what is possible when the advancement of science is combined with the tenacity of DNA scientists and police officers. Tim Schellberg and Vanessa Lynch of Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs will jointly host this year’s DNA Hit of the Year. Joined by global DNA experts and special guests, they will discuss several of these history-making cases and what made them so exceptional.
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[ Music ]
We're here in Lester United Kingdom.
A few steps from the lab were Sir Alec Jeffries discovered DNA fingerprinting
for human identification.
We're standing in the very courtroom where the Colin Pitchfork case was tried
and became the first case to successfully use DNA in court.
I'm Tim Shelberg and I'm joined by Vanessa Lynch.
We're from Gordon Thomas Honeywell and this is the sixth annual DNA hit of the
year.
DNA hit of the year plays a significant role educating the world
about the value of forensic DNA.
Through real cases fascinating DNA scientific and investigative strategies are
on full display.
After much consideration, we decided not to review new cases in 2022.
Rather, similar to 2021, we'll hear from past hit of the year judges,
crime lab personnel and police investigators as we take a closer look
at previously submitted cases.
Latin America is on the move when it comes to expansion of DNA database
programs.
From Guatemala to Argentina and many countries in between,
we're seeing an impressive dedication to forensic DNA.
Nowhere is this commitment in Latin America more evident than in Brazil.
I'll hand it over to Vanessa to explain two terrifying serial sexual assault
cases
for those of you that don't know Vanessa, she has an impressive DNA advocacy
background.
Before joining Gordon Thomas Honeywell, Vanessa served as the executive
director
of the DNA project where she led the charge in South Africa to pass and
implement DNA database legislation.
In this role, she was a key figure in transforming South Africa
in one of the world's strongest DNA database countries.
Thanks, Tim. Brazil is certainly on the move with its DNA database expansion.
I think most of us remember the robbery of the century case,
selected as the 2020 DNA hit of the year.
This case really propelled Brazil into the limelight with their new DNA
database,
with over 457 pieces of evidence tested and 47 separate criminal suspects
identified.
This is no doubt one of the world's largest crime scenes ever to be processed
in the world of DNA. Wow.
While this legendary Brazil case was certainly worthy of global recognition,
I'm going to look at two equally important Brazil cases previously submitted to
hit of the year.
Both cases expressed the power of a DNA database to solve sexual assault.
The first case profiles a serial rapist who operated through Brazil between
2012 and 2015.
Sadly, most of his victims were young girls between the ages of 11 and 16.
What's truly terrifying about this predator is how we literally moved from
state to state
to terrorize his victims.
In one of the assaults, he traveled over 2,000 kilometers to commit the crime.
After a series of three rapes in the state of Rondonia,
Silio Roberto Rodriguez was arrested in 2015 for a robbery and a rape in that
state.
On his arrest, his DNA was collected and had matched the DNA collected from the
other three rapes.
At that time, the police had no idea they were now dealing with an interstate
rapist.
But Rodriguez's past was about to catch up with him.
The legislation that created Brazil's national DNA database was just about to
go live
and connect all 26 Brazilian states.
When states started to connect to the national DNA database and upload their
unsolved sexual assault cases,
Rodriguez's DNA profile started to match to many more rapes that occurred in
different parts of the country.
What's more, Brazil had also been pursuing a sexual assault DNA backlog
campaign.
As the labs worked through the DNA backlog, Rodriguez's DNA began to match to
even more rapes.
As of today, Rodriguez's DNA has been linked to over 14 rapes in four separate
states.
And with tens of thousands of sexual assault kits still in backlog,
it's likely he'll be linked to even more, proving that a serial rapist cannot
hide
from a fully functioning national DNA database.
The second Brazilian serial rape case is equally as terrifying as the first.
In this case, the crimes all occurred in the city of Gujania,
located 200 miles west of Rio de Janeiro.
As in the first case, this one also shows it's only a matter of time before DNA
will help identify a serial rapist
when a country focuses on testing its sexual assault kits.
In 2018, the state crime lab uploaded its first batch of DNA profiles
from its sexual assault kit backlog to the DNA database.
The comparative search immediately linked five of the rapes to one unknown
offender.
In April 2019, another batch was uploaded and it matched an additional four
cases.
With nine serial rapes identified, the police quickly formed a task force to
find the serial rapist.
During its first five months, an additional batch of sexual assault kits were
uploaded
and the serial rapist was now linked to 22 rapes.
Thankfully in September 2019, the police identified the rapist,
Willington Roberto de Silva, through a cell phone he had stolen from one of his
victims.
Since his arrest, the state lab has processed most of their sexual assault kit
backlog
and de Silva is now linked to a total of 37 rapes, making him one of the worst
serial rapists ever to have been identified in Brazil.
These two cases not only exemplify the power of a DNA database,
but also the urgent need to test all sexual assault kits,
because even if you don't get a match to a criminal offender,
linking cases through the DNA database gives the police the intelligence they
need to identify
and let's remove these monsters from society.
That's right Vanessa. Regardless whether DNA database legislation has been
passed and fully implemented,
significant investigative value can be gained by testing all sexual assault
kits.
