Jeffrey Epstein’s Missing Minute: Game-Changing Breakthroughs in Genetic Genealogy

Closing arguments in the Donna Adelson trial, the recently released “missing minute” from the Jeffrey Epstein prison video, and new developments in the case of Travis Decker. CeCe Moore, the nation’s leading genetic genealogist, joins to discuss everything from “the twin defense” to the Long Island Serial Killer, along with the latest breakthroughs in the field. Tune in for all the details. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program features the individual opinions of the hosts, guests,
and callers, and not necessarily those of the producer, the station,
it's affiliates or sponsors. This is True Crime Tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to True Crime Tonight on iHeartRadio. We're talking true
crime all the time. It's Thursday, September fourth. We are
almost to Friday, everybody, so welcome to a great night.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
We have a stack night of headlines.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I mean, listen, what is the deal with this missing
minute in this epstein.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Oh prison tape issue.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
There's been so much debate about this, so we're going
to break down some of the facts real time.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
We absolutely want your opinion on that as well.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
There was also this critical day in court today with
Emmanuel Harrow's parents. They've been accused of his death and
they are pleading not guilty. And we have the greatest
guest to the Queen of DNA herself. She is the
Queen of sequencing is what they call it in DNA talk.
And you know Ceci is Cecmore. She is the person,

(01:12):
she is the woman. We saw her many many years ago,
I want to say, on sixty minutes and I was
gobsmacked by her. So having her here is a really
big dale, seriously almost as starstruck.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
As when I met you. She's a powerhouse.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
She's the real DL. So it's a great night too.
Involved in so many critical cases. This is the wave
of the future in terms of forensics. So if you
have a question for her, also please jump in eight
eight eight three one crime. You could also leave us
a talk back on our iHeartRadio app. It's free, or
just hit us up on the socials at True Crime

(01:47):
Tonight show on TikTok at Instagram, or at True Crime
Tonight on Facebook. I'm Stephanie Leidecker here as always with
Courtney Armstrong and body move in high ladies, I live.
I'm fighting a little bit of an allergy thing, so
I know it's a little annoying.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
I apologize. I feel good.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, I think I'm just extremeation some fall in the
crazy changing weather everywhere.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
So I'm telling you don't get some ginger ale. It
is literally really for everything. Oh yeah, yes, ginger ginger.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I mean that actually really makes sense the sprite, Yeah,
girl does.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
That unless you had some ginger like flavoring, maybe stomach
digestion and all. I will put ginger on everything it's
kind of like a cure all for everything. You broke
your bone, drink a ginger ale.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh that's kidding, Okay, So I'm going to actually make
that happen while we're on this show.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
And by the way, if there are.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Any some like helpful tips and tricks and clear up
a little hay fever, do tell we are all years
at least I am specifically so yeah, and then listen.
In the most probably critical part of tonight's night, Granny
accused of killing her her son in law.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Big day in court today.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
The verdict is in and body's going to break that
down for us entirely. Let's start there, Boddy, go ahead,
tell us, so what happened in court today?

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Do we have a drum roll.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Lah?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Like at the ready? Yes? Fortunately not at the ready? Yeah,
Oh okay, it's a little more of a search appearance.
That's okay. I was you know, I got to keep
the guys on their toes, right, we need a band,
that's what we can't be perfect we do. Uh, you
are perfect in my eyes. Well, guess what Granny is guilty.
Granny is guilty guilty, So Donna Adelson, she was found

(03:39):
guilty in the hired hit of her daughter's ex husband,
Dan Markel in Florida. The jury only deliberated for three
hours today, so today where it's closing arguments. The closing
arguments ended. The jury went into deliberation at four eighteen pm,
and listen, I thought that it was done. I did
our work on the rundown, up all my notes from

(04:01):
watching closing arguments, and went about my day. Twenty minutes
before we meet to go live on the show, the
verdict comes in and I had to redo everything. I
was like, ah, so, yeah, guilty. And there was an
audible gasp from her when she got the verdict and
she started like crying, and the judge like admonished her,

(04:22):
like publicly, like calmed down, you know, like it was
I was embarrassed for her.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
It was.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
It was a scene.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
So Granny, it felt like, was visibly surprised, like she
thought she.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Was going to walk. I do think so, I do
think so. So the jury delivered this really dramatic blow
to this Nelison. This is not the first person in
her family to be convicted of this crime. Okay, so
her son Charlie, the dentist, he's already been convicted, didn't she.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Throw him under the bus too, though, and basically said,
Charlie made me do it.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, she drew her son under the bus, and in
closing arguments, her lawyer also threw her daughter, Wendy under
the bus.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
Has not been charged, so I thought, yeah, her attorney
Wendy dirty.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
So we might be talking about a Wendy trial coming up,
you know, stay tuned for that. But yeah, threw under
the bus, and I'll get into that if we want
to go into the nitty gritty. I got it all
typed it all up for the closing arguments that I
was going to present tonight. But yeah, things change. So
they found seventy five year old Donna Edelson guilty of

(05:33):
first degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation of murder in the
twenty fourteen contract killing of reformer son in law Florida
State University law professor Danielle. Daniel Danielle. It's not Danielle.
Daniel French I did Daniel you know in the case,
it's been in the Florida It's mesmerized by the whole

(05:55):
state of Florida for the past ten years. This has
been ongoing. At the moment of the verdict, she audibly
glack gasped, tears flowed, and she really began to like
kind of shake. The court paused proceedings briefly to allow
her to compose herself, amid stern admonishment from Judge Stephen
Everett to reign in her emotions, like how embarrassing. Marcel's mother, Ruth,

(06:18):
the victim in this case, delivered a really searing victim
impact statement shortly afterward, and she was saying that for
over a decade, her whole family has been in anguish.
She said, I'm gonna quote here. We have lost a treasure.
My son Dan's life was cut tragically short at forty
one years old, she said, describing a life of you know,
scarred by grief. Now you know that she lost her son.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
I mean could not be Yeah, he was a really
successful man. And these are women that attended their kid's
wedding together, do you know what I mean? They's their
mother in law's together now obviously very torn apart, couldn't it?

Speaker 3 (06:54):
What were you going to say? Oh, just what a waste?

Speaker 4 (06:57):
And also, this is the father of your grand children
for whom you're allegedly in whatever kind of backwards mind
she had working for her doing this for and now
their father is dead and grandma's attorney is throwing the
kid's mother, who has not been charged, under the bus, So.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Let's just do an actual body cut account here. So
Granny decides she wants Wendy, her daughter, to live closer
to her with the two children, and then Dad victim says, no, dice, no,
we can't leave. I have a job, I'm at the university.
I got a good thing going here. That's not going
I love my kids.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
I love my kids, period the ends. So then Granny's
not having that.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
So Granny potentially allegedly allegedly allegedly lists her son or.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
By not allegedly allegedly allegedly anymore Granny.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
So Granny gets her son Charlie in the mix. The
dentist also has a lot going for him. Yeah, has
a little bit of a girlfriend. The girlfriend, though a
little bit, she has some dangerous friends. So you know,
Granny loves her son. Son is saying, you know, my
girlfriend has some odd people in her circles, a lot
of King's connections, and maybe we can off this guy

(08:16):
and get him out of our way. And then the
plot begins. They sit around and have murder meetings, Courtney,
what is this reminding you of the massacre as a family?

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Think about? How did think about that? Yeah, I mean
it's next level.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
And then you're also as a mother, which is why
Granny is extra crazed. Granny is putting her own children
in the way here. Not only is she putting them
in the line of fire for prison time, she's also
putting them in a very dangerous situation as well to
do her dirty work. So it's a little Manson esque, right,
like I'm not gonna get my hands dirty. I'll let

(08:57):
those around me get their hands dirty. It's crazy thinking,
really when you imagine something like this, and now.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
She's throwing her daughter under the bus.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Well, I love how Granny's defense attorney did defend her,
and that was a tough job. It was, so I
feel I feel I should backtrack what I said about
her outfit yesterday. But you know what she what she
said about very nice she was she did. Yes, you
know she's a mother, not a meddler, right, I mean

(09:28):
I would say that's entirely untrue. Right, This would prove
that that is very much not the case, that she's
very much of.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
What the jury says. That's what the jury says. So
the killing was executed by two hitman, which we've kind
of already talked about a little bit. They were Sigfredo
Garcia and he received a life sentence, and then Louis Rivera.
He worked with prosecution and like kind of testified against people,
so he got nineteen years after his cooperation. Donna's son,

(09:58):
Charlie the dentist, he got life in prison for his
role in hiring the hitmen. And the goal between Catherine
the girlfriend, right, the one who had the Latin King's
connections to the gang and hired the hitmen. She acted
as kind of like the go between. She also got
life in prison. So literally four people got life in
prison and one got nineteen years, and there might be

(10:20):
more coming who knows, who knows?

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Bulator Yeah, wow, absolutely agrees.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
As a reminder, she was arrested in twenty twenty three
as she attempted to board a one way flight to
Vietnam again and that's a country without an extradition agreement
with the United States, just weeks after her son's conviction,
So she knew what was coming, right, She knew the
arrest was coming as soon as Charlie was convicted, and
she tried to get the heck out of here and
go to Vietnam, where she knew she wouldn't have to

(10:48):
come back to the United States.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
I'm kind of curious where dad is, where's Granny's husband's
where's Grandpa.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
We're going to find out about that. I don't know
his level of involvement, if anything, it might be nothing.
I'm hesitant to say anything about him. I do. Maybe
he's kind of being gone. He had a killer, I
don't know, many many years perhaps, and his son and
maybe even his daughter, oh right, Wendy's daughter, his son, Charlie.

