The University of Idaho Murders: A Conversation on Investigative Genetic Genealogy with IGGNite DNA Founders Nancy Landini and Lisa Needler

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[00:01:33] Content warning. This episode contains discussion of violence and murder.

[00:01:50] Investigative genetic genealogy is at the center of the University of Idaho murders.

[00:01:56] We're talking, of course, about the brutal quadruple homicide of students

[00:02:01] Kaley Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Zana Kernodal and Ethan Chapin in 2022.

[00:02:07] Defendant Brian Kohlberger, a former criminology PhD student,

[00:02:12] stands accused of stabbing the four victims to death in a house in Moscow, Idaho.

[00:02:18] On the prosecution side of things,

[00:02:20] IgG appears to have helped bring Kohlberger onto the radar.

[00:02:25] At the crime scene, investigators discovered a knife sheath that had DNA on it.

[00:02:30] They used investigative genetic genealogy to trace the DNA straight back to Kohlberger.

[00:02:36] In December of 2022, investigators secured garbage from the Kohlberger family residence in Albrightville, Pennsylvania.

[00:02:43] Tests uncovered Kohlberger's father's DNA in the trash,

[00:02:47] which was a familial match to the DNA on the knife sheath.

[00:02:51] But the defense has also been quite focused on IgG.

[00:02:56] Filings from the defense team led by attorney Ann Taylor have included numerous requests to receive all of the information on the IgG that was done to help identify Kohlberger.

[00:03:08] Now, the defense has complained in filings that they need all of the IgG workups.

[00:03:14] The prosecution, on the other hand, has retorted that the IgG materials amount to a tip that led to a breakthrough and that they won't be using any of it in court.

[00:03:24] So what's going on here?

[00:03:27] To help us break down the topic of IgG in the Idaho case specifically, we're proud to bring on two experts,

[00:03:34] Ignite DNA founders Nancy Landini and Lisa Needler.

[00:03:38] These two investigative genetic genealogists both received graduate certificates for forensic genetic genealogy from the University of New Haven

[00:03:47] and they've also both volunteered with the DNA DOE project.

[00:03:50] Together, they founded IgGNite DNA, a firm that provides forensic investigative genetic genealogy services to law enforcement.

[00:03:59] Their mission is to help investigate unidentified remains cases as well as other cold cases.

[00:04:04] But now let's dive into the Idaho case.

[00:04:09] My name is Ania Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:04:12] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[00:04:14] And this is The Murder Sheet.

[00:04:16] We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[00:04:23] We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:04:25] And this is The University of Idaho Murders, a conversation on investigative genetic genealogy with Ignite DNA founders Nancy Landini and Lisa Needler.

[00:05:20] To start off Nancy and Lisa, can you please introduce yourselves?

[00:05:25] Tell us a little bit about your professional backgrounds and just tell us about how you got into this work.

[00:05:31] My name is Lisa Needler and I have held a variety of jobs over my lifetime.

[00:05:38] But I recently got involved in genetic genealogy after taking my own DNA test in late 2019.

[00:05:46] I discovered family mysteries like many people do.

[00:05:50] Nothing all that interesting on my side, but I learned how to help other people through the course of the next few years and then decided to take it to the next level and take the University of New Cleveland's

[00:06:02] forensic genetic genealogy graduate certificate program where I met Nancy along with a lot of other really great people.

[00:06:10] And that led me to become a volunteer with the DNA DOE project and the formation of our company Ignite DNA.

[00:06:19] But it's been a long process and a lot of learning, a lot of learning about traditional genealogy, the right way to do things, best practices

[00:06:27] and keeping up with that and being part of that industry is a kind of a daily process.

[00:06:33] I'm Nancy Landini. Professionally, I manage cybersecurity risk for a bank, but I got into genetic genealogy probably about six years ago now after building out my own family tree.

[00:06:46] And like Lisa said, solving some genetic mysteries.

[00:06:50] I got involved with an organization called Search Angels and I've done a lot of adoptee genetic genealogy work, identified birth family for folks who either know they're adopted or who have misattributed parentage that becomes a parent when they do their own DNA test.

[00:07:07] I'd done the genealogy graduate certificate from Boston University and then was part of the inaugural forensic genetic genealogy program, graduate certificate program at University of New Haven with Lisa, she mentioned.

[00:07:19] Yeah, that just opened so many doors. We've made so many great connections with folks associated with the University of New Haven program plus the affiliations they have.

[00:07:29] So I've been a volunteer now at the NA DOE project for over three years. Also took on the role of managing their finances on their finance manager.

[00:07:39] I'm on the board of directors for the DNA Justice Foundation. And then I've also volunteered and solved some criminal cases with a cold case coalition, which is now part of Intermountain Forensics.

[00:07:49] I'd like to ask a really basic question. What is investigative genetic genealogy? How does it work?

[00:07:57] So traditionally we've called genetic genealogy is when you're just solving cases that are not related to law enforcement, right?

[00:08:03] So misattributed parentage, adoptee cases, that type of thing. Investigative genetic genealogy, forensic genealogy, they're often used interchangeably.

[00:08:11] And then recently they've started to become combined into forensic investigative genealogy. So you'll see the acronym FIG a lot.

[00:08:19] But that means that there's a law enforcement application. So it could mean you're solving unidentified human remains cases and which have no criminal court complications.

[00:08:31] Really, we were just, we have unidentified remains typically they're cold cases. We solve those and identify the family, get in touch with the family and repatriate the remains if possible for criminal applications.

[00:08:44] That's a whole, it's much greater level of scrutiny. And those forensic application really have to be very careful about making sure that we're super conscious of our cybersecurity, making sure that we're keeping track of limiting access to all of the data that gets generated as part of a case.

[00:09:04] And then it's stored properly and either handed over to law enforcement properly at the end or deleted. And when it's no longer deemed necessary for us to retain it, you know, we have, there's just a lot more scrutiny and things that we need to be careful of when we're doing anything that involves potential criminal case.

[00:09:23] To take it in on that show, you're taking DNA and DNA matches. And that's part of somebody's genetic network. You're identifying two separate sides, building family trees back to what they call most common, most recent common ancestor or MRCA.

[00:09:41] And then you build those trees back down through time, closer to our time to find living people that could be either your potential subject, subject whoever could be the subject of that contributor of the DNA sample.

[00:09:56] So whether that's a DO case, a suspect case or the ADOPTI or the unknown parent, it will lead you back to by building the trees back in time and then back forward. That's a very simplified version of it. The genealogy can take hours and hours and hours to get there for years.

[00:10:19] What kind of resources do you use to build that sort of web of genealogy?

[00:10:26] So when we're talking about IGG, so whether it's unidentified human remains or criminal cases, suspect DNA, we're limited to two databases that allow by their terms of service law enforcement use. And that's Jed match and family tree DNA.

[00:10:44] And both of those platforms have the ability for their consumers to either opt in or opt out of being visible to those law enforcement kits. Law enforcement kits have to be uploaded in a separate way, not the way an actual consumer would process their upload their DNA files into those platforms, but they have separate portals that are only for law enforcement use.

[00:11:07] Those kits are not visible to average users. So you'll have your DNA and Jed match, you're not going to be able to visibly see anybody who matches you that's part of a law enforcement case. And so it's a one way view from law enforcement side.

[00:11:21] Once you have the DNA matches, then you have to build your trees. And so typically for most of us we will use ancestry as a tree building resource. Of course, making our trees private and unsearchable is very big.

[00:11:34] You do every precaution you can to make sure that nobody can access or view your trees. I know some companies use only software that would be on their individual computer, or other web based apps that would not be linked to ancestry directly.

[00:11:52] We've not had a problem using ancestry in the past. We're just very careful what files we save to and how we save files so there's no back end ways of retrieving data from our trees.

[00:12:06] But usually we use those records on there. And then that's having subscriptions to pretty much every genealogy based system that's out there or service or search. They all require subscriptions and you can't do without one of them, really.

[00:12:28] Well, you talked about sort of how careful you need to be when doing this and sort of I'm getting the sense that there are some rules and practices around how this sort of technique can be used, especially around criminal cases and, you know, things that might involve like homicides or whatnot.

[00:12:45] And I'm wondering, can you speak a bit about that? Like what are the rules? I'm sure there are a lot. Like if you could kind of in a nutshell boil down like what sort of things do groups like Ignite DNA but also law enforcement need to keep in mind when they're trying to use this technique.

[00:13:02] Right. So I think in the law enforcement side, it's similar to how they would run any investigation, right? They have to follow chain of custody as a sample leaves their lab.

[00:13:14] And goes for further processing in order to have that data file generated that can be used for IGG that that chain of custody continues. What ends up is, you know, a data file, bioinformaticist make sure it's properly formatted and the quality is good enough to be accepted into one of the two databases that can be used.

[00:13:34] And then they will upload it and then provide law enforcement with the way to access that. And they may can share it with a genealogy team if they have one that's helping them.

[00:13:45] And then we make sure that if we have access to a kit, law enforcement kit that's been uploaded, that law enforcement always has access to that as well.

[00:13:54] And that, you know, it's really their property where just we just have access to it to do the job that we were hard to do. And then when it's done, then it's up to them if they want to pull that kit down and make it unsearchable no longer part of the database.

[00:14:09] It's really important that the data gets uploaded in the correct fashion to GEDMATCH Pro and through the law enforcement portal for FTDNA. That way these kits are considered research kits, and we can see the matches out or whoever the researcher is on that case can see the matches out.

[00:14:30] But the general public does not see that they match that kit. That's very important, as well as like if you are using Ancestry, they recently over the last year or so changed where photos aren't necessarily considered as private as they used to be.

[00:14:47] So even if your tree is private, somebody could see a photo that you've shared. So it's important that you don't save photos to your tree or you save them as a screenshot on your own so that it's not a link to somebody else's tree.

[00:15:03] There's just various little examples like that where you might save the web link to something versus creating a pathway from that website to your tree.

[00:15:16] Yeah, I mean above all I think you just always want to make sure that you're abiding by the terms of service, the platforms that you're using because you would not want anything that you do to jeopardize a case.

[00:15:27] So you would want to make sure that everything is above board, you're operating ethically, following all the terms of service, not breaking any of the rules along the way so that there's no way that anything can come back and sort of jeopardize the output of your work.

[00:15:41] That makes a lot of sense. One thing that just has piqued my curiosity, why is it so important for things to be, I guess like not like that like Ancestry couldn't possibly access your files or that you have to keep things sort of private when you're on that interface?

[00:15:56] Is it like you don't want people to see or what would be the concern?

[00:16:03] So I guess the concern would be that as you're building out the tree, you're using information that maybe somebody else has already determined.

[00:16:13] If they've already built out a family tree for their own line and that happens to tie in with one of the cases you're working, you may, if their tree is public, you can look at that, get some, you know, you'd also want to do the verification on your own as far as making sure that there's no

[00:16:25] records are accurate, but you would never want somebody to be able to come in and view your tree because it could be triangulating down to somebody who's a suspect in a criminal case.

[00:16:38] And in many instances when we've done work, whether it's for unidentified human remains or suspect cases, you have things like misattributed parentage, you might have adoptions in there.

[00:16:49] You've got through research and work, you've got the actual biological family lines, not the legal family lines.

[00:16:58] And you wouldn't want somebody else to see that and then be presented with information that they didn't have previously.

[00:17:09] Yeah, that's a bad way to find anything out.

[00:17:11] Yes.

[00:17:12] It is. And it's also one of those things we have to be very careful with any close relatives of our either suspect or do because we are not the informing agency in any way.

[00:17:26] We would not notify next again, we would not be the ones to let them know their cousin, first cousin Larry is a suspect in a case that's not our, we are not the long horseman, we are researchers.

[00:17:38] So we try to take our role seriously in that regard.

[00:17:43] How do courts view the use of investigative genetic genealogy?

[00:17:48] What we've seen to date, and the majority of the cases that have gone through the court system have been cold cases, right?

[00:17:54] So they're many years old.

[00:17:56] In some cases, they haven't even made it into a trial because somebody has taken a plea deal of some sort.

[00:18:03] But by and large, they have ruled the work done, the investigative genetic genealogy work as providing nothing more than a lead to law enforcement.

[00:18:16] So it's not evidence nobody would ever be arrested based on a lead that we provide to law enforcement.

[00:18:23] If we say we think it's one of these three brothers, we've prioritized the order because this brother was in the actual geographic genealogy.

[00:18:32] We're in the geographic area at the time in question. Somebody else may not have been, but that's up to law enforcement then to apply their normal investigative approach.

[00:18:44] They will go and do their investigation with that lead just like they would if they received the lead in any other fashion.

[00:18:50] And then if they obtain DNA voluntarily or surreptitiously or however they do it through a subpoena, if they obtain DNA,

[00:18:59] and that DNA comparison is going to happen in CODIS, it's not going to happen in public genetic genealogy database.

[00:19:08] So they will, that becomes the evidence and that becomes admissible in court.

[00:19:13] But the IGG work is really just a lead.

[00:19:16] That makes a lot of sense. It's almost like to use it, I love my dumb examples.

[00:19:21] So it's like the difference between me calling the police saying, hey, I see my neighbor burying a body in the backyard.

[00:19:29] Like they wouldn't just be like, all right, arrest him and convict him.

[00:19:33] They would go check to make sure that that was indeed happening.

[00:19:36] Yeah, yeah, I had given that example to Lisa when we were kind of preparing for this.

[00:19:41] But yeah, if you have an eyewitness calls and says, I saw a crime committed.

[00:19:46] Great, you take that information, right? But then what do you do? You got to corroborate it.

[00:19:49] You see, is there video? Is there anything else around here that could back up that story?

[00:19:55] And if you have a video surveillance, well, the video surveillance might get entered into court.

[00:19:59] The eyewitness may never come into court, may never be admitted, may never even be shared with opposing counsel.

[00:20:04] It's just, oh, we have this video footage of the crime being committed.

[00:20:09] The biggest fear a lot of us have in regards to this being admitted or being viewed by other parties

[00:20:15] is that living people's private information is contained within that.

[00:20:21] And I don't think that should ever leave law enforcement, these cousin matches,

[00:20:26] these people that are considered genetic witnesses, they weren't a party to any of this and they were,

[00:20:32] they were a small piece, right?

[00:20:35] So we just needed them for a hot minute while we built their trees back.

[00:20:39] Their ancestors were of interest but leading to the suspect,

[00:20:43] they should not be considered public knowledge in any way.

[00:20:48] If somebody comes out later and finds out that they were related to that person,

[00:20:52] that's on them if they choose to share it.

[00:20:54] It shouldn't be the law enforcement that depends the courts to ever divulge that information.

[00:21:01] Yeah, it does seem like a privacy issue and that actually dovetails really nicely with my next question,

[00:21:07] which is just, you know, you guys have been sort of keeping a prize of what's going on in IGG

[00:21:12] and sort of, you know, trends and things like that.

[00:21:15] Have you noticed any trends around defense attorneys using any modes to attack IGG

[00:21:21] or doing things like where they're trying to, you know, kind of publicly expose more people within that tree

[00:21:29] that gets built out as part of IGG?

[00:21:31] I guess what sort of have you seen around that as far as the kind of attempts to counter IGG in some of these criminal cases?

[00:21:37] Well, I think it's really important to remember that everyone has right to a good defense

[00:21:45] and everybody is innocent until proven guilty.

[00:21:48] And I think the defense has the obligation to find anything they can and try to push every limit

[00:21:55] in order to provide a good defense for their client.

[00:21:59] At the same time, this is why we need more rules and regulations regarding the use of it

[00:22:06] and making sure that people who are doing IGG work are properly qualified to do it

[00:22:13] who understand basic proof standards or ethical research and behaviors and things like that.

[00:22:21] So I think it's kind of a two-handed thing here.

[00:22:25] It's not that we want the defense not to challenge it or look into ways to defend their client,

[00:22:33] but if the IGG is being done right, there's no reason to question it.

[00:22:39] And the SDR analysis that happens, that has to be a direct hit on CODIS and CODIS.

[00:22:46] If that name says these three brothers could be one of them and one hits,

[00:22:50] that has nothing to do with the genealogy at all.

[00:22:57] It just provided the name.

[00:22:59] So it really should not be anything admissible in a court.

[00:23:04] Yeah, we've seen different cases that it's been challenged.

[00:23:11] It's been called everything from junk science to a major invasion of privacy

[00:23:16] because like Lisa said, when you're building out those trees,

[00:23:20] you're taking a lot of genetic relatives that match your unknown suspect kit

[00:23:27] and building out those family trees and then building back down to identify a family of interest.

[00:23:34] And you have living people in that tree.

[00:23:38] And so these are people who the argument has been made in court have provided their DNA to do their own personal family trees,

[00:23:49] things like that to do for their own personal use and in GEDMATCH and haven't necessarily,

[00:23:55] even though they've opted into law enforcement, maybe they didn't understand the terms of service is one argument we've heard,

[00:24:03] but also people who didn't upload their DNA.

[00:24:08] So their second, third, fourth cousins who never uploaded, never took a DNA test, never uploaded to DNA,

[00:24:15] but there they exist in the trees.

[00:24:18] You know, they haven't consented to being part of this.

[00:24:22] And I think that's where they've tried to raise some privacy issues around that.

[00:24:26] But we're not disclosing that information and that's no different than anybody else using those platforms.

[00:24:32] That's known. They'd be getting the same information if they were building out a personal family tree or trying to solve an adoption case.

[00:24:39] And so when that, when that information is provided over to the investigating agency, it's completely anonymized.

[00:24:46] We're only sharing the immediate family information and identifying how we got there,

[00:24:51] but we're not sharing an entire family tree with a thousand names in it, including many living people.

[00:24:55] In the Idaho case, the FBI apparently took DNA from a knife sheath and loaded it on to some public genealogy sites.

[00:25:05] Is that sort of action by law enforcement common?

[00:25:10] Well, I think, I don't think we can say it's common yet.

[00:25:14] I think we can say we've seen it used predominantly in cold cases as the use of it and the knowledge of the, of what IDG can do becomes more common knowledge to, I guess, general law enforcement agencies and investigating agencies.

[00:25:32] I can see that use becoming more prevalent.

[00:25:35] So in the Idaho case, obviously it's receiving a tremendous amount of publicity. It's an active case that it was used in.

[00:25:44] So I can see that spurring interest for people who are following this maybe try to follow that path sooner in an investigation rather than years on.

[00:25:54] But as far as, you know, obtaining DNA evidence, right, they're going to follow all the same processes that they would in any criminal forensic investigation.

[00:26:07] The recommendation from IGG practitioners is that all other leads should be exhausted before you go to IGG.

[00:26:16] So you obviously should be checking your criminal databases first and then, you know, anything else that you have available to you before you decide to pursue the investigative genealogy route.

[00:26:30] It is expensive. It's a different DNA processing that has to take place in order to get a data file that's in the right format for IGG.

[00:26:38] So, you know, it's and it could take a long time with depending on the quality of matches or DNA relatives that you're seeing in the databases.

[00:26:47] Like Lisa said, it could be a relatively quick solve or it could be months and months if not years.

[00:26:54] Yeah. And I would say that, you know, they're going to use whatever evidence is left behind at the scene and they're going to process everything.

[00:27:00] Obviously, in this case, if you have victims who were obvious victims of stab wounds and then you have a knife sheath on the scene, it would stand a reason that's something to treat as a key piece of evidence and, you know, swap that.