Argentina is another Latin American country committed to extending their DNA
database program.
While the national government has yet to pass comprehensive DNA database
legislation,
this has not stopped states from moving forward on their own.
The trailblazer in this category is the state of Mendoza.
Known globally for its wineries and mountains, Mendoza is also known for having
the strongest
DNA database program in all of Latin America, armed with legislation that
requires arrestees to go into the database,
and in no DNA backlog goal, Mendoza is solving a lot of crime.
Mendoza certainly is impressive, Tim, and we're fortunate to be talking today
with Miguel Marina,
the director of the Provincial DNA Database Public Ministry.
Miguel's coming to us from Mendoza, Argentina.
I should also mention that Miguel served as a 2019 hit of the year judge.
In addition to being a leader in establishing a robust DNA database,
Miguel's lab is also investing in rapid DNA technology to complement its DNA
program.
Miguel, please update us on how rapid DNA is making a difference in Mendoza.
Hi, I'm Miguel Moreno from Mendoza, Argentina. Thanks, Vanessa, and Tim.
It's true that we are extremely proud of our growing DNA program.
In 2016, the Mendoza Congress passed a new law.
With this new law, we have developed a criminal reference database of over 61,
000 in just few years.
With this many profiles in the database, the hits quickly started to flow.
We have a wonderful team that's being able to ramp our database very quickly.
We are also very fortunate to have supportive political leaders that give us a
robust DNA database legislation
and the research needed to make implementation a priority.
As Vanessa mentioned, Mendoza recently added rapid DNA to our workflow,
while rapid DNA can be used for many applications, our lab wanted to focus on
using it on rash crime machines
and reference samples with processing time in less than two hours.
We are now able to confidential offer rash testing for special cases.
We use it to do it well. Now we also can do it faster.
I can tell you this has made our prosecutor in Mendoza very excited about this
technology.
Our lab staff like using rapid DNA when rash cases are requested.
Without rapid DNA, rash cases can disrupt the routine work.
We have had a lot of success with rapid DNA with some very impressive hits.
One case in particular I wanted to mention it was an homicide that occurred in
2020
that we were able to solve in a matter of hours.
The victim was waiting at the bus stop when the perpetrator arrives and tried
to steal his phone and wallet.
After a struggle, the victim ends up with two bullets in the chest and the
mother leave the crime machine,
but leaving behind his cup and the face mask.
In those days we were testing the rapid hit and we saw this was a needle case
to try it with real evidence.
We processed first the cap and in only 90 minutes we obtained the single search
genetic profiles.
The same profiles was obtained from the face mask.
We uploaded to our database in chorus and a few minutes later we have all the
information about the perpetrator
and inform it the match to the authorities.
The next day he was arrested and in 2021 the killer was sentenced to life in
prison.
I really understand that rapid DNA is the best option for rash cases and a very
powerful tool to do our job.
Thank you very much and bye bye from Mendoza.
Fascinating, Miguel, you are so fortunate to have such a strong support from
your political leadership.
This support is certainly a key element in any DNA program.
When country leaders are engaged in the power of DNA to solve crime and exoner
ate the innocent,
DNA programs are positioned for growth and success.
And, Miguel, we certainly look forward to receiving your rapid DNA cases when
the DNA hit of the year program starts accepting new cases next year.
Thank you, Vanessa. Before we leave the topic of DNA database expansion in
Latin America,
it's important we mention the incredible forensic DNA advancements taking place
in Central America.
If anyone was to visit the national DNA laboratories in Guatemala, El Salvador,
Costa Rica and Panama,
it would be very impressed. Many of the labs are accredited,
they have extraordinary forensic DNA scientific talent and their leadership as
impressive vision
for the future of DNA databases in their countries.
In El Salvador, for example, the Congress just passed one of the strongest DNA
databases in the world,
and the national police just built an impressive, brand new 13,000 square meter
crime lab
with an entire section dedicated to their future DNA database.
Guatemala also has an impressive vision.
In addition to establishing a criminal DNA database,
Guatemala's positions itself to take a global leadership role in using DNA to
identify missing persons.
In fact, in the coming months, Guatemala plans to launch a bold public
awareness campaign
to encourage family members to donate DNA in their quest to bring the missing
home.
I'm pleased to have Nancy Sey with us today.
Nancy is a forensic DNA expert with the National Forensic Institute of
Guatemala,
where she also serves as the national DNA database coordinator.
Earlier this year, DNA hit of the year held a special edition program
where we reviewed recent Guatemala DNA database cases.
Nancy was recognized for her work on the 2019 Missing Persons case,
which was the first to be resolved using their new legislation establishing a
Missing Persons DNA database.
Over to you, Nancy.
Thanks, Tim.
Here in Guatemala, we've been missing developing our DNA databases.
The National Institute of Forensic Sciences of Guatemala, known as Synosive,
now has 26 forensic scientists and technicians,
and we process approximately 4,000 DNA reference encased work samples per year.
We are at Redita in 2019 and through a partnership with University of Noctexx
as the Center for Human Identification, we're planning even more expansion in
the years to come.
Our DNA databases are guided by recent legislations passed by our Congress
to operate both criminal and missing persons database.
