THE BRYAN KOHBERGER TRIAL NEARS and I'M JUST AS INTERESTED IN THE INVESTIGATIVE GENETIC GENEALOGY DNA EVIDENCE ASPECT OF THE CASE

September 5 2025: Just a note here... As you may know Kohberger decided to admit his guilt and there is no trial. He has his sentence and is in prison for life. 

THE BRYAN KOHBERGER TRIAL NEARS and I'M JUST AS INTERESTED IN THE INVESTIGATIVE GENETIC GENEALOGY DNA EVIDENCE ASPECT OF THE CASE

It's been a while since I posted about my interest in the "Idaho Four" Murder case.  Although I'm not a follower of True Crime podcasts in general, I have spent many hours listening to various podcasts about this one. Some of the podcasters and the people they interview make me crazy because, overall, the man has been convicted and is assume to be guilty even when they make a mention of that fact that in the United States we presume innocence, while going on to talk about him specifically as the murderer. Listening to a variety of opinions is good because it certainly opens one's mind to possibility. For instance, I do think there is reason to consider that there was more than one murderer involved in the killing of the four students, two weapons, two styles of stabbing or gouging, and a timeline that would mean to me that a person would probably have to be a killing professional to kill four persons so quickly.  Day by day, as more information that was kept away from the citizen and the media, is released, some notions are challenged, while others make more sense.

It's been a couple years now since Koberger, once a PhD. candidate student studying criminology, was arrested.  His lawyers are thorough and a third has recently been put on a case in which many thousands of documents must be looked over by attentive staff. This case includes much that is modern such as videos, door bell cameras, cell phone pings, and the DNA  which is "Touch DNA." Using Genealogy database as well as going through his family's garbage cans, the FBI matched his father with "Touch DNA" on the metal button of a leather knife protector left at the scene.  The knife itself has not been found. The database and the relative did not give permission. But what's in place to stop law enforcement?

As a genealogist, the use of Genealogy databases and DNA testing service databases is of the most interest to me. It's clear that everywhere we go and everything we do, we are leaving trace evidence of our existence. I was thinking about this the other day because I'm the only person on earth besides her owner, a friend of mine, who can hold a small Jack Russel terrier named Princess. Princess is extremely protective of my friend and/or is terrified of just about every other human or dog that lives. Princess has been shedding all over me, all over.  I see that and I think about shedding a few skin cells wherever I go.

I think we are all challenged with a conflict here of wanting a murderer caught but also wanting our personal privacy. In a recent court pretrial ruling it was determined that this DNA evidence would not be used...

KREM : KOHBERGER PRETRIAL DETERMINATION DNA

Excerpt: Both sides agreed not to introduce evidence obtained through Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG). Instead, the state will rely on a "tip" that led to Khoberger. The court also reserved ruling on a motion involving evidence of alternative perpetrators, requiring the defense to submit offers of proof by a set deadline.

On the topic of DNA evidence, the court granted a motion to exclude misleading population comparisons related to likelihood ratios presented to the grand jury. However, it would not restrict similar questioning during the trial. A defense motion to exclude testimony about an "inconclusive" DNA likelihood ratio was denied as moot, as the state said it would not use it as inculpatory evidence.

Here is an explanation of TOUCH DNA https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-46051-9

Touch DNA: impact of handling time on touch deposit and evaluation of different recovery techniques: An experimental study

C 2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

ETHICAL USE OF DNA DATABASES BEHIND CAPTURE OF GOLDEN STATE KILLER - EXCELLENT ARTICLE FROM LA TIMES (UPDATED APRIL 2021)

The article by Paige St John which begins on the front page of the Los Angeles Times,  paper edition, dated December 10th, is detailed and excellent but at this moment I haven't found a link for it.  In my labels below I've listed the companies that figure in the process in which the killer's DNA matched others.  The Golden State Killer mystery was one that many a professional and citizen sleuth tried to solve. No doubt he needed to be caught.  But we all wonder if our DNA that we so willfully submit for the purposes of meeting long lost relatives and solving genealogy research problems, is really as private and secure as we desire.