(11:15):
I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen
with him. I really, I really don't. I'm kind of
hesitant to He's.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Really been I kept out of the research that I'm
saying too. He really has close to entirely been kept
out of it. For a hot second, I even questioned
was Grandpa working for the prosecution, because he's really like
never being mentioned here other than like, ooh, surprise, I'm
at the airport on a one way ticket with my
wife and Granny gets arrested. He does not right, did

(11:42):
he maybe tip them off that they were going to
be on that flight. This is all again, I am
I am on a limb. This is based on nothing.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
No, but you might be onto something. I mean, it
is possible. I mean, listen, this is a family that's
going to be spending the rest of their life in
prison for trying to to get control over the closer
to their family. Yeah, yeah, to get closer to their family.
And now they're all separated. Oh and by the way,
do you guys remember Sarah Boone. No, Sarah Boone killed

(12:11):
her boyfriend by locking him in that clock that suitcase.
Oh my goodness, yes, Okay, Well, I think she's going
to be in the same prison as Donna. I think
they're going to be in prison together. Sarah, the crazy Sarah,
by the way, she keeps like, you know, she fired
like all her attorneys crazy trial always firing her, yes,

(12:32):
or they're quitting on her because she insane. I think
she's going to be in the same prison as Donna.
I really do. I don't know for sure. Sentencing is
going to be in October, so we'll keep everybody updated
on all that. But there's a mandatory minimum of life.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
I do believe, and Granny's not going home anytime soon,
so we know that she's never going home again. And
then mom daughter of Granny is Wendy. Wendy is Wendy
not been involved. Her husband or now ex husband was
the victim. The kids are with her, she's raising them
while now her brother and mother both behind bars, along

(13:10):
with brother's ex girlfriend m H and a hit man
to the two hitmen, Yeah, the two hitmen never gets
away with it, by the way, literally no, never. I
don't know, it's just it never seems like they.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Ever get it. They're the first to go right, and
they're probably going to be the first to blab too.
They got no you know, emotional connection to the people
that hire them, right. I mean, if I listen, if
I was a hit man, I'm throwing you under the
bus if I get caught, I'm telling you right now. Yeah,
it's to save my own butt, right Like, Okay, what's it?
What's the money to me? I can't use it now,
so I'm gonna try to save my skin and testify

(13:47):
against everybody. I's a hitman. You're grading on a very
big moral curve, right, Like, do not hire me to
be your hit man, because I'm squealing. I promise you
that to save my own hide one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Well, if you want to ask Body any questions except
for will you be my hit man, you can give
us a call. We're at eight and eight three to
one crime. This, of course is crime tonight.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
And Body.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
That was a great summation of Granny. Yeah, what a case. Yeah, no,
she really you know.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
I kind of wonder though, So Wendy got limited immunity
for testifying because she did have some information and they
but the prosecution has said that that that doesn't mean
charges won't be coming to her. So I don't know
what kind of immunity she's going to be or what
kind of immunity she has. I didn't really look into
it too deeply. I kind of want to now that

(14:44):
it's over and I have some time because I'm not
going to be watching this all day. Yeah, because I've
been obsessed with us in wait friend.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Mine has so daughter has semi limited extent of which
we do not know. And is it possible that Wendy
is the one who put the nail in the coffin
on Granny?

Speaker 3 (15:05):
I don't know. Well, in the defense's closing arguments, it
says that you might be sitting in that jury room thinking, well,
Charlie did it, and it sure looks like Wendy did it.
They totally threw her under the bus in the closing arguments.
Threw under the bus. You never know what happens behind
closed doors. This was an affluent family.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
Yeah, listen, Granny, act in haste and repent at your leisure.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Now we're so glad you're with us because we're going
to discuss this newly released information about what could have
been happening in Brian Coberger's mind.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
First of all, the photos.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Of his apartment have been released, and we promised an unpack,
so we're going to get to some of that very
very shortly. And also in the second hour, we're talking
to renowned scientists see Seymore about a groundbreaking case that
she's working on currently.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
But also just she is the person.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
She is the original og queen of DNA sequencing, So
if you have any questions, please jump in share them.
We're happy to share them with her as well. Eight
eight eight three one crime or just leave us.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
A talk back. So first though, we have.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
To get to this Epstein missing minute. What is happening
in Courtney Armstrong, what do you think?

Speaker 4 (16:28):
Okay, I have information, but it raises more questions for
me anyway than answers. Okay, all of us may very
likely remember that there was a missing one minute in
the surveillance footage from Jeffrey Epstein's.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Jail cell, so the night that he died, that's.

Speaker 4 (16:48):
Correct, from the night that he died, And what we
were told by Pam BONDI was, Oh, this happens every
single night at the prison. It resets, they lose a minute.
It's the video system. So that's what we were told. Okay,
seems odd, but there we are. Anyway, that minute has
now reappeared, which of course contradicts the official claims of

(17:13):
that minute that we were told about, and it raises
a bunch of new questions about oversight, transparency in the case,
all the things.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
And just to kind of reset on that a little bit,
the big suspicion is that Jeffrey Epstein accused sex trafficker
and convicted sex trafficker. I might add that he committed
suicide in his jail cell, and they had released footage
that would prove that there was nothing nefarious behind that,
because it was also alleged, maybe by conspiracy theorists, that

(17:46):
he was actually murdered in a very specific amount of time.
That all seems like crazy talk until we started talking
to forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan. And then and then
and then this is backed by men. This is no
longer a theory that maybe he was killed and it
wasn't suicide. So they released the tapes. But then there's

(18:07):
a missing minute of these tapes. And we talked about
this to nauseum earlier in the you know, we first
kicked off, you know, about the metadata and the timing,
and it just seemed crazy. But it was fine because
Pam Bondi, as you mentioned, Court Attorney General, said no, no, no,
that's like status quo.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
That's what happens every night we miss a.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Minute because it's like the VHS tape somehow reboots or
not to get super in the sauce on the technical stuff.
There seems to be no technical stuff at play here.
So it was all like swept under the rug. And
now this minute is back and it's making people even
more enraged it.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, well it's I feel like my insult I feel
like my intelligence is being insulted. Constantly.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
Well, that's exactly right, Body, because this minute, which is
miraculously back video experts have noted not minor technical issues,
but really serious, absolutely glaring technical inconsistencies within this new footage.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
So the resolution is degraded. That means it just it
doesn't look.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
As crisp, it's like pixelated almost.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yes, and go ahead, No, no, it's okay. Continue.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
There's missing metadata, which Body schooled us about, which shows
you know, the authenticity of where something comes from. And
also the frame rate, which means how fast things go by,
went from nearly thirty to four. What that means is
you can see it with your eyeballs that it's it's different.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
It's simply different different, and it's digitally different. I mean
you can tell immediately it's different exactly.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
And this was being supplied to us by the House
Committee Oversight Commission, right, because that's the same the House
Oversight Committee. Rather, they are also the ones who gave
us the recent document dump that also has been criticized
for being you know, very repetitive, and also that ninety
seven percent of those documents were already in the public domain.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
But again, there's two sides to all of this.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Or is it possible that this is the missing one
minute and everybody had it wrong and they were just confused.
And granted, it is a fairly critical minute because Jeffrey
Epstein died allegedly during you know, this is the night.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
All of those minutes kind of count to.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Put together a really good forensance profile of what could
have happened. But you know, here we are, why would
they feed it to us though if they knew it
was going to be inconsistent?

Speaker 3 (20:42):
And I don't know what's worse? Okay, let's play it out,
just work out. Let's just like work through it exactly.
What's worse? Is it that Pam Bondie and the government
lied to us about the missing minute, meaning that the
jail doesn't over you know, reboot or whatever.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Dan Bojino did too, so damn you also doubles down
on the mysterious missing at night because that was standard stuff.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
So is it is what's worse that they lied to us?
Or maybe that's what the prison told them and they
didn't even investigate it. So what's worse that dark they
didn't even look into it to verify that this is
what happens every night at midnight or that they lied
to us into our faces about it well, and that
they didn't even think we would notice.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
Well, exactly right, and but it was also.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
I am making everybody sneezy.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
I this is okay, everybody needs here's the ginger asap.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
I need a butler. I need my friends in Michigan
to send us. Why don't we all have room service?
Oh shoot, there's no room service?

Speaker 4 (21:56):
Sorry, court, Yeah, buddy, it's all insulting because as you
said this, you know whether it wasn't investigated, which doesn't
make any sense because my understanding, and that is that
this information was at at points or all points in
the hands of the FBI and the CIA to mention
two agencies who have been mentioned, but then also to
think that's That's what I don't understand the most is

(22:19):
this now reappeared one minute. How wildly out of whack
it is that no one could look at it and say, oh,
this is just a minute.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
No, I mean, what's being thought?