Earlier this year, DNA hit of the year recognized in a safe for a case that
highlighted the first hit
what the mall experienced due to the missing women's legislations,
known as the Isabelle Cloudina Alert.
I will briefly describe this case.
In February 2019, under the authority of the new law, a mother Sandra,
donated her DNA in hopes of finding her missing daughter, Angel.
Sandra's genetic profile was a story in our goddess missing persons
humanitarian reference database.
In April 2019, following a tip that somebody's were buried in a ravine,
an excavation was carried out and three bodies were found.
One of the bodies was dismembered and could not be identified.
So the genetic profile was searched against the goddess missing persons
humanitarian reference database
and it matched the mother Sandra, allowing us to positively identify Angel's
body.
The case of identifying Angel was obviously a very routine use of a missing
persons humanitarian DNA database.
However, for us, it was very exciting moment because it was not just the first
match under the new law,
but we know it will be the first of many identifications we will be making in
the future.
As Tim mentioned, what the mallest plans for our humanitarian DNA database
program is very ambitious.
What the mallest plan is to become one of the first countries in the world to
appeal to its citizens,
to donate their DNA to identifying missing loved ones.
This will go through a public awareness campaign that we plan to begin later
this year.
We are actively taking steps to set up a pace to handle the increasing samples
created by this campaign.
In addition to that, we are also working with other countries along the
migration groups to establish missing persons DNA databases,
sharing protocols so neighboring countries can share profiles and make matches
across borders.
We are very pleased that we were building a program that will be able to return
many people,
whether living or not to their loved ones going forward.
Thank you so much. Back to you, Tim.
Thanks, Nancy.
Based on the direction Guatemala is headed with promoting their missing persons
database,
this will certainly be the first of thousands of cases resolved in the years to
come in Central America.
Vanessa, what's impressive with forensic DNA database programs is how they take
hold in a region
and quickly spread to neighboring countries. We are certainly starting to see
this happen in Latin America.
Absolutely, Tim. And that is what I enjoy most about DNA hit of the year.
We get to track the progress different regions are making with DNA through real
cases.
Another region of the world that seems to be quickly advancing with DNA
database programs is Southeast Asia.
Hit of the year frequently receives cases from Thailand and Malaysia.
Similarly, the Philippines and Indonesia are both working diligently to expand
their DNA database programs.
As a result, we expect all four countries will soon be submitting many more DNA
hit cases in the years to come.
A further region expanding their DNA database programs is the Middle East.
Impressive projects have already been established in the United Arab Emirates,
Saudi Arabia and Qatar to name a few.
A country in this region whose DNA program also stands out is Israel.
With a population of 9 million and a DNA database of 550,000 criminal offenders
Israel has one of the largest per capita DNA databases in the world.
Not only does Israel have a high concentration of criminal offenders driving an
impressive hit rate,
but they have established an extremely efficient casework program
that allows them to process casework against the database with a lightning
speed.
One case that demonstrates the effectiveness of Israel's world class DNA
database program
is the brutal and senseless murder of Ari Ansticha that took place in 2019.
We're fortunate to have with us today, Neurid Bübelen, head of laboratory at
the Israel National Center of Forensic Science.
Neurid, so glad you can join us today.
Please tell us more about how your country was able to identify Ari's killer so
quickly.
Thanks Vanessa for the introduction and thank you for having me.
It is a great privilege for me to be in this panel today.
Israel's ability to solve crime quickly with DNA is the result of a mature DNA
database
and a streamlined laboratory system.
Our database is now almost 20 years old.
We collect DNA from most criminal categories, a conviction and arrest,
and similar to the United States and some other countries,
Israel legislation allows us to collect DNA from people that are detained
because they enter the country illegally.
This part of our law is one of the primary reasons that we were able to solve.
The rape and murder of 20 years old Ari Ansticha back in 2018.
So on February the 7th, 2019 at 11 a.m.
Ari's relative reported her absence to the police.
Ari volunteered at the youth center in Jerusalem and according to her friend,
she has left the center agitated that morning and went to seclude herself in
nature,
as she often liked to do.
Two-word seven o'clock in the evening at the same day, Ari's lifeless body was
found in
N.E.A.L. in the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Her body was found with signs of harsh violence.
Ari was stabbed, raped and strangled to death.
DNA swaps from the crime scene were immediately collected and sent to the land
for an overnight testing.
As all presumptive tests for semen came out positive,
we have continued to further examination of DNA extraction, quantitation,
education and typing during the whole night and during 8 o'clock in the morning
the next day we had a single male profile generated from all the semen samples
in the case.
So the profile was immediately uploaded to the code is database.
And five minutes later we had the code hit from the criminal reference database
The suspect was located and arrested within the next 12 hours.
So basically Ari's case was solved within less than 24 hours from the time her
body was found.
Upon his arrest, the suspect admitted to the murder, he explained that he ev
aded authorities
and illegally crossed to Israel on the same day for the purpose of committing
terrorist-related crime.
Or his killer was in Israel in Israeli database because he had been detained in
a prior incident
for illegally crossing the Israeli border and his DNA was collected and placed
to the database at that time.
