For the first time, a public database of DNA profiles was used to solve a very recent crime.
Red handed: 31-year-old Spencer Glen Monnett, was arrested in Utah last Saturday for the rape of an elderly woman, Carla Brooks. The crime happened only last April. Monnett was located via “genetic genealogy”: DNA he left at the crime scene was used to find his relatives, then him.
Not just cold-case murders: This year police began using genetic genealogy to crack notorious decades-old murders. So far, a half-dozen alleged murders have been named.
Implications?: You bet. It appears police can now ID a criminal within weeks of a crime. What's more, the Utah case is the first time the tool was used to investigate a crime less than murder. CeCe Moore, the DNA detective who worked the Monnett case, thinks searching genetic databases soon after crimes are committed will save resources and could even have stopped this rapist from striking again.
Red handed: 31-year-old Spencer Glen Monnett, was arrested in Utah last Saturday for the rape of an elderly woman, Carla Brooks. The crime happened only last April. Monnett was located via “genetic genealogy”: DNA he left at the crime scene was used to find his relatives, then him.
Not just cold-case murders: This year police began using genetic genealogy to crack notorious decades-old murders. So far, a half-dozen alleged murders have been named.
Implications?: You bet. It appears police can now ID a criminal within weeks of a crime. What's more, the Utah case is the first time the tool was used to investigate a crime less than murder. CeCe Moore, the DNA detective who worked the Monnett case, thinks searching genetic databases soon after crimes are committed will save resources and could even have stopped this rapist from striking again.
—Antonio Regalado
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