Authorities are trying to solve the disappearance Nancy Guthrie They say they could exploit DNA databases, the same step police took to uncover a decades-long string of murders in California and the fatal stabbing of four college students in Idaho.
This strategy could be fruitful: If non-specific DNA evidence could be linked to someone — even a distant relative — in a shared genealogical database, that would give investigators more information and potentially lead to a suspect in Guthrie’s kidnapping in Arizona.
“It’s an amazing tool,” said Ruth Ballard, a California geneticist who specializes in DNA and has testified in hundreds of court cases. “If it’s a good quality sample and they’re able to get a profile, they can find a result fairly quickly.”
The Sheriff’s Department in Pima County, Arizona, said DNA has been collected so far In the investigation, no matches were found in the national criminal justice database known as CODIS, which contains DNA profiles of convicted felons and, in some states, of people arrested for certain crimes.
“Investigators are currently looking into additional options for investigative genetic genealogy of DNA evidence to verify matches. CODIS is one option out of several databases available,” the Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.
The department said Wednesday that biological evidence from Guthrie’s home in the Tucson area is being examined and DNA profiles are in the lab for analysis.
Guthrie, the mother of NBC co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, has been missing from her home since February 1. Porch camera.
Genealogy sites Ancestry, 23andMe and MyHeritage say they could be required to comply with court orders to obtain information. Another genealogy site, GEDmatch, said its policy was to ask users if they wanted to opt in to let police view their data. The Associated Press sent an email to the companies late Wednesday, asking if they had a role in the Guthrie investigation.
GEDmatch was credited with helping solve a case The so-called Golden State Killer. Police used DNA from the crime scene to find a distant relative and build a family tree that led to Joseph DeAngelo Jr. In 2020, he pleaded guilty to 13 murders and dozens of rapes in California in the 1970s and 1980s.
In Idaho, DNA from a knife sheath helped indicate that Brian Kohberger In the murder of four University of Idaho students in 2022. Investigators used genealogy websites to build a family tree and pulled trash from Kuhberger’s parents’ home in Pennsylvania to make a connection. Kohberger pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The source and quality of DNA evidence held by police can be factors when trying to find matches on genealogy sites, Ballard said.
“It requires a much better sample than CODIS research,” she said.
There could be other obstacles.
“There are a lot of unknowns when you go into these databases,” Ballard said. “The databases are not equal in terms of racial distribution. It is relatively easier to find a Caucasian person because more have uploaded their data and there are more family trees that can be extracted.”