Without the policy that requires people who illegally crossed the border to be
placed in the database,
we may not have solved this case so quickly or perhaps we're not solved it at
all.
Thanks, Neurit. This case is very similar to the Colorado case in the USA that
DNA hit of the year featured last year.
Like the Colorado case, Ari's case demonstrates how having an efficient DNA
program can quickly move
to stop violent criminals in their tracks.
The primary case we'll be reviewing today is the Sarah Yarbrough case, which
was submitted to DNA hit of the year in 2020.
Sarah was a beautiful and energetic 16-year-old teenager whose life was taken
much too early.
On the morning of December 14, 1991, near the city of Seattle, USA, Sarah was
on her high school campus
waiting for a bus to take her and her classmates to a dance competition.
Sarah arrived to campus early. As she waited for her friends, a stranger
appeared and dragged her into a wooded area
where she was murdered by strangulation. There were also signs of sexual
assault.
DNA left by the killer would eventually allow a talented and committed team,
police investigators,
to identify the suspected killer. But the road was long. 28 years would pass
before a suspect would be in custody.
As you'll learn in this case, police exhausted every DNA matching strategy
imaginable for nearly three decades.
When the DNA profile did not match to the known offenders in the United States
CODA system,
the investigators educated themselves on other ways DNA could produce a lead.
In fact, you'll learn that Sarah's case was an early pioneer in phenotypic SNPs
, YSDR testing,
and eventually the investigative miracle of genetic genealogy.
On October 3, 2019, genetic genealogy would identify a suspect.
This brought incredible relief to Sarah's family and the police investigators
that fought so long to find Sarah's killer.
As you'll hear from the investigators and family, the case could have been
solved decades earlier.
They claim that Washington State's DNA database policies, laws, and procedures
are out of date
and prevent police from using DNA to protect victims of violent crimes.
The lead correspondents and interviewers discussing Sarah's case today will be
Dave Reicher and Rock Harmon.
Dave and Rock are no strangers to DNA. Prior to working with Vanessa and me at
Gordon Thomas Honeywell,
Dave Reicher served in the United States Congress and earlier was elected
sheriff of the King County Sheriff's Department,
the same agency that investigated Sarah's murder.
Earlier in Dave's career as a police officer, he was the lead detective in the
Green River Serial murder case
that will eventually be solved when DNA helped tie the killer to 49 murders.
Rock Harmon is a retired Alameda County California deputy prosecutor.
As one of the original prosecutors in the United States to utilize DNA and
criminal trials,
the DNA hit of the years proud to have Rock as part of our program each year.
We'll now turn it over to Dave and Rock as they take us through the Sarah Yarb
rough case.
Thanks Tim, I'm Rock Harmon and I'm here to take you through the incredible
investigation into the murder of Sarah Yarbrough.
Some things are simply not supposed to happen.
Sarah Yarbrough, a beautiful and energetic 16-year-old girl, abducted,
assaulted and murdered right on her high school campus.
This terrible crime took place in an idyllic suburban neighborhood 20 miles
south of Seattle.
Sarah's classmates in the entire community weren't shocked.
How could this happen?
Who would do such a thing?
The investigative journey into the murder of Sarah Yarbrough introduces us to
committed detectives that would never give up hope
and a scrappy genealogist that would guide King County Sheriff's Department to
unleash the power forensic DNA
to finally solve this horrible crime.
Our story starts with hearing from Sarah's parents, Laura and Tom Yarbrough,
who sat down with Dave Riker.
Well thank you Rock.
I'm here with Laura and Tom Yarbrough.
Of course I've been familiar with your daughter's case for many years and it's
so you get asked a lot of questions still.
But some of the questions are a little bit different today than they were a few
years ago.
Technology obviously has changed and of course that's one of the things that,
well it's solved the case.
Technology solved the case. New science solved the case.
But most people don't know her, right?
Especially like mom and dad did.
I think it's important for people to understand why you're here and why you
talk about Sarah and why the science connected with the solving of her case is
so critical.
So what do you want to share about Sarah with us?
She loved school. She loved learning. She loved... she was very creative. She
could draw. She could...
She loved music and she was involved in a program through campfire that did
musicals around the state at grade schools.
So it was teaching drug and alcohol refusal skills to younger kids. She enjoyed
doing that with her close friends. She had fun doing that.
She was kind of time unconscious. She was just a little too... she was kind of
dreamy at times.
She was smart like her dad though. She was really vacillating between... you do
those tests in high school where they tell you what career you should choose.
And every time hers came out that she should be an engineer and she would say,
"I don't want to be an engineer!"
Yeah, she goes... her dream was to be a curator of an art museum. Wow!
But I noticed when we got back her scores from her SATs she had already died by
then. But you have to choose what you think you want to study when you go to
school.
And she put engineering down. So she had to kind of fool you a little bit.
Yeah, I think she was a little torn. Yeah. You know, so on December 12th, 1991,
what happened on that day?
She had been to a basketball game the night before at the high school with her
girlfriend. And they spent the night together.
And in the morning she got up to go to the drill team.
