Use of DNA in serial killer probe sparks privacy concerns

By Michael Balsamo and Jonathan J. Cooper / Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Investigators who used a genealogical website to find the ex-policeman they believe is a shadowy serial killer and rapist who terrified California decades ago call the technique groundbreaking.

But others say it raises troubling legal and privacy concerns for the millions of people who submit their DNA to such sites to discover their heritage.

There aren’t strong privacy laws to keep police from trolling ancestry site databases, said Steve Mercer, the chief attorney for the forensic division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.

“People who submit DNA for ancestors testing are unwittingly becoming genetic informants on their innocent family,” Mercer said, adding that they “have fewer privacy protections than convicted offenders whose DNA is contained in regulated databanks.”

Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested Tuesday after investigators matched crime-scene DNA with genetic material stored by a distant relative on an online site. From there, they narrowed it down to the Sacramento-area grandfather using DNA obtained from material he’d discarded, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.

Authorities declined to name the online site. Two of the largest, Ancestry.com and 23andMe, said Thursday that they weren’t involved in the case.

Paul Holes, the lead investigator on the case, told the Mercury News in San Jose, California, that the investigative team used GEDMatch, a Florida-based website that pools DNA profiles that people upload and share publicly.

Holes, a cold case expert and retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector, said GEDMatch was his team’s biggest tool.

GEDMatch is a free site where users who have DNA profiles from commercial companies such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe can upload them to expand their search for relatives.

Major companies do not allow law enforcement to access their genetic data unless they get a court order.

Holes said officials did not need a court order to access GEDMatch’s database of genetic blueprints.

DNA potentially may have played an earlier role in the case. It was just coming into use as a criminal investigative tool in 1986 when the predator variously known as the East Area Rapist and the Golden State Killer apparently ended his decade-long wave of attacks.

DeAngelo, a former police officer, probably would have known about the new method, experts said.

“He knew police techniques,” said John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Louis Schlesinger. “He was smart.”

No one who knew DeAngelo over the decades connected him with the string of at least a dozen murders, 50 rapes and dozens of burglaries from 1976 to 1986 throughout the state.

After he was identified as the suspect, however, prosecutors rushed to charge him with eight killings.

In addition, police in the central California farming town of Visalia said Thursday that DeAngelo is a suspect in a 13th killing and about 100 burglaries in the area.

In 1975, of community college teacher Claude Snelling was shot while trying to stop a masked intruder from kidnapping his 16-year-old daughter from his home.

Investigators lacked DNA evidence so Snelling’s death and the burglaries weren’t included in the tally of Golden State Killer crimes but fingerprints and shoe tracks will be reviewed for matches to DeAngelo, Visalia Police Chief Jason Salazar said.

Investigators searched DeAngelo’s home on Thursday, looking for class rings, earrings, dishes and other items that were taken from crime scenes as well as weapons.

Meanwhile, DeAngelo’s neighbors, relatives and former acquaintances all say they had no inkling that he could be a serial killer. He worked nearly three decades in a Sacramento-area supermarket warehouse as a truck mechanic, retiring last year. As a neighbor, he was known for taking meticulous care of his lawn in suburban Citrus Heights.

DeAngelo worked as a police officer in the farming town of Exeter, not far from Visalia, from 1973 to 1976.

DeAngelo was a “black sheep” who didn’t joke around with other officers, said Farrel Ward, 75, who served on the force with DeAngelo.

Ward said it’s possible that DeAngelo helped with the search for Snelling’s killer and the elusive burglar but he doesn’t recall DeAngelo directly investigating the killing.

“I’ve been thinking, but there’s no indication whatsoever that anything was wrong,” Ward said. “How could you just go out and kill somebody and go back and go to work? I don’t understand that.”

Later, DeAngelo joined the Auburn Police Department outside of Sacramento but was fired in 1979 after he was caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent.

Investigators say they have linked DeAngelo to 11 killings that occurred after he was fired.

James Huddle said he always hoped police would catch the killer whose attacks prompted him to buy a pistol.

But he was stunned to find out the man arrested was DeAngelo, his former brother-in-law.

Huddle said it was “still just going crazy in my mind.”

Balsamo reported from Los Angeles. AP Writer Paul Elias contributed to this story from San Francisco.