Genealogy

After police used a new technique to arrest a man suspected of being the Golden State Killer, a Maryland legislator proposed a law that would prohibit use of a familial DNA database for the purpose of crime-solving. House bill 30, sponsored by Delegate Charles Sydnor, D-Baltimore County, seeks to prohibit searches of consumer genealogical databases for the purpose of identifying an offender in connection with a crime through their biological relative’s DNA samples. In 1994, the state enacted the Maryland DNA Collection Act, which authorized the gathering of DNA for an official investigation of a crime, to identify human remains, and to identify missing persons, among other purposes. In 2008, Chapter 337 amended the Collection Act to allow the state to gather and retain DNA from people arrested for burglary or violent crimes at the time of their arrest. more

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota man was arrested last week after DNA from a used napkin he threw away at his daughter’s hockey game matched DNA left at the scene of the brutal 1993 stabbing death of a Minneapolis woman.

It's been 45 years since the body of Linda Ann O’Keefe was discovered in Newport Beach,

A H istory of  M ultnomah County Sheriffs  mid-1800s to 1989 Reprinted with written permission from Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association "A History Of The Oregon Sheriffs" 1841-1991 ------------- by Linda McCarthy Published by the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association Copyright 1992 by The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association www.oregonsheriffs.org

Kevin Konther, 53, was taken into custody on Thursday at his home in Southern California and booked on suspicion of rape, kidnapping and child sexual abuse, Orange County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Braun said. One of the victims was nine years old at the time of the attack. Konther was identified as a suspect by sheriff’s detectives using techniques similar to those used in recent years to help solve a number of older crimes. Last year, a 73-year-old former police officer was arrested over the ‘Golden State Killer’ string of murders and rapes across California in the 1970s and 1980s.

The young American couple set out on a trip in 1987, speeding toward Seattle, Washington, in a gold van, when they crossed paths with a killer. The man raped Tanya Van Cuylenborg and shot her in the head. Jay Cook was beaten and strangled. The killer left a pair of plastic gloves inside their vehicle, a gesture one detective interpreted as a taunt: You'll never catch me.  That was true for more than three decades.