I may have mentioned that I've never taken a DNA test myself.  My own research is off and on.  There are things that took many years for me to find, again not looking every day for twenty years but still.  

I remember the day I sat next to a new researcher at a Family History Center who got one spool of film and went back six generations in her German heritage family in that afternoon.  Because I was working on ancestors in a Central - Eastern European country and the records were sloppy and didn't have details of the German records it has taken me many years to get back close to 1800. I'm forever interested but not obsessed.

And so you must ask yourself what you are giving up about yourself in hopes of gaining in research.

I will search for this article again in the near future, hoping it's considered important enough to have a link.  If not, search out the paper edition.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

Here is the link LA TIMES UNTOLD STORY OF HOW THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER WAS FOUND

ERASING YOUR DNA : HEATHER DEWEY-HAGBORG

THREE DNA TESTS LATER HE KNOWS WHY HIS GREAT GRANDFATHER WAS MEAN TO HIS GREAT GRANDMOTHER

Got to talking to a man at a coffee house who brightened when I told him I do genealogy research and family history writing.  He was just waiting to tell someone who would understand.

He took DNA tests from three different companies and learned that genetically as of his great grandmother's line, he is NOT a member of a particular Scottish Clan /Surname but another.

"I always heard that my great grandfather treated her like crap," he said.  "She was young and pretty, maybe 21, and clearly she had an affair. I had to tell my mom."

This is one of the reasons why some people don't want to take a DNA test, do not want to know.

His mother had invested in so many clan logo designed items from coffee mugs to crests on the walls.

FIVE SISTERS ALL HAVE A DIFFERENT MAIDEN NAME FOR MOM : QUESTIONS FROM READERS of ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

QUESTION FOR ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

My mom, who was born in the 1930's, died a few years ago. I started doing the genealogy for her family.  My four sisters and I got together and we all have remembered a different maiden name for mom. Three of the names begin with a the same letter.

I took a DNA test - maternal - and mom said she was Italian - but no Italian showed up on the test.  Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak areas did.

Your advice, Please!

ANSWER

The situation isn't as uncommon as you may think. I suggest you proceed with standard research methods and see what comes up. Mom may not have known her own ancestry, she may have been adopted - and not been told, she could have been lied to or her own mother might have been. Or she could have been born with one name and her own mother might have remarried and her new husband adopted her.

1) Get a copy of her death certificate and/or burial and see what maiden name is mentioned.

2) Get a copy of her birth certificate and see what maiden name is listed.

3) Send away for her original application for Social Security which she probably applied for in the 1950's for her first job.

If the maiden name is consistent on these three, or appears with a slight variation, it's probably correct.

Consider the following: That the maiden name was pronounced in another language but could have been assumed to be spelled a certain way by the person who was writing it down. That a formal or informal surname change may have occurred.  Run an Internet check on the surname and see if it comes up as clearly Italian or Ukrainian or what ethnicity it suggests.  See if  you can find one of those on-line translators that also has a voice that pronounces the word and think about how you'd spell that. Find the meaning of the name. Consider that the name might mean the same thing - or similar - but in different languages. Or changed to reflect a pronunciation that is "easier."

I've encountered the following: An S added to the ending of the name. A common name in Hungarian turned into the same meaning in English ie. Szabo is Tailor. The suffix of a name, such as ski, szke, son, dottar, removed from the name to make it shorter. Siblings with different surnames due to being half siblings - which they knew but descendants did not. Silent first letters of names eliminated in pronunciation. Surnames that are changed to eliminate confusion of multiple consonants.

4) Since she was born in the 1930's let's get her on the 1940 census and see if we can follow her parents or siblings back to the 1930's, 1920's, as far back as we can go. If the confusion continues, well, try to find her parent's marriage certificate. Did they marry in the Old Country or here? In the Old Country, their marriage may be in a church record rather than a civil registration.

Finally DNA is proving how nomadic or mobile humans have been and how much ethnicity and race are mixed.  Quite possibly your mother's ancestors simply moved from a Central-Eastern European country to Italy and considered themselves culturally Italian.

I can't wait to hear what you learned!

Christine

C 2018 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot