Police can now trace serious crime suspects through relatives' DNA
Dutch justice authorities can now compare crime-scene DNA with profiles in two commercial genealogy databases to trace suspects in serious criminal cases, the Public Prosecution Service says.
Police and prosecutors can now compare DNA found at crime scenes with profiles in commercial genealogy databases, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) says. The method can trace distant relatives of a potential suspect, or of unidentified victims. Justice authorities will use only two databases: GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA.
It is meant for cases where extensive investigation has produced no breakthrough and where the tool is judged able to help detection and prosecution. The OM is still drafting a protocol on when it may be used.
The databases work on an opt-in basis, the OM says: users must explicitly agree that their DNA profile may be used to solve serious criminal cases. A user who matches a suspect's profile is not told. That person serves only as a starting point for family-tree research into the possible perpetrator.
The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), the OM and the police ran a pilot for three and a half years, using database DNA in cold cases. It covered six cases, including the 2004 Heuvelmoord murder in Limburg and a woman found dead at the Pietersplas in Maastricht in 2013. A murder case from Zeeland-West-Brabant and three Amsterdam cases with unidentified victims were added later.
In the Heuvelmoord case, two possible relatives of the perpetrator were found in one of the databases, the OM reports. They live in the United States, and a mutual legal assistance request to the US is pending so the lead can be pursued through family-tree research. The Zeeland-West-Brabant cold case also produced a lead on a possible perpetrator.
Sweden has officially allowed the method since last year, and the United States since 2018.
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OM (Openbaar Ministerie)
The Public Prosecution Service, which decides whether suspects are prosecuted and brings criminal cases to court.
NFI (Nederlands Forensisch Instituut)
The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) is the Dutch state's central forensic science laboratory. It carries out scientific investigations of traces from crime scenes, including DNA analysis, for the police, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) and the courts. Its findings are a key part of criminal investigations and prosecutions in the Netherlands.