It’s not like all of the DNA is just mushed together at “the scene”. It’s more specific than that. Like, if his DNA was found underneath the victims’ fingernails, that suggests that they fought him off (or at least tried to). Or if there was blood at the scene that didn’t match any of the corpses, that’s likely to be from the murderer.
We’ll see. Right now he can say he had sex with one of them and in the throes of passion she dug her nails in. There is nobody alive to rebut the statement.
I certainly hope they got the killer and bad things happen to him in prison.
A few years ago, there was a case here of the disappearance of a girl on her way to school. It didn’t look like the police were pursuing the case very diligently, so the public formed search parties to look for her body alongside every country road in the county.
What was really going on was that the police had pretty quickly identified who they were sure was the kidnapper/murderer (distinctive car seen on many security cameras in the area), but they were keeping mum because they hoped that all the search parties and publicity would make the guy nervous and that he’d go try to move the hidden body in the middle of the night. Then they’d follow him and they’d get direct evidence to put him away. However, he didn’t budge and they finally just moved in on him and arrested him. Luckily, there was sufficient evidence in his trunk to convict him. They still have not found the poor girl’s body.
When we heard that the suspect was a PhD student in Criminology, I quipped to my wife, ‘He was working on his thesis.’ Then I saw this:
In a Reddit post removed after Kohberger’s arrest was announced, a student investigator named Bryan Kohberger who was associated with a DeSales University study sought participation in a research project “to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime.”
“In particular, this study seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal offense, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience,” the post said.
Maybe my joke wasn’t a joke?
I’m thinking this DNA had to be something like blood or tissue obtained from one of the victims finger nails. If this was really a “party house” as earlier reported, there would be stranger DNA all over the place.
Classy, Lifetime. Gotta make some bucks on something that practically just barely happened.
Actually, I was joking. But the resemblance is there.
But I’m sure movies are going to be coming.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if you’d been serious, sadly.
Yes, there would. but they have to be able to connect it to someone. Since we don’t know what cards the police hold we can only comment on what is known. So if there is a lot of DNA evidence in the house and only 1 person who has relatives in a public database then all roads lead to that person.
I suspect the police have a lot more information that they are giving the public. And I believe that because the suspect is being held without bond.
I don’t know that that follows.
For an inter-state arrest on a state crime there’s an extradition process. He’s already demonstrated the motivation and ability flee 3/4ths of the way across a continent. Him being allowed to post bail in PA seems unlikely for those reasons alone.
If he was merely a POA, not a suspect, he might have been arrested, held briefly for questioning and released.
We’re all guessing here. I certainly am.
Yeah, the DNA evidence by itself probably isn’t enough. But the police almost certainly have more than that; that’s just the single most glamorous piece of evidence.
I read somewhere that suspect’s parents are stunned. There must have been some awkward conversations.
Parent: Wow! That’s something about those murders right where you live!
Killer: Yeah. See you soon.
Parents: What a coincidence! They are looking for a car just like yours.
Killer: That is weird, isn’t it?
Parents; A SWAT team is here.
Killer: I wonder what they want.
I credit the investigators for doing a great job while keeping things quiet. Thanks to TV, everyone expects murders to be solved right away. Many times its obvious who the killer is. But when you have a “whodunit”, putting the puzzle pieces together can be very time consuming. Media pressure doesn’t help.
Police seized the suspects white Hyundai Elantra in Pennsylvania. It should have traces of blood inside. It would be almost impossible to knife 4 people without getting blood on clothing and shoes. That’s going to transfer to the car.
There’s always a presumption of innocence. More will be learned after the arrest warrant is released.
Link White Hyundai Elantra found at scene of Idaho murders suspect Bryan Christopher Kohberger’s arrest
Because there is a clear motive. So far, no hint of any motive here, unless I have missed it?
It’s astonishing how many people can be traced this way. Four years ago, the NYT said
Already, 60 percent of Americans of Northern European descent — the primary group using these sites — can be identified through such databases whether or not they’ve joined one themselves, according to a study published today in the journal Science.
Within two or three years, 90 percent of Americans of European descent will be identifiable from their DNA, researchers found.
Of course, that’s just Americans of European ancestry. Still, doesn’t this mean the odds of only one person having relatives’ DNA in a public database would be vanishingly small?
It’s funny joking about it, but there really had to be some kind of conversations going on there. Front page quadruple murder near where you went to school, driving the same kind of car you drive? That either had to be mentioned or maybe the parents didn’t want to hear the answers.
If he had any friends in PA, they would surely have given him crap about it, even if they didn’t think he actually did it. It sounds a bit like he’s the socially awkward type without any close friends.
I agree, I can’t see anyone getting bail while awaiting extradition. Extraditable crimes are generally pretty serious to start with, it’s generally not worth the money to extradite someone for petty theft.
That’s either horrifying as a privacy issue or great news for law enforcement. Maybe both. I expect at some point somebody will sue to prohibit police use on privacy grounds.
Pro tip: if you want to commit a crime, try not to make it very newsworthy / social media frenzy-worthy. Your anonymity will last longer when 350 million people aren’t talking about it.
What privacy grounds? If your DNA is in a registry, it’s because somebody donated it; either you or a relative. You don’t get to claim privacy on something you’ve chosen to give another, and you don’t get to claim privacy over another’s (for lack of a better term) donated property.
And, once it’s given up, you don’t get to claim foul if the registry turns the info over to law enforcement, nor do you get to challenge a subpoena of their records.
I don’t think such a lawsuit would succeed.
There have been a number of issues with the fact that the people who send in their DNA don’t know that it may be turned over to law enforcement. It’s reasonable to assume that providing a sample for the purposes of determining your genealogy is not consenting to release it to a third party, even if that third party is law enforcement.
For instance, if you read this disclaimer
You may think that they won’t release customer information to law enforcement.
However, what the police have done is:
Which does seem to be a violation of privacy.
Someone may also not realize that different companies have different rules, thinking that there is some sort of HIPAA type of regulation covering all of them. So, while 23and me won’t voluntarily turn over info, other places like GEDmatch will.
And one may think that it’s a small price to pay to catch serial killers, and if that was all it ever would be used for, then maybe that’s the case. But that’s not how law enforcement works, such a tool will be used more and more for more and more trivial cases.