Competition. Competition. They were going to meet at Federal Way High School
and take the school bus to Juanita High School, where the competition was.
So she talked about being time unconscious. She had written down in her planner
that it started at one time and it actually started a little bit later.
So she got there a little bit early and before the other girls.
An officer from the local area came to the soccer field where our son was
playing and asked to walk out and said, "Are the Yarbroughs here?"
And handed us a note that we were supposed to call a detective, a King County
detective.
So no cell phones then. So we went to a... Tom went to a payphone and called.
Yeah, we said we need to come home.
I told us she was missing. I remember you saying, "Wait a minute, have you
called her grandparents? She might be at her grandparents."
But of course they already knew she was dead.
Yeah, they didn't want to give you that news on the telephone.
At first Sarah's family was encouraged that the murder would be solved quickly.
Detective Jim Doyan, one of the department's top detectives, was assigned to
lead the case.
He was excited about the key evidence. While still in his infancy in 1991, a
lot of the killers' DNA was found at the crime scene and the full DNA profile
was developed.
Surely they would get a match. But that would not be the case.
As the first 10 years passed, no DNA match and no suspects.
And quite frankly, the once promising investigation was going cold.
Upon Detective Doyan's retirement, the case was then handed over to Detective
Jim Allen.
Hopefully he could bring new energy to the case. Detective Allen kept coming
back to the one thing that Detective Doyan was originally excited about, the
DNA.
Even though there hadn't been a match in CODIS, could there be other ways to
use the DNA to solve this crime?
You took over the case in the early 2000s. It had been 10 years since the
murder.
All that work, and it's handed off to you with no promising leads in sight.
It must have been pretty overwhelming for you to face what was the information
it was provided to you.
Where did you even begin?
Well, it was a huge thing. I was the newest guy in the unit.
I'd only been in there about a year and a half. Jim Doyan, who was an icon in
our unit,
he came over and plunked a Finkers box on my desk and gave me the case.
So I felt a huge sense of responsibility that I had to do something with this
case.
I started reviewing everything. By that time, there was probably 3,500 tips.
A lot of the tips had been prioritized and eliminated before I got it.
So it was just a lot of sifting through the case file.
And then seeing where we were on the tips, Tom Jensen, who did a lot of work on
the Green Erwer case,
he was able to get all the tips computerized. So we had an easier way of to
filter and search the tips and prioritize.
During that period, were there also times when you'd collect samples from
people to clear them as suspects?
Yes, I mean, that was a big thrust of everything. We knew we had a full DNA
profile, and we simply had to find the match.
You had the killer's DNA. You know it searched repeatedly in the government
databases of criminal offenders with no hits.
But somehow you opened your mind to other DNA strategies and learned about them
. Do you want to tell us about that?
Yeah, I mean, I felt that since we had a full forensic profile, there had to be
some way that we could solve it.
And I always thought there may be, maybe the killer's not in our, maybe we didn
't get scooped up in our original tips.
Maybe there'd be some other way we can do it. So I tried to educate myself. I
just went online and started looking at it.
And other alternatives, familial. That's how I came up with your name. What you
had done in California.
And then SNIP, and I had to teach myself what all this meant and how it fit.
Did you meet Colleen Fitzpatrick somewhere along the way?
I did. The original DNA scientist, Jody Sass, carried the case all the way
through. She had interaction with Colleen Fitzpatrick with Seattle PD.
And she also suggested at the time, you know, maybe I should give Colleen a
call. It might be productive in the Yarbrough case.
So I did. Fortunately, it was the best thing I ever did. When I first contacted
Colleen, the protocol at the time was in the genetic world, was down the Y line
of lineage.
So the first thing I had to do was get a Y profile. I had to find an outside
lab.
So I sent it to an outside lab and got the Y profile and gave it to Colleen. So
she could start working her magic on the genetics.
Yes, you know, at the same time I was looking at the SNIP. It was in the early
days of the SNIP, a single nucleotide polymorphism.
And I didn't know a whole lot about it, but I heard that we could get some gen
otype, or phenotype eye color and hair color.
So I pursued that too along the same time with Colleen.
So Jim, you mentioned all these techniques and protocols that you taught
yourself about, and specifically the YSTR surname searching.
How did you view that in the context of other techniques that might have been
available but not allowed for you?
Well, in one perspective, I knew that we couldn't do familial searching in the
state of Washington.
And in my eyes it was kind of a backdoor way. We weren't limited to codis. And
then we could lead us to a surname that could possibly lead us to the killer.
And investigateably. Yes. Could DNA be used to develop a last name of a
criminal suspect? It had never been done before.
Could this genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick be right? Colleen, it was 2010, and
you began seeing a correlation between DNA and genealogy to solve crimes.
This was four years before YSTR surname searching would be successfully used to
identify a criminal suspect.
And seven years before genetic genealogy would be used in a case. These were
some groundbreaking ideas you had.
Tell us your thinking of how you could use the YSTRs from Sarah's case to
identify a suspect.
Well, at one point, Rocket occurred to me that the markers used by the genetic
genealogy community to do their Y DNA studies were the same markers as the
forensic communities used for their DNA studies, Y-filer, powerplex
amplification kits.
