The tech helping crack decades-old cold cases

**The technology helping solve decades-old cold cases**

Crime scene evidence is often insufficient to identify suspects

Randy Gail Sperino was last seen alive on the evening of 9 November 1993, as she climbed into a pickup truck in Granite City, Illinois.

Hours later, the 34-year-old’s body was discovered in a nearby field. She had died from blunt force trauma.

Her killer’s identity remained unknown. DNA recovered at the scene was checked against standard law enforcement databases, but no match was found.

For 30 years, investigators from the Madison County Sheriff's Office pursued leads and interviewed hundreds of people in an effort to identify the offender.

The case seemed destined to become one of more than 250,000 unsolved homicides in the US.

Then, last year, detectives took a new route. They submitted genetic evidence to Othram, a Houston-based company that uses DNA technology to help identify perpetrators in cold and active cases.

The Madison County detectives had been influenced by investigative genetic genealogy methods used to identify the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, in 2018. In that investigation, a team built a family tree to help pinpoint the killer.

That was possible because DNA data from relatives had been uploaded to commercial databases, similar to consumer ancestry services.

Unlike conventional forensic DNA testing, which usually depends on a direct comparison between evidence and a known individual, investigative genetic genealogy can trace distant genetic relatives of an unknown person.

Othram used that method to pursue Sperino’s killer. Although the killer’s own DNA profile was not available, profiles from extended relatives enabled the company to identify a male family member.

"That lead broke the case open," said Captain Tim Lawrence of the Madison County Sheriff's Office, which handled the investigation.

The clue ultimately led detectives to Albert "Buddy" Zigler, 70, who later confessed to the murder. He was charged in May this year.

At a press conference, Wes Sperino, Gail’s son, said: "I finally get closure and I finally know who did this."

The method that helped detectives identify Zigler is widely credited with transforming how forensic cases are solved.

It has been especially effective in cases involving unidentified human remains and in identifying suspects in long-running investigations.

Othram says it has helped solve thousands of cases. The company’s chief executive, David Mittelman, compares investigative genetic genealogy to a GPS system: "The DNA profile is the GPS signal and it says 'you belong here.' But to understand where 'here' is, you need a map."

Public records, obituaries and census data provide that map, allowing Othram’s scientists to determine how different family trees connect.

Still, Mittelman is careful to note that DNA technology can only go so far before "a cascade of investigative steps" are needed.

DNA science is not the only technology helping detectives crack cold cases.

One of the difficulties in major investigations like the search for Sperino’s killer is the vast amount of evidence involved.

Officers working on Sperino’s murder realised AI could help them sort through the mountain of material gathered since 1993.

They used a platform called Centerline AI, from Florida software company CentralSquare, to review more than 2,000 pages of records and identify evidence for the DNA testing that helped crack the case.

The AI helped reconstruct timelines and organise witness information. "It's so much easier than having a detective have to read through 2,000 pages," Lawrence says. His team could interact with the AI like a chat bot.

It also proved useful when interviewing Zigler after he was tracked down. Detectives were able to question the AI to help "figure out if Zigler was being truthful", says Lawrence.

But the technology is "only as good as the investigator," says the captain. At some point, he says, "where you leave the technology behind and you have to go track people down and talk to them."

Investigative genetic genealogy has its own limits. Mittelman says: "It can't solve every case. If you have no DNA, you can't really use this technique."

"But this technique is a lot more powerful and a lot more likely to yield identities than having to rely on the chance that you find a match somewhere in a database," he adds.

Although companies like Othram only use ancestry platforms where users have consented to law enforcement matching, questions remain about the ethical implications of using this data.

"There are significant privacy concerns," says Denise Syndercombe Court, professor of forensic genetics at King's College London. Even if one person has agreed to have their DNA used, genetic relatives may not have consented.

Funding is another obstacle. Mittelman says: "Every law enforcement agency wants to do it. There's just not a lot of funding for it."

In some cases, donations or crowdfunding pay for the work. Othram runs a website that lists cases the public can help finance.

Investigative genetic genealogy has been adopted in countries including Sweden, Denmark and Australia, but it is not yet used in the UK. The Home Office is carrying out a study to decide whether it should be adopted in the UK, but did not respond to a request for comment.

The UK is already well placed, says Syndercombe Court. "We have such an efficient DNA database that if you can get any DNA out of a crime scene, you've got over a 65% chance of putting a name to that person, which is enormously powerful," she says.