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High profile arrest led Ala. police to genealogy testing

03/19/2019 Law Enforcement News

By: The Associated Press, policeone.com

OZARK, Ala. — A truck-driving preacher accused of killing two teenage girls from Alabama nearly 20 years ago was found with the same genealogy database techniques used to apprehend the suspected “Golden State Killer” last year.

Law enforcement interest in using genetic genealogy to crack cold cases has ballooned since the high-profile arrest of a suspect in the California serial killings, who was found by running crime scene DNA through a genealogy database, said CeCe Moore, chief genetic genealogist with Parabon NanoLabs. The same company did the searches in the Alabama case.

Police Chief Marlos Walker comments during a press conference Monday, March 18, 2019 announcing the arrest of Coley McCraney of nearby Dothan for the 1999 slayings of Dothan teens J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett. McCraney was arrested Friday and is held in the Dale County Jail with no bond. (Jay Hare/Dothan Eagle via AP)
Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, both 17, disappeared after setting off for a party in southeastern Alabama on July 31, 1999. Their bodies were found the next day in the trunk of Beasley’s black Mazda along a road in Ozark, a city of 19,000 people about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Montgomery. Each had been shot in the head.

 

Full story: https://www.policeone.com/police-products/police-technology/articles/483271006-High-profile-arrest-led-Ala-police-to-genealogy-testing/

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