So I figured that given a profile, a Y profile from a cold case, I could
compare that to the genetic genealogy Y databases and come up with a last name.
And that's why I originally came to visit the Seattle Police Department back in
, I think, 2010.
In this case, you did pursue YSTR surname typing to try to provide an
investigative lead. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
Well, yeah. What happens is that data is scattered all over the internet. I
mean, there's probably, I didn't count them, but a couple of hundred thousand Y
STR profiles from genetic genealogists posting their data.
And the key is we have software that can mine that data for matches because if
you do it by hand, you're going to be there the rest of your life.
But software makes it easier to come up with matches. And in this case, we came
up with the name Fuller.
Okay. And what's other information did you come across that helped you try to
focus the importance of that?
Well, it was kind of interesting because, of course, when I found matches and
the name was Fuller, you know, I went and looked in their genealogy to see what
group it was.
And the people we were matching were descendants of a man named Robert Fuller
who lived in Massachusetts in the 1600s.
He was not on the Mayflower, but he was related to the Mayflower Fuller's. So
that was kind of unusual in itself.
But then we came up with a family friend who was named Fuller, and he was ruled
out. He was not the killer. He was ruled out by CODIS.
But I did his Y DNA and his genealogy, and he was descended from the same
Robert Fuller.
So the situation developed crazy ten years ago that we had a suspect, we had
his probable last name, we knew his genealogy going back to the 1600s, and we
had some kind of cousin of his who still didn't know who he was.
And were you able to reach a conclusion about what might have happened to that
lineage?
It was very difficult because you know you're starting the 1600s working down,
and I found a lot of the records in New England over time had been in the homes
of the clerk of that town in the house burned down.
So a lot of the records were actually lost. DNA helps to make up for some of
that.
But it turned out that that particular line going to the suspect and to this
other Fuller that was an acquaintance actually went through a bottleneck a few
generations ago, so it was only the focus of one family.
And then the father died and he only had two or three sons and I was able to
follow one of those to match up with people in the Seattle area.
So Colleen after all that effort that you put into this, how did the
investigation turn out?
Well it went nowhere. The detective Jim Allen and I even looked in the phone
book back then to find out the Fuller's that were in the area.
He managed to find one down in Mississippi. He interviewed, got a DNA swab and
it really went nowhere.
But the real interesting thing was we had that Fuller acquaintance who was a
relative of our suspect at least through the Y DNA, the male line of the family
And that made me curious about how closely they were related and that started
me on my snip discovery path to try and figure out their relationship.
So after all those efforts, the YSTR surname testing didn't pan out.
No.
Unfortunately, YSTR surname searching turned out to be a dead end.
But Colleen's introduction of genealogical concepts to detective Allen got him
thinking.
So after the YSTR surname searching didn't produce an investigative lead, you
started to focus on the chance to try familial searching in Washington.
Why was the promise of familiar searching exciting to you and then later so
frustrating?
Well, to me it was just another tool in our tool bag, investigative tool bag to
fully use the CODIS database to chance that there could be a relative, a close
relative of the perpetrator in the CODIS database.
And we aren't able to search that, it was frustrating, and we approached the
state patrol crime lab and they weren't receptive to doing that.
And I could see that we weren't going to be able to get it done in Washington
and it was frustrating that California could do it.
And we weren't able to follow that same model.
So you retired in 2017?
Yes.
And then handed the case over to the capable hands of Detective Kathy Decker.
15 years, you spent 15 years pursuing that killer.
It must have been pretty hard to walk away.
It was very hard, I think I stayed a couple extra years in the department just
because of that.
I didn't want to let it go.
I was going to move out of the unit into an easy unit and just serve out the
rest of my time and try to get my murder cases through the courts and then
retire.
But I couldn't let it go, I had to keep that case going.
And so how did it feel the day you left it?
It was hard.
It was very hard.
But I knew that Kathy, out of everybody there, that Kathy would keep that thing
going.
And I felt like because we had Colleen working on it, I felt in my heart that
that was going to be the ultimate resolution of the case.
That somehow that was going to give us that tip that we needed.
And then after I retired and I saw what was happening with some of the other
cases, that was real hopeful.
After many years as the lead detective on Sarah's case, it was time for
Detective Allen to retire.
While he was disappointed that he was leaving the case before it was solved, he
was pleased with the new DNA strategies being considered.
With Detective Allen's retirement, Sarah's case would get a new champion,
Detective Kathy Decker.
She, like Detective's Doyan and Allen, believed that the answer to solving this
case was with the DNA.
Kathy, this was a challenging case. Did you understand what you were getting
into when Jim Allen retired? I did. I was actually working in the unit adjacent to the major crime unit that
got this case back when it happened.
I was very well aware of the magnitude of this investigation and how many
detectives in investigative time and hours had gone into trying to find Sarah's
killer.
So, by 2017, DNA from the crime scene was still your strongest asset.
But after over 25 years of searching CODIS and all the other DNA strategies
that Jim Allen used, you still didn't have a suspect.
Were you ready to give up on the DNA?