Speaker 4 (22:30):
And these are from forensic video experts or anyone who's
ever watched a TV screen in their life.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
And by the way, are actually the people that are
being the most impressionable like I would be fooled by much.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
This is not fool but not no.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
It look and what the thought is is that it
was potentially it was filmed off of some other video screen,
like if you do put your phone up to you know,
a football game to send something to and you can
tell So I don't know it. Just again, here's that's
the information. But I feel like it's only more questions

(23:07):
than answers.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
I'm so curious what you guys have to say, like,
please jump in, tell us what you think of this,
because again, are we seeing it wrong somehow? This seems
like we're just adding more fuel to this already very
aggressive fire happening behind closed doors.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
Why even release this minute suddenly? It makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
It doesn't further the narrative, It doesn't help anything.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
It actually opens more doors at this point. The question too.
By the way, there they called it raw footage, but
it's nice, said I know. But video experts are saying,
looks like a screen recording. So like they launched whatever
software on their desktop to record the raw footage. Right,
we need the raw footage, we need the raw metadata,

(23:54):
you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Well that too, let's just show us that's top favor
I thought, you know, go right to the photographs of
the photographs of the crime scene, like often happen. Let's
get the photographs at the Morgue. We've seen them in there,
We've seen them. We've seen the morg photos, which I
wish I hadn't, but I have, we all have.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
They were in a Morga.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Though, and he had been changed out of certain clusters
at that point, so there was no consistency in terms
of the crime scene itself. I don't recall there being
crime scene photos, and if there are, we haven't seen them.
But many reputable, top level, the top dogs in forensics
are saying across the something is not adding up in

(24:40):
terms of the suicide perception. And by the way, why
is some guard working eight hours for three shifts straight
a twenty four hour shift? First off, what is that?
How is that keeping anything safe in this world? I mean, again,
this is all pieces of information that seemed like either
the worst night ever perfect storm for anything to occur.

(25:03):
But there should be some more proof than this. And
why are we using VHS tapes? Like how is that
even possible? Like it's all bananas. But again, I maybe
we're just like I don't also want to be perpetuating
a narrative either if that makes sense?

Speaker 3 (25:20):
Well no, well of course not. But I mean at
the same time hard it's insulting, Like I said, So
weigh in on this for ust. What do you have
to say about it? Give us a call eighty eight
thirty one Crime. This is true crime tonight on iHeartRadio.
I'm Body Moven and I'm here with Courtney Armstrong and
Stephanie ly Decker and we're talking about Epstein right now
in this missing minute. But I think we're gonna move

(25:40):
forward into some headlines. Is that right? That there's a lot?
What do we got? What do we got?

Speaker 4 (25:45):
So this one, we have been covering this for so long.
There has been the months long man hunt for Travis Decker. He,
of course is the man who's accused of killing his
three daughters, all under the age of ten. And there
was a moment that we thought, oh my goodness, perhaps
there is a break in the case. Bones were found,

(26:06):
but unfortunately the FBI has confirmed the bones they found
near the Washington campsite they are not human bones. So
the search continues. They the intrepidness of all of these
sheriffs and agents is unbelievable, and they confirmed plans to

(26:27):
expand further into new areas as resources become available. So
that's the update on Travis Decker. So in this moment,
still at large.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
I mean, they've had so many false alarms and now
too for law enforcement who have just been so dedicated.
Remember there was the guy that was you know, wrongly
spotted they saw, we.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Saw in the woods. Yeah, of course it was not him.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
It was just a camper who just slightly resembled him,
you know, Thank goodness, there was no shots fired or anything.
Now the bones, it just seems like there's been these
little tips along the way that have not panned out.
And as a reminder, if in fact he is alive,
he is very armed and very dangerous.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
That's right, that is very true. And did we have
an update on Cardi B.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Cardi B was found not guilty and she does be
this nice the second time around. She will not play
this nicely if there is another lawless, silly lawsuit brought
up against her. She is going to be nice this
one time, but if you come at her with one
more frivolous lawsuit, she will not be playing I'm paraphrasing,

(27:40):
but she has seen her moments. Basically, yeah, she was pregnant.
If you haven't been following along Cardi B, the you know,
infamous pop star.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Is she pop star? Is that how we would refer
to her? Yes, of course.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
And she's a personality crass right, Is she a rapper?

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Categories can say pop stars.

Speaker 4 (28:00):
He's kind enough.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, she's a total riot.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
By the way, even in a very difficult situation where
you're you know, you're up against a real civil lawsuit
here of you know, tens.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Of twenty four million dollars millions twenty.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
To think about, it's like tens of thousands of dollars
an hour in legal fees even, you know, like it's
you're going out of your way and spending out of
pocket even just to indulge.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
But the fact that she was even being sued for
what they what they ledge happened, is ridiculous. Like none
of this was her fault. No, she was like basically
assaulted at her gynecologists office, right.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
She was based, she was pregnant and the public was
unaware of this pregnancy. So it was in the very
early stages, and she travels with security and in doing
so some well, I guess we could now say a
someone who was also in her vicinity at the doctor's office,
like kind of came matter, and you know they weren't

(29:01):
going to stand for it. She was a woman that
was just newly carrying her first child and is probably
a little sick of dealing with like fans or people
trying to get a rise out of her.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
She's a particularly big personality on top of it.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
So any note, Look, she's like she's carrying her first baby,
so she's shame money, precious moments. So anyway, she wins,
but she had to go to court quite a bit,
and you know when you have to do that.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
We saw this with Gwyneth Paltrow as well.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
You know, sometimes this becomes a stage, and this becomes
a stage.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
That's also a very expensive one.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Like Party had to go to court and she had
to testify, and she had to be on a stand,
and she had to relive some of this stuff. I mean,
there's a lot of money on the line, and by
all accounts, the jury finds her innocent.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yay Party, Happy for you, Carty. She's riotous beyondo.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
If you have not been checking in with Cardi B
recently watching her in court was pretty she.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Was sounding like there was a whole room.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
It was like dying laughing at one point, like her
just the face as she was making stand.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
It was just like she's like a little bit of
a Lucille Ball. Yeah, yes, she has very Lucille Ball.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
That's like she would probably be a great like comedicatress
or an improv actress.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
That is such a good idea for this show, a
modern exactly. And Cardi B is a star and she's
the star of it. Like, okay, so we've already cracked
it so.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Well, none of us will be back to what do
you think we'll be making this TV show with Cardi B.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
But like Offset in the moment, she is laugh out.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Loud at the end, she is right, is Offset the
husband off? I don't think he's the husband anymore. Though
there's no more offset than your whole opinion. The offset
thing is off.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
You're absolutely right. Well, party deserves better. I'm sorry, Carti,
but we'll find you a good man to play. They listen.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Later in the show, we have the Queen herself sees
he Moore, the Queen of DNA sequencing.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
By the way, if you.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Old us at a gasp, like us, this was a
very big thing.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
When we discovered that CEC was coming on, we all
got so excited. I didn't believe Taha. I was like,
I was like, sure, are you sure? Because she's.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
The one we're so lucky, iconic. So there's many of
that to come, much of that to come. So if
you have any DNA questions, specifically for CC Moore, if
you follow true crime super closely, you you.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Know who we're speaking of. So joining when it comes
to genetic genealogy, right, because we've been talking about that
a lot, you know with Brian Coberg.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Brian Coburger's such as absolutely and also this.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
You know Emmanuel Harrow.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
There has been an update in court court and do
you want to give us to us the sure summary.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Yeah, we've been following this seven month seven month old
Emmanuel Harrow. He was reported missing by his mother last month,
that was the middle of August. The mother initially claimed
he was kidnapped. That has borne out it does not
appear to be true. So what has happened is the
parents of this baby pled not guilty today both to

(32:16):
murder and to false reporting charges.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
So standing by it.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
That's right, they're standing by it, and both of the
parents remain in custody on a million dollar bond each,
and you know, we'll follow with more as it comes.
There is a preliminary hearing for the case. It's scheduled
for September seventeenth, so.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
We will keep you updated on that.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Interesting on the pre point, that's the prelim apparently, But
what was curious is that there did seem to be
some law enforcement traveling with Dad to specific locations, which
we kind of thought meant that maybe Dad was s
girning on Mom or maybe leading authorities to something terrible,

(33:03):
but that doesn't seem to have really been the case.

Speaker 4 (33:06):
No. I mean, we do know that the father was
indeed out with authorities, and it did, from the pictures
appear that he was potentially going to say here are remains,
here is a weapon, but nothing came out from that.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
I mean, he has a pretty checkered pass too. So
Dad has also been accused of harming his older child,
who knows conected it correct, has lifetime issues that are
pretty unspeakable, so.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
He was able to take parenting classes basically to get
out of it. It's horrifying, horrifying, Yeah, absolutely horrifying. But
I understand. Uh, we have a talk aboth exactly. We're gonna, yeah,
change it up, go to the talkback.

Speaker 5 (33:51):
Hi, this is Kat for Phoenix, Arizona. I just want
to say I'm not defending h Colberger in any way. Wait, however,
I think that maybe his autistic courts are being overlooked
a little bit. You're talking about the red hands. That

(34:13):
could be because he's in a situation that he's uncomfortable
with and he's wringing his hands too much. The washing
of his hands excessively is also a trait of autism.
I know this because I have a child who is autistic,
and the voices that he's hearing the other inmates that
he's hearing could be irritating or agitating that autism. But

(34:39):
I'm not you know, I'm not defending him at all.
I'm just saying that, you know, I think his autism
traits that people are looking at as odd behavior. But
let me know what you think me like by the.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
Wait to that end, and I thought, I know you
want to jump in. When we were making a dot
we we kind of big.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Section out of the documentary because and the documentary is
on Peacock the Idaho student murders, because it does go
into potentially OCD autism some of the things that he's
been labeled with that really would sort of not justify,
but would explain, explain some of these behavioral traits which
he clearly had, right, he did not have an understanding

(35:23):
of any social cues.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Just generally speaking, this is.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Not a guy that walked into a room and understood
any of the vibe, period no matter what room he
was in. We see obsessive behavior with mom and dad
phone calls, which we'll get you later, so check check
check check.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
That does actually check a lot of boxes.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
On the flip of that, we would never want the
autism community, by the way, amazing talk back and really
what a caregiver for your child. We don't want the
autism community to feel slighted. That's suddenly like, oh, well
this is why it must be autistic. That's not fair either, right,
So it is a really layered thing. We ultimately took

(36:03):
it out of the documentary for all the obvious reasons
that we just talked about. But I do think it's
worth exploring. I do, And I think that's a really
valid point.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, and you know it. I think it explains a
lot of things. And you know, just recently, one of
the like the in a handwritten document, there's this guilty
where he's entering is guilty plea and he has to
answer questions. It was revealed in his own handwriting his
diagnosises and I got them. If we want to go
over them, let's go over them.