[00:27:17] Like you would anything else, you know, if the knife was left behind if a random glove or anything else would be left behind.

[00:27:23] So I think they treated it like any other form of evidence that was left behind at the scene and process that accordingly.

[00:27:31] So however they receive the DNA, then that process then went through the steps.

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[00:29:09] One thing in Idaho is that court documents have indicated that investigators relied specifically on STR DNA comparison.

[00:29:18] I was wondering if you could explain what that is how it's done and is that something we commonly see in some of these cases.

[00:29:25] STR analysis of DNA is your short tandem repeats and that is when they isolate and look at only so many points on the DNA.

[00:29:38] And those are not identifying parts of your DNA it wouldn't tell you if you have blue eyes or white scam it over and they use that system to upload the STR profile into CODIS and run it against matches that way.

[00:29:54] And that's the only way that you can identify the DNA and that's the only way that you can identify the DNA.

[00:30:00] And so the only way that you can identify the DNA is the only legal method of using DNA in a courtroom if that makes sense.

[00:30:08] It's it's the only admissible DNA evidence would be an STR analysis and that's they take crime scene DNA and suspect DNA and if they match in CODIS then that's admissible in the courts.

[00:30:19] The only way it should ever be used.

[00:30:21] Like Lisa was saying the short tandem repeats these are things that the FBI has determined that there's 20 core locations or Coral OSI within your genome that are the most unique to each individual right so because over 99% of our DNA is the same from one person to the next.

[00:30:40] So they found these 20 core loci where they differ the most between people enough that when they have a match between an individual and say crime scene evidence.

[00:30:55] They can for the most part must hear an identical twin say that this makes you unique among a population larger than the world's population.

[00:31:09] So that's how it satisfies the court requirement for uniqueness.

[00:31:14] That's pretty unique.

[00:31:16] Another Idaho related question for you is just that so we kind of touched upon this earlier but law enforcement in that case is saying that the IGG evidence pointed them to the defendant Brian Cobra, but it doesn't they didn't use it to prove anything and they relied on other measures to provide substantive evidence of the guilt.

[00:31:37] And the prosecution has also said that they're not even planning on bringing up the IGG elements at trial.

[00:31:43] Can you speak to that and just kind of expand upon that because I know we touched upon it earlier but why is that so important for folks to understand.

[00:31:51] Right, so I think obviously we haven't had anything to do with the case we have done some reading about it but the way it would work is they're processing through all their evidence right they've had enough to create that STR profile they haven't received any matches in any of their law enforcement databases that they have access to.

[00:32:10] And so they decided to go in for the SNP processing and pursue IGG early on, which my understanding is the FBI was the one who actually conducted the genetic genealogy work.

[00:32:21] So they wouldn't have had a name or anything to go by previously they had to go do exactly what we do build out the family trees come back.

[00:32:31] My understanding is they came back to a family with the last name co burger based in Pennsylvania.

[00:32:38] And it was only through further police investigative work that they understood that there was an individual related to that family living one town over.

[00:32:47] And then he became the person of interest, but then they would have to go and obtain DNA independently of the investigation of the crime scene from members of that family in order to compare to what was left at the crime scene.

[00:33:03] And that would be the STR profile and comparing CODIS.

[00:33:07] Let's get in one more Idaho question here before we wrap up that part co-workers defense is trying to get all the DNA and investigative genetic genealogy data involved in the case be brought into the court basing in some way or another.

[00:33:26] They want to access it all even the stuff that won't be used at the trial.

[00:33:29] How does that strategy strike you personally I think it's it's maybe a delay tactic or or a tactic that they're trying to use to call into question the evidence but really there was no evidence to be found in the IGG work.

[00:33:46] It didn't provide anything more than a lead and if they're going to open that door I wonder if that means that every single lead that law enforcement received, whether or not they followed up on it also becomes.