Oh, absolutely not. You never, ever give up on a case. Rule number one,
technology changes rapidly, and it's our job to keep up on those changes
and to take advantage of every opportunity that we have that might lead to a
successful resolution.
So, in that area, what did you learn that added to things that you felt needed
to be done to try to solve the case?
Well, what I did is I just reached out to any company that I could that I
thought might be able to give us a solution.
And there were other companies out there that were doing some work with DNA.
They were doing some work with composites.
And they were able to give us information such as he has blonde hair, he has
blue eyes.
That was helpful because that allowed us then to take that information, review
the tips that we did have,
review the list of possible suspects that we had, and rule in and rule out
based upon those features.
So, that hair color, eye color information was valuable at the time.
Yes. It proved to be invaluable later on. Yes.
April 25th, 2018. You still don't have a suspect, but tell me why something
important came to your attention that day that changed everything.
That was huge. That was the day that we learned about the Golden State Killer
Case.
There aren't even words that can describe what that felt like, because now we
had a way to work around codists.
We had genetic genealogy. And although we really weren't quite in a level where
we understood all the aspects of that,
it was something new, it was exciting, and there was someone out there that
could help us. And that was Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick.
It's coming back to Colleen Fitzpatrick, the tenacious genealogist.
Her first attempt at identifying the suspect in Sarah's case with YSTR surname
searching didn't produce a suspect.
Would genetic genealogy be different? One thing's for sure, they had a head
start.
Remember that profile developed two years earlier to check for phenotypic
traits?
That profile was developed with the same technology that could be used by Col
leen to search the public genetic genealogy websites.
When you get that call from Detective Decker to move forward, walk us through
what happens next.
Of course, we were just so totally excited. I mean, I felt like that was my
baby in a way.
So we had two genealogists on the case, Gretchen Stack and her sister, Holly
Turk.
They went to town right away on it, and it took really about a month total to
solve it.
They actually had it done in about two weeks, but they didn't tell me because
they wanted to be very meticulous in making sure they got it right.
What did that feel like?
You know, it's an amazing feeling. It's like a door or wall being broken open.
You can see the other side.
We knew that it's a bigger story because you have a family on the other side of
that who's been waiting for answers for 28 years.
And then finally, you can really give them those answers.
So we knew we were creating like a tidal wave of news and emotion that was
going to go somewhere.
But the important thing is we finally identified the man who killed Sarah Yarb
rough.
The match of the killer's DNA to a distant relative in a public genealogy
database
and public records research by Colleen's team of genealogists told the story.
The process identified the killer. Now it's time for Colleen to let detective
Decker know.
Kathy, another important date to mention now, September 2019.
You get a call from Colleen. What does she tell you?
Well, I can remember that date like it was yesterday. It was early in the
morning.
I was at my desk. My two sergeants were in. There were several other
investigators that were in the office at that time.
I take the call and she says, "We've solved the case. We know who murdered
Sarah Yarbrough."
She gives me a name. I can't believe it. I'm literally in shock.
I shout out to my sergeants, to the other investigators that were there.
We put her on speakerphone and there was a lot of yelling and, "Oh my goodness,
we can't even believe this."
We knew we would get there someday, but we couldn't believe that it was
happening right then, right there at that moment.
And it was an incredible time.
Okay, so what's sprung from that event when you had to -- when you notified
everybody, what you learned?
Well, once you kind of move on from the excitement, the exhilaration, you
switch into investigative gear.
Your brain just switches over and you start thinking about, "Oh my gosh, we
have a whole lot of work we need to do, and we need to start doing it now."
We knew we needed to contact the family. We knew that we needed to let our
superiors know.
We needed to let the prosecutor's office know what was happening.
And then, most importantly, we needed to locate the suspect.
And so there was actually a lot of discussion that took place about how to do
that.
We decided to use a sting operation where literally we had detentors that were
out monitoring him, surveying him,
and in so doing, we're able to pick up that most valuable piece of evidence,
which was a discarded cigarette,
that had his DNA that allowed us to make that confirmation at the crime lab,
which was really important.
Finally, after 28 years, the King County Sheriff's Department was closing in on
the killer.
After spending the day calling her leadership, explaining they had a match,
Detective Decker had one more call to make.
A call that she was proud to make, not just for her, but for Detective's Doyin'
and Allen too.
Our son called us and told us that they'd made an arrest, and we were shocked.
And he said Detective Decker would like you to call her.
So we did.
I don't remember exactly what she said. Just gave us the details that they had
a tip on a suspect,
and that they had followed it up and tested the DNA and that it was a match.
How did you feel when you heard that they had a DNA match?
It was just shocked, but you were happy too, I'm sure.
I honestly didn't believe it would ever be solved at that point. It had been so
long.
How many years it had been from 1991 until 2000?
So 28 years?
I do remember when Detective Doyin retired, and one of the other detectives
told me that he'd given him
our daughter's case to keep it on his desk.
And he said he did.
So I appreciate the fact that they just kept doggedly pursuing it.
Dedicated people, new technology and science.
Even though the Yarbrough family had much to be thankful for,
with a suspect finally being identified with genetic genealogy,
the Yarbroughs have important questions for the state of Washington.