Speaker 6 (36:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, So his diagnosises include autism, love and it says
level one ocd ADHD and the eating disorder a r
f I d ARPID. I hope that's appropriate to say ARPHID,
which is avoidant restrictive food and take disorder. And I
have never heard of that before. So Courtney and I

(36:57):
were looking at it because we were like, well, what
is that? And it's it's it's kind of a sensory issue.
And I don't know if it's tied to his autism.
It could be, but it's basically, it's not about your
body image. It's not about like bolimia or anorexia, where
you're concerned you're concerned about gaining weight or you know

(37:17):
you have like a body dysmorphia or anything like that.
It's tied to sensory issues with food and it's also
tied to a fear of choking or throwing vomiting, throwing
up things like that, or stomach pain. So it's it's
it's completely different from his weight because we do know

(37:39):
he experienced a radical weight loss, right, and we initially
thought maybe he had something and he was worried about,
you know, becoming heavier again, but that doesn't seem to
be the case.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
And just to attract tie to to your point, that
timeline is high school, you know, childhood years overweight, his words,
not ours, maybe was made fun of because of that, bullied, etc.
At some point post high school, he does a real
shred down, and there's some drugs involved. He becomes a

(38:10):
pretty good drug addict, also heroin. If I'm not mistaken,
it is heroin, I'm not mistaken. So he becomes a
very big drug addict that also maybe aids in the
weight loss. Then he kicks the drugs. And by the way,
getting off of heroin is no easy task, so it
takes a certain fortitude and commitment and devotion to yourself

(38:33):
right to be able to pull that off. So times
are good, everybody probably can you imagine mom and dad,
his sister's everyone's so happy he kicked the habit.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Now he's healthy, and look at him. He's excelling.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
He's going to go to this great master's program in
PhD program in criminology at a very reputable school.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Times are going to look up.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
But maybe he has this sensory thing which means he's
like nervous about throwing.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Up in Some of the common signs are there's an
extremely extremely limited like list of acceptable food. One will
eat less than twenty and you have anxiety or distress
when new foods are presented, slow eating or small portion intake,
and you rely a lot on like neutral I'm sorry,

(39:18):
nutritional drinks and like supplements and things like that because
you have a less chance of like choking on them
and things like that. So, you know, when we were
talking about the complaints that he had about not getting
his food, you know, it's kind of deeper a little
bit now, you know, like maybe that you know, trigger
one thing that he was counting on eating that he

(39:38):
knew was safe wasn't given to him that day, right,
And then you know, we have these pictures that were
released of his apartment. In one of the pictures that
was interesting was his refrigerator and freezer. Yeah, and in
those pictures we see a lot of different vegan type
of pizzas and there's like a ton of them and
tater tots, like a couple bags of tater tots. So

(40:01):
those might have been on his safe food list, is
what I'm kind of getting at.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, even in his refrigerator itself too, it was like
he had a.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Lot of hummus.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yeah, he seemed to enjoy the onions, a lot of onions,
you know, there was like that weird for the bottom
of like a lot of onion peels.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Like, by the way, don't put your onions in the refrigerator.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
That's also a thing I was You took the thought
out of my head, did I really?

Speaker 7 (40:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:25):
We like, by the way, if I was left to
my own devices, though, my refrigerator would have similar underpinnings
of silly hillis it would just his refrigerator looks horrible
for starters, like nobody wants to eat out of that refrigerator.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
It is not a fun one to open up and
have a gaze at.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
But it also says he doesn't eat a lot apparently
on his list.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yeah, he had some like rice in the cupboard, the
pizzas and the tater tots and whatnot in the fridge.
There was not a lot milk and zilla. I know
again the list so far vegan vegan mozzarella by the way. Yeah,
and you know there's the common like I said, I
did the common signs are you know about twenty save foods?

(41:11):
And you know the side effects of this, this avoidant
food disorder can lead to health problems, malnutrition, low energy,
poor growth, and social difficulties avoiding meals with others. You're
not going to sit down and get to know somebody
and eat, you know, those kinds of things, and emotional stress.

(41:33):
Very interesting anyway, I thought it was be neat to
go over that, by the way.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
And the visuals to know why is that not on
this list? And he had the visual snow where he
couldn't see straight.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Because I think the question was more behavior behavioral. Thank you, sorry,
I couldn't think of the word it was where behavioral?
And so he answered it and it was in his
own handwriting. It wasn't like, you know, something that was forced.
Did we talk about can we talk about that handwriting
to Okay? No, it's the handwriting is so too much

(42:04):
so it's handwriting and the mom and the cards. I
think we and we have to get through all of those.
How much time do we it's we have five minutes.
We don't have enough time. But I want to talk
about this phone call with his mom and the text message. Okay.
So four days after the murder, it's November seventeenth, and
Brian Kolberger and his mother are on the phone. Okay,

(42:27):
and the whole world is looking for a killer.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
The whole world is captivated and we want answers.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
I'm one of them at this time. Hmm. Right. And
while they're on the phone, and it's been reported that
they were on the phone for hours, Okay. While they're
on the phone, his mother sends him an article about
the murders. Okay, so it you know, you can reasonably
assume that they were talking about it, right, Well.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
The specifically was about Xaner Kernodle. We know had an
impressible stab wound count I think close to fifty.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
And mom's article that she sent her beloved son was
just about how hard Xanna fought, that Xanner Kernodle fought
for her life. So they yeah, they not only must
have been talking about it. Is it possible that mom
was concerned for his safety and was like, look, whoever's
on the loose, Look how hard she had to fight

(43:26):
him off? Uh, look at this article for example of
Xanner Kernodle. That it's been noted, son, be careful out there.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
I mean, that's possibly very likely or very you know,
it seems likely a mother would do that.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Or is it possible that mom was like, son, why
do you seem so exhausted and a little beaten up?

Speaker 3 (43:50):
You seem like you've been through it?

Speaker 2 (43:51):
And her answer His answer is not satisfying, and mom
thinks maybe he's a killer. Right, And then this is
an article of what just happened four days ago in
your area because this young girl, beautiful Zeta Kernodle, had
to fight for her life.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Look at this. Is it possible your involved son, or
or let's take a different approach. Is it possible because
he's in criminology and this is a subject that interests him,
that mom is just looking for ways to connect to
her son, like and talked her about you know, maybe like, hey,
are you guys talking about this? And like did you
read this article? Oh my gosh, what's what's people do

(44:30):
that to me? I'm sure they do that to all
of us, all right.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
That's how people connect with me sometimes is through an
interesting case.

Speaker 4 (44:37):
Right.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
But they also in this the same people that did this,
you know, that told us about this text and phone call,
also examined you know, his phone and laptop and they're
saying that they found letters that he wrote when he
got when he lost his job, he wrote not one,
but two letters of grievance explaining why he needed the

(44:59):
teachingssistant role in what it meant to him. The Barnhart
told Banfield on his nation and in the second one
was saying why the professors were wrong? So why they
were wrong? He's a good student, he has a good GPA.
He can be both a good student and a TA
and he deserves that role. So he was fighting back

(45:20):
Wow with.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Wsu, I am dying to talk about his relationship with mom.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
What are we going to do that?

Speaker 2 (45:27):
More of a deep dive into this, because we know
that Brian spoke for hours with Mom, even right before
the sentencing, Right, you can do that on Sunday. Yeah, Like,
there is something really interesting about that dynamic. He was
very dependent on her. She obviously loved him.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
We're looking at a.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Photo of a card she sent him about her son
going off to school, moving away, and how much she
loved him. Right, So, like this was a bond from
a guy who has no bonds.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Right, So they were on the phone for hours that day.
This is the seventeenth. This is all so the same
day he wrote the letter. I just wanted to get
that in very quickly. The same day he wrote the letter,
he's on the phone with his mom. They could have
been talking about that. They could have been talking about
the murders. Anyway, that's it. It could have been.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Well listen, keep it here because at the top of
the hour, we have literally the nation's leading genetic genealogist,
CC Moore. She's joining us to discuss the cutting edge
technology that just solved a decades old case.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
That and much more.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
Give us your questions eighty eight to three to one Crime.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
So don't forget. If you missed any of the show,
no problem at all. You could always catch us right
after as a podcast. And we also want to hear
from you at True Crime Tonight show on Instagram and TikTok,
or at True Crime Tonight on Facebook or you could
always leave us a talk back. So listen, we have
a really big, exciting, important, important guest period the end,

(47:03):
who has really shaped so much in the world of
forensics and how cases are being solved real time. Not
only are we super fans of her work, but she's
she's the one, She's the queen who is the queen
of this, you know, genealogy, the chief of genetic genealogy
and also has cracked you know, hundreds and hundreds of

(47:24):
violent cases with law enforcement and her work.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
There were sore.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
And by the way, also not only the shows that
she's been on that you might actually recognize her from
as well, the Genetic Detective and PBS is Finding Your Roots,
which is so good. If you haven't seen that, you
of course you'll recognize her from it. So Ceecymour, we're
so glad that you're here with us. Thank you for

(47:51):
joining us. I wish we could see you right now
because we're all sort of squeezing our cheeks and kind
of you know, yeah, a little starstruck a little bit.

Speaker 6 (48:02):
Yes, it's too bad we can't sit around and yeah,
have some wine and.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Exactly would let's do it. That's like the best case scenario.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Actually, so let's pretend we're all at the same kitchen table,
and I know our true crime audience is with us
as well, at the exact same table. And yeah, the
proverbial glass of wine, we're passing it around.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
So how did you even get involved in nice?

Speaker 6 (48:27):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (48:28):
Wow?

Speaker 6 (48:28):
Well that's a long story, but I just want to
say thanks for the very nice introduction. That was very
very kind of you. I like that the queen.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
I'll take that princess as well. The queen and the princess,
I will.

Speaker 6 (48:41):
Take the temporary crown for now. But how did I
get into it? Well, it's a long story. I fell
in love with genetics multiple times in my life. It
took three times until it stuck. I don't have time
to go in the whole background, but I separately was
interested in genetics and genealogy. And after nine to eleven,

(49:03):
all of my gigs canceled. So at that time I
was in entertainment and I was working consistently, and all
of a sudden I had nothing. I had three auditions
the day of before everyone really realized the impact on
the West Coast, and then every single job canceled, every audition,
and so I suddenly had some time to breathe, which

(49:24):
I hadn't because you know, when you're doing gigwork like that,
you just have to constantly be on the go because
you never know when your next paycheck is coming in.
You know, you got to make sure you have enough
to pay the bills. Of course, I've long been interested,
but just didn't have time to pursue it. So that's
when I really started digging in on like ancestry dot com.
It was kind of early days, but they were online.

(49:47):
And then I read about this new company called family
Tree DNA that was offering DNA tests for genealogical purposes,
and that was like two things I loved and I
found fascinating that were and so I started reading up
on everything. At the time, I was pretty tight with
my money, so I didn't immediately jump in and start testing.

(50:10):
It was really expensive back then, but I started reading
what was going on and just following the progress of
that really curious. I didn't fully jump in with both
feet until two thousand and nine. So what happened is
we would use the types of tests that were called
why DNA and mitochondrial DNA early genetic genealogy, so from

(50:31):
two thousand to two thousand and nine. End of two
thousand and nine, we were just using those tests and
they could only tell us about our direct paternal and
direct maternal lines. Women couldn't test to find themselves to
learn about their dad's side. So a few of us
were asking, like, why can't we use autos normal DNA.
So autos onal DNA is the type of DNA you

(50:52):
inherit from all of your ancestral line, half from mom,
half from dad, And scientists told us it couldn't be
done that because of the combination rate was so high
and you lose half of that DNA every generation, that
it just was too an unstable basically for genealogical purposes.
And then twenty three and me had started testing for

(51:13):
health purposes. But this really smart, amazing scientists over there,
Mike mcspherson got the idea to introduce a genealogical based
feature beta testing, something called relative finder back then, and
with that you could compare your DNA to everyone else

(51:35):
already in the database. And this was something that was
kind of bubbling up with the community too. Some of
us are early adopters, were saying, well, if we tested,
there could we compare ourselves, like would they allow us
to do that? So he enabled that, and when I
saw that, that's when I jumped in with both feet,
dropped everything else, dumped all of our I had a
company at that time with the partner, dumped all the

(51:56):
work on the partner.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah, no more gigs either. The gigs were over right now,
you're all sized out.

Speaker 6 (52:01):
By that time I had this, I was into my
second career then, so when I got pregnant with my son,
I went behind the camera and started producing and writing
and capping. So I had a production company. And then
when I saw the promise of autosomal DNA or SNIP testing.
We use a single nucleotide polymorphism, which is the type

(52:25):
of genetic marker, and that hadn't been used for much then,
just for health type and research, not for law enforcement,
not for genealogy. So I saw this tremendous potential. As
I said, dropped everything worked one hundred hours a week
at least tests before you. Of my family members told

(52:45):
some of the scientists at twenty three and me and
a different scientist said you should start writing a blog
about this. I said, well, who's going to care about
my research? And he said, oh, believe me, start writing
and they will come. And that's that's how it started.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
I saw you on sixty minutes.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
I want to say, I want this had to have
been way before COVID, but I have a memory very
distinctly of watching you on sixty minutes, and I like,
my heart stopped.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Am I accurate here? And I am God? Is my
witnessed the Armstrong. I went into you at work the next.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Day I think we were Kat was maybe just like
day one, and I was like, this is the show.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
You got to see this woman.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
She is like on fire with the science of this
and like even just you saying, now your second career,
pregnant with your you know your.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Son likes this career.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Now you're in your third career, how inspiring that is
for people to hear.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
I was knocked off my side.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
I literally I was like blown away when I saw
your interview.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
She was talking about the show.

Speaker 6 (53:48):
I do find it inspirational, because that's one of the
things that I One of the messages I try to
get across is I didn't find it till my forties,
or I actually didn't create it. I had to create
this career for myself. There was no thing as a
professional genetic genealogist, and so I want people to be
inspired by that, particularly maybe women who have celebated home
with their kids, or people who are in dead end

(54:10):
jobs that they don't find.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Any of their jobs. Yeah that's me.

Speaker 6 (54:14):
Yeah, you you know, you can find something you love
and is meaningful and actually help people and fulfilling. It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
And women in STEM, I love it.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
I'm a It's just such a smart move. And by
the way, you are changing lives so in such major ways.
So congratulations and yeah, oh thank you.

Speaker 6 (54:34):
I'm so fortunate when I was in the right place
at the right time and was in a position that
I could. I mean I made a lot of took
a lot of sacrifices to do it, but I did
volunteer work for years, you know, before it became a
paid gig. So I was lucky. But I was also

(54:54):
you know, I was there when it was brand new.
They're just there, weren't any experts. I don't have a
deg in STEM. I actually went to school for theater
for stopper in theater, and I kind of backed into
STEM in a roundabout way. It's something I strongly considered
when I was going into college, but ended up going

(55:15):
the entertainment route. So I came full circle for me,
but not till much later in life. So I do
want people to be inspired because I had a lot
of regrets about my career path and my choices, and
now it all makes a lot of sense. Like, I'm
really thankful I have my media background because it helped
me a lot to be able to educate the public.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
Yeah, all of your experience has come together.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
See, it's so inspiring.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
And by the way, this is the Courtney Armstrong that
Stephanie mentioned.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
And yes, we both became a little obsessed with you.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
I remember, yeah, and I was like, you have no
idea what I just saw right now?

Speaker 3 (55:57):
This is the woman.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
Yeah, Stephanie world and wouldn't stop talking correctly about you.

Speaker 6 (56:03):
You know, looking back, it's really surreal because everything happened
so fast. Then. That was still in late twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Yeah, that's exactly when we were just.

Speaker 6 (56:13):
Solving cases every few days, you know, at least one
a week, which we've now done on average for seven
years straight. But back then it was all new. It
was crazy. I had media interviews all the time and
now I look back and think, oh my gosh, I
did sixty minutes. Like I haven't really had time to
think about it at the time, but it was such
an honor. It's such an incredible thing to be able

(56:34):
to do.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Your son must be very proud of you. Yes, how exciting.

Speaker 4 (56:39):
Listen, if anyone wants to speak with Cec and who
wouldn't give us a call, We're at eight to eight
three one crime and ask your genetics questions away, CEC.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
I had a question.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
I've heard you say that you're often sort of a
last resort for older cases col cases. What is that
emotional impact like when finally you're able to give family
answers good or bad.

Speaker 6 (57:10):
Well, that's really what it's all about. All of my
work in family history, genetic genealogy, traditional genealogy has always
been about family and providing answers, particularly to families, and
that's true with my biological reunification work with adoptees donor
can see people. So this is just following in that

(57:30):
same tradition, but it's something much heavier. I mean, those
are super important too, but this is something that is
just so tragic. Every one of these cases has destroyed
lives taken, lives in some cases, families are never the same,
and unfortunately we can't provide closure. You know, we can't
undo what happened. We can't turn back the clock. So

(57:51):
the one thing we can give them is answers to
their questions and then some sort of resolution to that
and hopefully justice. And then the cases we're fortunate, we
get justice, you know, when that person is still alive
to face their crimes. And I've watched so many families
and so many survivors of violence cime now that I

(58:13):
don't want to speak for them, but I will say
what I've witnessed is it's like they carry this really
heavy burden with them for years or decades, trying to
get justice, trying to get answers, and then they finally
get it thanks to genetic genealogy, and you can almost
physically see the burden lift. It's amazing to me. And
I don't always get to see the families in person,

(58:37):
but when I have, you can just sense it. They
carry such a heavy weight, such a heavy burden, trying
to get justice for their loved ones and for survivors
of sexual assault. You know, I never thought about it before.
What it would be like to not know who your
attacker was, To go through life not knowing if that
person is around you, if they are someone you see

(58:59):
in the grocery store or someone you meet online today,
that must be horrific. And so I've seen a lot
of lives kind of stop, just did to a stop
because of that and that type of tragedy. And so
even though they're survivors, their lives are often terribly impacted
in a negative sense. And then I've seen those lives

(59:21):
restart again. Even for some really old crimes. It was
like almost like they got a reset. It's amazing, Wow,
that really is.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
And the sexual assault example, you gave it.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
Literally all all three of us had looks of awakening
of my gosh.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
I mean that's a reality for many people.