[00:33:58] Entered into evidence is that something that they really want to do going forward. It just seems like they're trying to open a Pandora's box a little bit because it's not there's no evidence that comes out of the IGG work personally it would be a nightmare and I think they would be riddled with lawsuits for invading privacy of individuals by divulging.

[00:34:25] That genetic information from people who didn't consent. I think as long as you are containing that information and it is never published and never shared then you're not having the same kind of issue as you would if you start.

[00:34:41] Publicly making available the IGG work when it really has nothing to do with the actual case itself.

[00:34:49] These are public records that we research and you know or public data that that happens we were not private investigators we are not the law enforcement we don't have access to their social security numbers were not.

[00:35:04] So you start divulging this stuff I mean if you think about just how unsecure somebody's office can be and they can leave evidence out.

[00:35:20] For other people to view look how fast that can happen and what a terrible terrible disservice that other people can cause to the family and to the public.

[00:35:34] So that's opening this up is is a terrible idea.

[00:35:40] It also makes me wonder if if the defense truly understands what what's involved in the IGG work or if maybe they do and they're just trying to confuse the court.

[00:35:51] And trying to get them to see that there is something there that really isn't but what we've seen historically is that once the court understands what's being asked for it's been denied across the board because it just it doesn't rise to the level of evidence.

[00:36:10] Well said one more question for this section and it's just you know we've talked about some of the privacy concerns and general criticisms around IGG.

[00:36:20] And I was wondering you know if you can kind of speak to your general reactions to those you know in the face of IGG being criticized and some of these circles or the fence going after in some ways you know what are your views on that.

[00:36:32] You know it's a very it's new. It's it's a novel approach to crime solving or to generating leads for crime solving. It should be scrutinized like Lisa said earlier. I think there's there is a need for standards and ethics across the board because right now it's a little bit of the Wild Wild West almost anybody can call themselves an investigative genetic genealogist even if they've never worked a case or law enforcement case or suspect case.

[00:37:02] Before there are some organizations. So there's a nonprofit that has started has formed and is going to become sort of a certification board. They're developing an exam.

[00:37:14] There's going to be a certification for investigative genetic genealogy and part of that exam includes a whole section on ethics and operating above board and also operating in a way like I said earlier that protects the evidence or the family trees the things that you're building.

[00:37:32] Making sure that everything is secure making sure that you're taking into consideration all the things that could compromise or hinder the furtherance of an investigation because your work wasn't above board. You weren't adhering to the terms of service of the databases that you're allowed to use.

[00:37:50] You know things like that. So I think I think it'll be good for the field if we do have sort of a governing body and we do have ethics and guidelines published and certifications but you know it's like I said it's so new that people are just learning as we go.

[00:38:11] And I think at the end of the day accountability is key. So we can speak to our work ethic and our privacy or our respect for privacy and for keeping ourselves accountable but we both agree that there needs to be more governance to help ensure that others are being held accountable

[00:38:33] to so that this never becomes more of an issue with people's right to privacy and people just because they do DNA tests doesn't mean that they have to share their results. It doesn't mean they have to upload it doesn't mean that they have to become involved in any of this when they do choose to upload to Jet Match and they do choose to opt in for law enforcement.

[00:38:59] Then that helps our cases and helps us provide those leads to law enforcement. But it's certainly their choice to do that when they build a tree in ancestry and they make it public.

[00:39:13] They know they're sharing that information willingly, living people excluded. They're sharing that information publicly and willingly so you know when it comes to privacy everybody has different feelings on what all should be privatized but it is an individual

[00:39:29] feel to Lisa Nancy thank you both so much for taking the time today. That sort of concludes our questions about the co-burger case.

[00:39:39] Thanks again to Lisa and Nancy for coming on the show. Stay tuned we'll have them back on at some point to discuss an Indiana case they investigated.

[00:39:48] We'll include a link to the Ignite DNA website in our show notes. If you work at a coroner's office or law enforcement agency and you need forensic investigated genetic genealogy services to help with a case please consider contacting them. Let's get some cold cases solved.

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