Key Takeaways
- Familial DNA can solve cold cases like JonBenet Ramsey’s by matching unknown DNA to relatives on genealogy sites.
- Using familial DNA has successfully solved cold cases like the Golden State Killer by identifying suspects.
- Law enforcement worldwide should adopt the use of familial DNA to solve more cold cases and bring killers to justice.
Netflix‘s Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey has been a huge success since its release last month. The three-part true-crime documentary series has re-ignited interest in the case, and it introduced a number of alternative suspects that need to be considered. The grisly case could be solved using a relatively new investigative tool known as familial DNA, and this is something JonBenet’s family are pushing for law enforcement to look into.
DNA was found at the crime scene, and this could be used to identify relatives of the unknown sample, by uploading it onto family tree websites. If they could obtain a match, it could be used to zero in on the perpetrator and solve one of the most notorious unsolved crime cases in US history. It wouldn’t be the first time this technique has been used effectively, with a huge number of cold cases being solved in recent years.
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Familial DNA Could Hold The Key To Solving JonBenet Ramsey’s Murder
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Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey |
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Contributors |
John Ramsey |
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Episodes |
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Directed by |
Joe Berlinger |
The brutal murder of JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colorado shocked the world back in 1996, and led to a police investigation riddled with confirmation bias and a series of shocking mistakes. The local police wasted time pointing the finger at JonBenet’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and failed to investigate other areas of interest. There was evidence of an unidentified male DNA sample found on JonBenet’s underpants mixed with her blood, and this is potentially the key to solving the case. Suspects were incorrectly ruled out, and now that DNA technology has advanced significantly since the crime was committed, the samples need testing again. Genealogical DNA testing allows for an unknown DNA sample to be matched to a family member by uploading it onto a family tree website like 23andMe. There was a lot of evidence that wasn’t even tested back in 1996 as the police were so distracted by tunnel vision.
John Ramsey has been pleading with the Boulder police to re-test the evidence, but so far, it has fallen on deaf ears. Similarly to the Menendez brothers’ case, a recent Netflix documentary raised awareness of the crime, and this has led to increased pressure on law enforcement to take action. John Ramsey told The Today Show in the lead up to the release of Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey:
I believe it can be solved if the police accept help from outside their system. That’s been the flaw for 25 years.
The outside help John Ramsey alludes to is the use of familial DNA to finally crack the notorious cold case. The director of the Netflix documentary, Joe Berlinger added:
I don’t understand this institutional intransigence to solving a case. They need help. There are labs, private labs, that can do this, that have offered help. It’s time to solve this case.
Familial DNA has been used to solve a string of cold case murders in recent years. The Golden State Killer’s string of murders and sexual assaults in the 1970s and 80s is probably the most well known case that successfully used this investigative tool to identify the suspect, and finally bring him to justice. Unknown DNA was found at the crime scenes, but law enforcement were unable to match it to any suspects already on the database. This led to the vicious killer going free for years, but that all changed in 2018, when the DNA was uploaded onto a genealogy website called GEDMatch. The genetic profiles already on there were uploaded by relatives of the culprit, (obtained by family tree websites) and they were eventually traced back to a former police officer called Joseph DeAngelo, and he was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison.
The use of familial DNA has been law enforcement’s biggest investigative tool since the inception of DNA itself. It is widely used in the US, and it is spreading across the globe in order to solve more cold cases. In the UK, North Yorkshire Police tried to use familial DNA to link a suspect to the murder of Claudia Lawrence, but they were unable to find a match. However, their use of the method was not quite the same as the one used by law enforcement in the US, and this is likely why it failed. NYC were trying to obtain the DNA evidence by consent from people who had similar profiles, and they traveled up and down the country in their efforts. This isn’t the way to do it. Why not just upload the unknown DNA onto a genealogy website and potentially find a match that way? There has been a lot of debate over the use of these sites to obtain DNA profiles to match to a potential criminal, with claims that there is a lack of consent to do so. This is a flawed argument as it is never actually revealed which individual person’s DNA is being studied. The only person it affects is the criminal who committed the crime, and that can only be a good thing. Here’s hoping law enforcement use it solve JohnBenet Ramsey’s murder and finally bring the killer to justice.
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