Speaker 6 (59:41):
Yeah, you know it's dark or they were wearing a
mask or both. I mean a lot of these people
have no idea what their attacker looks like. But you
mentioned you were.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
You mentioned you were in entertainment and you had gigs
and you were you went behind the camera and you
were a producer and whatnot. And then now you're in
TV to write The Genetic Detective and finding your roots
and you're such a good communicator. Do you think that
this has all helped people understand like the really complex
issues around DNA.

Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
I do you know?

Speaker 6 (01:00:11):
That's my hope and my blog Actually the tagline was
written by a non scientist for non scientists. My goal
was always to try to educate the public in the
type of language and explanations that make sense and not
talk over people's heads. And I think because I don't
come from stem academia and that world, I'm more able

(01:00:34):
to do that. And then because of my background in
media that has helped me so much, and so I
finally for the first time, don't regret all of those
earlier choices and you know, the directions that my careers,
my multiple careers went, and then being able to write,
you know, working on finding your roots. My biggest goal
on Doctor Who's invited me to work on the show

(01:00:57):
was to try to get more DNA stories into p
both living rooms, and so the fact I learned how
to write and produce and communicate to an audience through
both my own appearances and writing the DNA parts of
the script is I think it's been really illustrative and
it's allowed the public to see through these human interest

(01:01:20):
stories just how impactful genetic genealogy and DNA testing can be.
And so that has always been one of my biggest goals.
I mean early on, I saw the potential, but I
knew we'd never get there if we didn't get millions
of people to take these tests. So I started pitching
human interest stories that I was finding through my work
to all these different journalists and trying to put it

(01:01:41):
in terminologies and structures that they would understand and like
and say, hey, that's a good twist, or that might
appeal to my audience as my editors.

Speaker 4 (01:01:51):
Well see, you say it's a goal, but I say
it is something that is an accomplishment at this point
because you have done that in droves. Listen, everyone, stay here.
We are lucky enough to be continuing our conversation with
c Seymour, the nation's leading genetic genealogist.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Give us a call eighty to eighty three to.

Speaker 4 (01:02:10):
One crime True Crime tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
We're getting a little rowdy in here. I wish you
guys could see the robot that body is doing right now,
nice dance moves. The whole crew is given a little
wiggle in between the commercial break because we have an
astounding guest. By the way, if you miss any of
the show, no Worries, you can always catch it as
a podcast right after. And if you want to jump
in and join the conversation with the genetic Detective, Hello,

(01:02:45):
Cecy Morris here the original, the Queen of all DNA
in my humble opinions, and also the PBS show the
Finding Your Roots is so satisfying and heartwarming and it's
small art and we encourage everybody to please listen. And
also we were hearing this in the earlier segment, but

(01:03:06):
just to kind of underscore it yet again, it is
so inspiring to be hearing from you just as a woman,
or as a parent, or as anyone. And there's so
many of us that can relate. To be in a
section of your life where it's just not feeling right
work wise, and that you have to kind of reinvent
yourself and the fact that you've done that three times

(01:03:30):
you are the.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
One is really just an exciting moment.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
So enough about that. Welcome back everybody, Courtney. Do you
want to set us up for the case.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
That CES is going to discuss?

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, so we want every detail from you,
but to catch audience members up. We are going to
be talking about an identical twin who was been convicted
of a nineteen eighty seven sexual assault cold case. And
this happened using a breakthrough DNA sequencing technique. It was

(01:04:02):
Russell Marubio. I hope I'm saying their name right. They
were found guilty of this attack thirty seven years ago
after forensic experts identified rare genetic mutations that distinguished the
DNA from his identical twin.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
How is that even possible? It's crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
I'll say one thing, thaking it was using ultra deep genome.
I haveerentiate, but I bet c Z can actually say
it and explain it because I almost.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Thought identical twins had the same DNA, right, Like, how
can you and stopped?

Speaker 6 (01:04:40):
You know, that's been the traditional understanding and definition of
identical twins, and when you are looking at standard genetic tests,
they are identical. And that's a real problem for law
enforcement because they use those str profiles, the short tandem repeats.
That's the type of DNA profile that they've used for
decades to charge people with a crime, arrest them, convict

(01:05:02):
them in a court of law. When you hear those
terms where they say there's a one in five hundred
trillion chance it's anyone else on earth theifis person. Well,
that's never worked for identical twins, so it's been easy
for the guilty one to point at the innocent one
and say, no, it's him, Oh, it's him. So you
haven't been able to use genetic evidence for that. But
there's been a lot of research in the past theorizing

(01:05:26):
that you could potentially find these unique mutations or somatic
mutations that happen after conception, and so they vary even
with identical twins. And because technology has moved forward so
fast and it's so much cheaper now to do a
whole genome sequence or a full genome sequence, you can

(01:05:47):
now do that. And we actually weren't the first. There
was one in the Netherlands, I believe in twenty twenty
two where they did this exact same thing. So we're
the first in the US in Unis and that this
just happened. He was just convicted. I think it was
August twenty first, and it was based on our scientists,
doctor Janet Katie's research at Parabon. So we had done

(01:06:11):
the genetic genealogy on the case, just like we would
any case. In fact, it was one of my team members,
Stephanie Wyatt, who did that work and it led right
to these two brothers. But they were identical twins, so
that was the problem. Now one of them certainly seemed
to fit the surviving victims description better, but still it

(01:06:32):
was just circumstantial, right, and it's like hair doing things.
He could have changed all that. She could have been
one twin pretending to be his other twins, and so
we couldn't say for sure. It was really just based
on circumstantial They both were in the same area at
the same time, you know, the crime, and so they
either could have done it, and so our brilliant scientist,

(01:06:56):
doctor Janet Katie did that analog. We had the DNA
processes of full genome sequence at Inner Mountain Forensics in Utah,
so thank you to them, and so they took the
crime scene DNA even though it was old, they were
able to pull that full genome. So when you pull

(01:07:17):
the full genome, you're not just looking at a handful
of markers or even the seven hundred and fifty thousand
we'll usually look out for genetic genealogy. Now you're looking
at all of the genetic markers across the genome billions,
and that's why you can then find those differences because
we're all affected by our environment. Right, So even though

(01:07:37):
they grew they were in the same womb and they
grew up together, there's still different choices that people make
in life, Like if you smoke cigarettes might cause a
somatic mutation that only you have and not your twin,
and those don't get passed down, so they're not going
to be inheritable. This isn't the type of genetics where
you say, oh, you know it's inherited in this family.
It runs in this family, or I got that from

(01:07:59):
mom or Dad. Don't get this because it's not in
those reproductive cells. It's only in the non reproductive cell.
But everybody have different ones because they live different lives.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
You're blowing my mind a little bit, are you saying
like environmental factors can like modify your DNA a little
bit like at the normal really, because then there's markers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
So if you're if you're looking at in the correct
me if I'm wrong, CC, I don't mean to overstate here,
but getting is correctly. So if you know, if there
was a set of twins, Body and Courtney. They're both
adorable and perfect, and one of them just makes different choices.
One's a little boozier, one's a little bit of a smoker,
et cetera. That is putting some air quotes dense or

(01:08:45):
tells into this what would normally be identical DNA.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
So my d to become a.

Speaker 6 (01:08:52):
Mutant, that's right. And so even like your job, like
if you're exposed to radiation or you're a fun worshiper
and you go out in a lot, that damage yourself,
it damages your DNA. The other thing that can happen
is when your DNA replicates or repairs itself, it can
make mistakes. And so that mistakes only going to happen
in you, right, not your twin. Even though your DNA

(01:09:13):
is the same to start, So there are these really
minute differences. Now, these somatic mutations are usually not a
good thing. You know, that's what causes cancer in many cases.
When they say it's not genetic, that's because it was
some sort of environmental or just a bad luck mutation.
You know, things happen spontaneously too. You just you get

(01:09:34):
that copy error or your DNA is trying to repair
it MOLF and it messes up, and so that can
cause one twin to get cancer where another one would not.
And so you can also have a beneficial one, though
it's more rare, Like some people have a mutation that
makes them not susceptible to HIV, and so then that

(01:09:55):
would be a somatic mutation that's actually beneficial to us.
But most of the time or not, based on what
I read, I'm not a scientist, you know, like that
at all, So this is something I've learned as well,
because you're in.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
The common sense scientist you know that also really does
track right, like you're actually understanding this.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Yeah, exactly exactly. You make it sound so palatable. Thank
you for just communicating so well. You have a really
good way of explaining this. So yeah, okay, continue, I'm fascinated.

Speaker 6 (01:10:25):
Well again, I'm a non scientist, so I can say it,
you know, plainly, but I think it's just so fascinating
when you read.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
This like this.

Speaker 6 (01:10:31):
It's just because you would have to have enough of
those to have a high confidence level, right, because twins
might happen to get some of the same somatic mutations
if they grow up together they're in utero together if
they're doing a lot of the same things. So you know,
I didn't do the analysis, so I don't know all
the details of it. You'd have to talk to doctor Katie.
But in order to be able to testify in court

(01:10:54):
that you're really sure that you have a high level
of confidence it's one versus the other, there'd have to
be you know, a significant number of differences, and I
mean scientifically significant, because there also can rarely be back mutation,
where somebody can have a somatic mutation and then it
can reverse itself. It's rare, but it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
On Oh my goodness, that's interesting too.

