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Tag: COLD

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Highlights

Florida Man Indicted in NY’s First Use of Investigative Genetic Genealogy to Solve Cold Case Rapes

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York City Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban announced that a Florida man has been charged in separate indictments for raping a woman in the Bronx and a woman in Manhattan two decades ago, after new DNA technology linked him to the brutal attacks. These are the first sexual assault cases in the state solved with Investigative Genetic Genealogy. A three-year, $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to solve cold cases was used to fund Investigative Genetic Genealogy. This entails taking crime scene evidence and sending it to a private laboratory to develop a profile which is used to search for consumer DNA databases for genetic relatives who consented to assist law enforcement. Using the suspect’s DNA found at the scenes, a family tree was developed by NYPD’s Forensic Laboratory, and those results helped identify the defendant as Jancys Santiago, 48.
December 2023
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Highlights

San Diego County District Attorney’s Office’s COLD funding leads to conviction of suspect in a 34-year-old cold case homicide

The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, alongside the San Diego Police Department, convicted the killer of Larry Breen whose murder occurred on May 24, 1990. Mr. Breen was a petty officer and cook in the U.S. Navy stationed aboard the USS Fox CG-33. At the time of his death, he had been selected as the President’s chef at Camp David. Mr. Breen’s body was found at his home, slumped against a fence in the backyard. He had been stabbed several times. His car was missing and was later found abandoned over a mile from the crime scene. Despite a thorough investigation by both the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the San Diego Police Department, the murder went unsolved. This 34-year-old cold case homicide was reviewed with funding provided by the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA (COLD) Program and investigated using Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG) and the expertise of the San Diego District Attorney’s Cold Homicide and Research Genealogy Effort (CHARGE) team. A beer bottle with the suspect’s DNA was left at the crime scene. Using FGG, the CHARGE team generated an investigative lead regarding the suspect’s identity. The suspect also cut himself during the attack. Further STR DNA testing of both the bottle and blood confirmed the identity of the suspect, Brian Koehl, leading to his arrest and prosecution. Brian Koehl was sentenced to 16 years to life for the murder of Mr. Breen on November 17, 2023.
November 2023
Events

1st Annual BJA Forensics Programs Grantees Meeting

On behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Forensics Training and Technical Assistance (Forensics TTA) Team, led by RTI International, is hosting the 1st Annual BJA Forensics Programs Grantees Meeting, scheduled for October 2-3, 2023!
October 2023
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Denver DA

Cold Case Homicide Victim Rita DesJardine Receives Justice

A Denver jury found Steven Cumberbatch (currently 61-years-old) guilty of murdering Rita DesJardine. Ms. DesJardine was 36-years old when in December 1994, her body was found in a Denver motel room. The jury found Cumberbatch guilty of one count of murder in the first degree and he was immediately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The verdict in the Cumberbatch case could never have been achieved without that teamwork and the sustained financial support from many federal grants focused on cold case work.
June 2023
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Highlights

Husband of murdered Oregon woman arrested in 35-year-old cold case

The husband of Deborah Lee Atrops has been arrested for her murder, 35 years after her death. The arrest of Robert Atrops was the first major case the Washington County Cold Case Unit has worked on since it began in 2020. The Washington County District Attorney’s Office secured a grant called Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA, which allowed them to launch the Cold Case Unit. The unit focuses on investigating and prosecuting violent crime cold cases involving identified DNA associated with a possible suspect.
March 2023
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Bureau of Justice Assistance

Finding a Serial Killer—and Justice—After 40 Years

Last winter, police in Denver, Colorado, announced that they had solved the cold-case murders of four women who had died about 40 years ago, all of whom had been the victims of one man—a previously unknown serial killer named Joe Michael Ervin. It took years of old-school police work and a cutting-edge investigative technique called forensic genetic genealogy (FGG). It took the combined efforts of law enforcement in Colorado and Texas, along with support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), which used two different grants to help crack the case.
January 2023
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CBS 12 News

New funding to help solve Palm Beach County cold cases

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) will receive a $500,000 grant through the Department of Justice’s ‘Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA’ program. According to PBSO, the sheriff’s office can now send DNA to private laboratories that use genetic genealogy testing. This testing option is currently not available at the sheriff’s office.
October 2022