Has due detectives Alan and Decker?
Sarah's case could have been solved decades earlier if Washington state had
stronger DNA policies in place.
Why are they in place?
Shouldn't the state do what it can to utilize the full potential of DNA to
solve crime,
prevent crime, and exonerate the innocent?
Even though the three of you may feel such great relief and pride
that you exhausted every DNA tool available to try to solve this case,
and that ultimately it did, it identified a suspect,
I can tell there's something that still bothers you now that you know
all that there is about the case.
Do you want to start and just share your insight or your feelings?
Yes, what bothers me the most is the fact that Sarah's parents had to wait 28
years
to find out who it was that murdered their little girl,
and I think that is completely unacceptable.
And had we been able to do the familial DNA testing,
we probably would have, well we would have solved this case in 2005,
maybe even earlier than 2005.
Kathy, you had mentioned something about the suspect's brother
being a convicted felon and having had to provide a DNA sample
in the context of solving the case with familial search.
Do you want to explain that a little bit?
Yes, that's what was so frustrating for us.
The suspect's brother was arrested for an offense in 2005.
That offense met the requirement to have his DNA uploaded into CODIS.
Had we had the capability to do familial DNA searching,
we would have known in 2005 who murdered Sarah Yaburro.
Jim, why do you think the state of Washington has still not yet embraced
familial searching?
That's a good question.
I know that the state crime lab is run by the Washington state patrol.
Most of our efforts were stopped at the crime lab level.
We heard arguments such as personnel,
too much case load, not enough money.
Let's frustrating.
And I'm sure between the two of you over the years,
you had to follow up leads that pointed to many citizens
that really had nothing to do with the case,
thereby increasing people's concerns about invading their privacy.
Is that something else that would have been, let's say, done away with,
had you solved the crime with familial searching much earlier?
Oh, absolutely.
In this case alone, there were over 4,000 tips.
As every investigator knows, one of the first steps in investigation
is you start looking at and going through your tips.
You prioritize those tips, and then you start interviewing people.
And then you start interviewing families of those individuals.
It takes an extraordinary amount of time.
And yes, it's very -- it would have saved a lot of time on our part,
and it would have really saved a lot of anguish on a lot of people
that we did have to contact and that we did have to question
that had absolutely nothing to do with this case.
How did you feel after all the work you did in this case,
realizing that that system failed, and he never did provide a sample?
Well, interestingly enough, Jim, as I recall,
when we were working in the unit, we actually knew well ahead of that
that the system wasn't working well.
We had detectives in our unit that did nothing but track down sex offenders
that had failed to register.
So we were pretty much in the know as to how it wasn't working.
And so this was just another example of a failed process,
and it was extremely frustrating because this case,
it just should never have gone on this long.
Jim, can you add anything?
Well, yeah, it seemed to be a long trail of failed processes
in the state of Washington with DNA being taken for CODIS
and slipping through the cracks and not being taken,
and the sex offender thing was just another failed process
where nobody takes ownership and things just fall through the cracks.
Sure.
So it's one thing to make the law, that's another thing to follow up.
Sure.
And just to both of you in closing for right now,
how do you feel after everything you put into this case
to learn those things?
It's frustrating.
It's frustrating.
Your work is frustrating enough, but when you realize your own side is
frustrating you.
Well, and I think what's most difficult about this is these aren't issues
that can't be resolved, money issues can be addressed,
resource issues can be addressed.
And so it's not that this is an insurmountable problem.
It is a problem that can well and easily, well, maybe not easily,
but it can be addressed and it can work out.
And again, we have a model to follow, so we're not creating something here
that no one has ever done.
It shouldn't be as difficult as we're making it.
It's not just Sarah, you know that the person who did something like this
is probably not going to be blameless for the rest of their life.
They're probably going to go out and commit additional crimes,
so you wonder what other families are impacted like this,
what other families are going to face, what we faced,
and you have that heartache.
A suspect in the murder of Sarah Yarborough has been identified
with the relentless power of DNA.
A team of three lead detectives that would never give up
and a pioneering genetic genealogist.
With Sarah's killer now off the streets and at custody,
the family and police have peace knowing that he will not be able to hurt
anyone else.
They also hope that Sarah's case will be a reminder to policymakers
and politicians throughout the world, that they should be constantly
evaluating DNA laws to ensure that they are taking full advantage of DNA's
power to protect our communities as well as exonerate the innocent.
Sarah's family had to wait decades longer than they should have
to have Sarah's killer identified.
Hopefully other families won't have to wait so long.
As we've seen with all the cases presented today,
the rapid spread of DNA database programs across the world
is such an important public policy to support as they are solving real cases,
making our world safer and giving justice to victims of crime.
This concludes our 2022 DNA Hit of the Year program.
Vanessa and I would like to thank all the talented and amazing people
that have participated in today's event.
And of course, a big thank you to Thermo Fisher Scientific
for sponsoring the annual DNA Hit of the Year program.
Your sponsorship is truly making a difference in our ability
to share with the world the value of DNA database programs.
It's been a great hit conference. Thank you for joining and see you next year.
Bye-bye.
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