Speaker 6 (01:11:15):
Wow, how that mutation at sixteen but not have it
at thirty five? And again, as I said, it's rare,
but back mutations are so cool. It's when your cells
mutat or your DNA mutates, and then it mutates again
and it happens to reverse itself. But I remember reading
about that, like, you know, a decade and a half ago,
just thinking that is so interesting. I love genetics.

Speaker 3 (01:11:38):
It's fascinating. So this is true crime tonight. I'm body
MoveOn and I'm here with Stephanieleidecker and Courtney Armstrong and
we are super blessed to be joined by CC Moore.
She is a famed genetic genealogist. We are talking about
this groundbreaking, like landmark case of two twins, well one
twin who basically raped a woman left sea and behind

(01:12:00):
and they were able to tell which twin it was.
This is the first time in the United States that
this has happened. So we're talking about this case and
I am literally transfixed. If you want to weigh in,
give us a call. Eighty eight thirty one crime.

Speaker 4 (01:12:13):
CC.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
Is this going to help other cases?

Speaker 6 (01:12:16):
It certainly should. You know, we've seen a number of
cases over the years where the twins, you know, point
at each other and they're at a standstill, and so
if you can't get a confession, or there was a
case here where I live in Orange County where they
listened in when the twins were talking and they were
able to convict one of them based on that. But

(01:12:38):
if you don't have that they're really stealthy and they're
really careful and neither back down, then you would be
sucked because you would always have that measure of doubt. Right,
you could never convict somebody without reasonable doubt, and so
any of those cases should start coming forward and ask
for this type of analysis, and we know now it
can be done, and importantly the court accepted it, So

(01:13:02):
that sets press.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
That's the big deal.

Speaker 6 (01:13:05):
Yeah, yeah, And that's really a big deal.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
With IDG in general. Like investigative genetic genealogy. Right, that's
kind of been like a thing you know in news lately,
right because of privacy concerns and things like that, but
more states are kind of like allowing it.

Speaker 6 (01:13:21):
Right, Well, it's kind of complicated and it takes more
time than we have to discuss. But the bott line
is it always goes back to that str profile, which
is the traditional profile that is used in a court
of law. And so the genetic genealogy, which is SNIP based,
which is single nucleo hide poly polymorphisms, is really just

(01:13:44):
used as a tip. It's a lead generator. It's like
if I call the name into crime Stoppers, they'd have
to do their full investigation and due diligence. Same thing
when I give them a not name and I say
genetic genealogy is pointing at this guy, they can't just
go out and arrest him. They have to get that
stg TR profile, their courtedmissible DNA match before they can

(01:14:04):
do that, and so they'll usually go and collect surreptitious
DNA meaning they'll get his trash or they'll fall into
a restaurant, they'll wait till he drops his cigarette, that
type of thing, and then that is what they use
for the basis of the arrest. The Humorman case is
notable in that they used SNIP testing, So that's what

(01:14:28):
the difference is. The SNIP genetic markers is a totally
different type of DNA than the STRs, which is that traditional, accepted,
cortedmissible profile. So with genetic genealogy, we've been arguing all
along it shouldn't be courted missible. It doesn't need to
be because they can always go back to that str
profile that they created years or decades ago on these

(01:14:48):
cold cases. But if you have a rootless hair, meaning
if you have a piece of hair, that's right, and
so with those you cannot pull STRs. You can only snips.
And the reason you can pull snips is because doctor
ed Green from UC Santa Cruz didn't listen to all
the scientists who said it could never be done, and

(01:15:10):
he did it. So we have solved multiple cases. I
myself have been involved in I think five cases where
all they had was rootless hair and they didn't have
this str profile to fall back on. So the Hureman
case is important, but the judge based his decision partially
on some of my cases. We already had one in

(01:15:32):
California accepted, and the SBI had one accepted in Idaho.
They just want a high profile, so people didn't care
about it. So they're actually at least the third, no
less than the third case that accepted it, the first
one in New York, but not the first in the
United States. And so we're starting to move toward snip testing,
which is much more precise and confident being accepted in

(01:15:55):
a court of law. So that was a hurdle that
needed to happen. US talked about this a little that's
old technology. Yeah, we're moving forward finally, right, So.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
They My understanding in lisk is and we talked about
this a little bit last night in California and Idaho
and now New York is they basically had to like
build the gnome. Is that right? Is that the right
way to say it. They had to like exclerate what.

Speaker 6 (01:16:18):
Would be it's much more segmented fragmented, I should say,
and so you get little tiny pieces. So it's Austraya
Forensics in Santa CRUs that's doing this, and they are
using this novel technique but never done before anywhere. It's
amazing and the DNA looks different. So the first few

(01:16:39):
cases I worked, I really had to look at it
in a different way because we weren't seeing these long,
identical segments of DNA that we usually use in genetic genealogy.
They were much smaller. But Australia has gotten really good
at stringing those together now and filling in the gaps.
So now when you get one of those profiles, it's
really not that different than working with any other profile

(01:17:01):
for genetic genealogy. That's because they've made advances over the
years that they've been working on it. But they're taking
these fragments and sort of sewing them back together. For
lack of it scientific way of explaining it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:13):
Wow, it's so amazing and complex, and again you're able
to boil it down so that fellow theater majors like
myself can actually understand Courtney are talking about a little.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
Pippin' anyone was it singing dancing? What was the Theatris
CC for me.

Speaker 6 (01:17:35):
I started as a vocal performance major, which ended up
being opera, which wasn't really what I was planning. I
was a musical theater lover, and I just thought, Oh,
I want to sing all major and vocal.

Speaker 3 (01:17:46):
We're going to hold that thought really quick. We're going
to come back with ccmore this time, just not about
cracking a cold case. She's going to be digging into
how this is so groundbreaking. Keep it right here at
True Crime Tonight. We're talking true crime all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
We have Cecy Moore, who was really, frankly the queen
of all things DNA and genetics. We've been kind of
yapping during the break here just about what a great
talker you are, so good, and how you make us
all feel smarter and more informed. You know, we've been
following the Brian Coberger case obviously so very closely here
on the show. We've made the podcast, the documentary, et cetera. Obviously,

(01:18:31):
DNA is at the core of this, including the genetic
genealogy testing. Would love to jump into that a little bit.

Speaker 6 (01:18:39):
Yeah, you know, one thing I wanted to say about
that is that everyone was really focused on that case
as studying precedent in the courts, but we already had
over seventy five convictions from people identified through investigative genetic genealogy,
but they just didn't get as much attention. So there
was a lot of fear that the judge would give

(01:19:00):
a lot more leeway because it was a death penalty
case and that that could negatively impact our future cases. Now,
I don't think anyone really thought that would happen, but
we did see him giving a lot more leeway to
the defense because I think because it was a death
penalty case, and rightly so. But it made us nervous
because we had this really strong precedent that was already

(01:19:23):
set all over North America, not even just the US,
but in Canada as well, and we didn't want to
see any of that be reversed, you know, because we
were so happy it was moving in the right direction
and it was keeping genetic genealogy out of the courts
basically by considering it just a tip and then the
evidence is what they gathered, you know, after they were

(01:19:43):
pointed in the right direction, and so we were all
super relieved that the judge kept his ruling in line
with what had already been ruled in many, many other
courts by other judges, And can I.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
Just break that down and make sure that I understand
that correctly? So meaning, obviously we know that Brian Coberger's
father had discarded trash on his saliva was somehow so
cute with this or a cute tip exactly, and therefore
the familial DLNA was identified Brian Coberger obviously.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
Being the sun.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
If that had been dismissed or inadmissible in court, is
that the fear that suddenly that would have maybe I
put a shadow on this type of testing in court
because it was a death sential trial and the provisions
are higher.

Speaker 6 (01:20:32):
It actually wasn't that part. So that part of it
goes back to the crime lab that is port admissible
because they are going back to that traditional str profile
that has been used in paternity tests and criminal cases
for decades, and so that really didn't affect us. That
was after the investigative genetic genealogy pointed toward Brian and

(01:20:54):
they were trying to collect that search to DNA to
confirm or refute that lead, and so they tried to
get his DNA and ended up with his father's DNA,
But then all they had to do was take those
twenty str genetic markers and line it up against their
crime scene and DNA, because we get half from Mom,
half from Dad, right, so one whole column would match

(01:21:18):
exactly to Dad's, one of his alleles would be go
to Brian, and then one of Mom's alleles would go
to Brian, and so they could see right away it
was apparent child match. But that was after us. The
real question was fruit of the poison try. And this
has been brought up a lot, you know, because the
FBI did use my heritage prof of my heritage database,

(01:21:40):
which their terms of service bar law enforcement from using it.
So that's not something my team has done. So that's
actually not something that we had had come up in court,
but other genetic genealogists have had that come up in
court and even in appeal cases, and the ruling is
always that where the public can go, law enforcement can go.
So the company can say they don't like it, they

(01:22:02):
can put it in their terms of service, but it's not,
you know, a criminally legal issue. I say, it's not
a legal issue.

Speaker 7 (01:22:10):
But they could suelie they would like exactly, but criminally
it's not an issue, because it's not illegal for law
enforcement to use a database surreptitiously that the public has
full access to, and so that was the real question.

Speaker 3 (01:22:24):
Interesting. The first case I remember this being a thing
in was Golden State Killer Joseph D'Angelo, which, by the way,
I'll be Gone in the Dark. You're in that documentary
and you are fabulous in it. I'm obsessed with it.
It's so good, and I remember, but I don't was
that an issue in that case? Was this privacy concern
and whatnot an issue in that case too? Well?

Speaker 6 (01:22:44):
You know that was before any companies had any terms
of service that addressed the issue. And so I had
been working towards this idea of using genetic genealogy and
the techniques that I had created for adoptees for law
enforcement for a long time, but I knew it was
going to be controversial. So I was plotting along very carefully,

(01:23:06):
talking to genetic ethicis and attorneys and our own community,
trying to find a way to do it ethically and responsibly.
And so I wasn't at all surprised that it happened.
But what did surprise me was how positively everyone reacted
so much so universally that I was like, Wow, why
have I been losing fleet for years trying to figure

(01:23:28):
out how to do this without upsetting people and without
raising these genetic privacy issues. Everyone was just so happy
to have them caught that it was actually a good
first case for it, you know, because it really got
public support and really illustrated how powerful and important this
work could be. And so that worked out. You know,
I didn't work on that case that was barbaraventor right,

(01:23:50):
and so I'd been plotting towards, inching towards that idea
and then boom, that just blew the barn doors off,
which is what allowed me to move forward. Then, because
my concern was always using people's DNA, particularly people, i'd
encourage the test, which I probably had indirectly, you know,
encouraged millions of people to take these tests through my

(01:24:11):
various you know work, all the stories I had out there,
and I didn't want people to sell betrayed like I
had used their DNA in a way they weren't aware
it could be used. So after that, everybody knew if
their DNA was in jetmatch it could be used that way.
Most people thought if their DNA was an ancestry or
twenty three and me, it could be used that way too,

(01:24:32):
which is not the case, still not the case for
this day. Most people think any consumer DNA test can
be used for these purposes. But that's not true.

Speaker 3 (01:24:42):
But and CC have allowed me, Yeah, go ahead, I.

Speaker 4 (01:24:47):
Just said that because that that paused me. So Ancestry
and twenty three and me you said, cannot be used.

Speaker 6 (01:24:54):
For no, because it has to be a database that
allows uploads. Because of course we're using forensic labs to
create these SNIT profiles. They're not being sent to ancestry
or twenty three meters a process, and that's the only
way you can get your DNA in their databases. Spit
in that too. It has to be a living, breathing person.
They required lots of saliva, not tiny tiny bits of

(01:25:17):
DNA from crime scenes, not blood, not semen, but lots
of saliva. And they partly require so much because they
want to make sure that it's not surreptitious and the
person who's being tested has consented to it, And so
they can only technically use databases that allow uploads, which
used to include my heritage, But after the Coburger case

(01:25:38):
they stopped accepting uploads. Finally, because it went so public
that their database had been used. I had been telling
them since twenty eighteen, advising them, you know, that it
was being used, and that they had hundreds of law
enforcement files in there, and their users were not aware
of that. And I really think that people deserve the
right to decide. I want them to know that at

(01:26:00):
law enforcement and he's using the database, and then they
can decide whether they want to participate and support that
or not. And most people will, as it turns out.
I've been involved in long term studies that show most
people are super supportive, like by far in a way majority,
and most think we're using all of those databases anyway,
So why I think let them know.

Speaker 3 (01:26:21):
I think at crime Con a couple of years ago,
I think the Jane Doe project, it was collecting DNA
from for jed match, and I did my data project, yeah,
the DNA dough project, thank you, and I gave my
DNA and they did it right there, and they said
that they found like seventeen people or something that or
they identified seventeen people just at crime Con alone, which
is fascinating to me. And I think, if you have

(01:26:43):
the opportunity to do that, you should do that. But
do you think c see that the difference between let's
let's put Coburger and Joseph di Angelo the Golden State
Killer side by side, right. Do you think the issue
is that is that Joseph Dangelo and the Golden State
Killer was a cold case. Do you think that's why
people were more acceptable of it.

Speaker 6 (01:27:01):
I think people haven't had a lot of time to
think about the potential negative aspects of it and the
privacy issues. Right away, everyone was just so happy he
was caught and that his survivors of his crimes and
the families finally had an answer and justice eventually with Coberger.
Now we've had years to debate this, to think about it,

(01:27:23):
for the ethicists to come up with questions, for the
naysayers to amplify their voices, and so later after that
is when we got more of the reaction I was
expecting from the beginning, because I was always talking to
the community about the genealogy community, and I have actually
approached twenty three and these CEO in twenty twelve, the

(01:27:45):
Ancestry DNA architect of their DNA system in twenty thirteen,
or maybe even twenty twelve with them as well, and
I'd been schooled on why they were not going to
allow law enforcement in their databases. So I was super
aware of all the issues really early, but most people
hadn't had time to think about that yet when the
gold and Peck killer was caught, so everyone was just celebrating.

(01:28:08):
Months later is when people really started settling in, like,
wait a minute, what does this really mean? So Coberger
in that regard, you know, came after all of these
discussions had already started and the concerns were much more
discussed and out there in the open. But we also

(01:28:28):
have to look at the public safety issue with him.
You know, the FBI did go against the terms of service,
but it was in the interest of public safety, because
an active case is where we can really have the
most important and significant impactly and save lives. Right, they

(01:28:50):
did their job, and some people are unhappy about it,
but their job is to save lives, which they very
likely did since I mean it kind of unlikely it
was a one and done thing and he would never
do anything more.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
Yeah, he was just warming up. Let's be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
Had he not been taken off the streets, he would
have struck again, absolutely, I agree.

Speaker 6 (01:29:10):
You know, it's hard to argue otherwise because if he
was successful, right, if he got away with it, that
just pumped him up even more. And so you know,
I have always been the loudest voice about doing things
the right way, following the rule of best practices, follow
the ethics. But in a case like that, I can
also argue the other side. You know, these kids, these

(01:29:32):
wonderful kids, were taken from their family, their lives were
snuffed out, and he could have done it again a
month later if they hadn't stopped him. And so in
that case, I understand why they made the decisions that
they made. I'm not necessarily saying, you know, it's right
or wrong. I wouldn't have done it. My team doesn't
do that. But I'm also not the FBI, so I'm

(01:29:56):
still a layman. And so I'm sure they talked to
the DOJ and got an exception and proceeded because I
know that that's something that happened. Some people say, you
know what am I talking about? They criticizing me. I've
spoken to FBI professionals. He told me they are able
to get exceptions when it's a real public safety threat,

(01:30:20):
which obviously that one was and so I believe they
very likely got permission to do that from their superiors.
So it wasn't like they just went rogue and did it,
you know, behind the scenes. But regardless, they didn't break
any laws. And that's what our court come down to.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:30:39):
You can argue all you want the ethics of it,
but they didn't break any criminal laws by doing it,
and so that is why they lost. The defense lost
that argument, and that DNA evidence was allowed to be kept,
which is what led ultimately to his cle deal. Because
that's happened in so many of my cases where the
defense has tried to fight the genetic genealogy use and

(01:31:00):
without using my heritage, but just in general using it,
and they lose, and then the criminal takes a plea
deal and it keeps the family from having to go
through that trial and have those wounds ripped back open
in a twenty year old case.

Speaker 4 (01:31:16):
Well, any cc once, I mean, you've done this now
about seven times and just shed light on things that
I personally and we collectively have been looking into and
yet couldn't quite understand. Do you know how many interviews
we've done about the Fourth Amendment and Brian Coberger, and
you cleared it up in a radio segment. So yeah,
this in you really are a star and a queen,

(01:31:37):
as Devanie said, and CC before we wrap, we have
a couple of minutes left. And I understand you started
a new database called DNA justice dot org.

Speaker 3 (01:31:48):
Tell us about it.

Speaker 6 (01:31:49):
Yeah, yeah, and you know what, this conversation leads right
into it. So even though over fifty million people have
taken consumer DNA tests, we are unfortunately limited to the
two smallest databases and only about two million people are
in those, and so it's really hard to solve these crimes.
It takes a lot of skill, resources time. If we
could have access to a larger database, like the FBI

(01:32:12):
did in the Coburger case, then we can identify these
violent from those much more quickly. The other problem is
the two databases were allowed to use are owned by
for profit private companies, so they could change their minds
and decide to walk law enforcement. They could sell it
to a private person or company and make it proprietary,

(01:32:36):
and they keep raising their prices. So when we started
it was free, and then it was very inexpensive. Now
it's one thousand dollars for law enforcement to upload one
case to jedmatch and fourteen hundred to family Tree DNA,
and they have a bit of a monopoly, right they
can just keep raising those prices. So I started a
non profit database that is just for law enforcement use.

(01:33:00):
So you have to be doing a good deed to
help us out here, because you're not going to get
anything back, and that's what makes it hard, because you're
not going to be able to see your own matches.
But it's also good for people that are worried about
their genetic privacy, meaning maybe they don't want to find
their adopted sister, find any unexpected family surprises. They can
still help law enforcement because only law enforcement and professional

(01:33:24):
genetic genealogists working the cases are able to get there.

Speaker 3 (01:33:28):
That is so wonderful.

Speaker 4 (01:33:29):
Listen Ceecmore week, Thank you one million times, and yeah
Cecmore on True Crime Tonight