Investigative Genetic Genealogy: Breaking Barriers and Solving Cold Cases

Ahana: Hi, I’m Ahana Chatterjee and I am a doctoral student in forensic science at Sam Houston State University, and I’m also the student ambassador at ISHI 2024. Today I have with me, David and Cairenn. Why don’t you guys introduce yourself first so that we move on and talk about some fun stuff?

David: My name is David Gurney. I am an Assistant Professor of Law and Society at Ramapo College, and I’m the director of the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center there as well.

Cairenn: I’m Cairenn Binder, I’m the Assistant Director of the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College, and also the Director of the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Certificate Program.

Ahana: Perfect. So, my first question to both of you is what made you pursue a career in forensic science?

Cairenn: So, I’ll first say that our careers are forensic science adjacent, I would say. So, while we don’t… You know, I’m not a forensic scientist, and neither is David. We work adjacent to forensic science scientists to identify perpetrators of violent crime and unidentified human remains. I kind of fell into this career somewhat by accident. I was working in healthcare, and I was volunteering my time as a genetic genealogist, working on unidentified human remains cases. And then I was provided with the opportunity to make that my full-time career, teaching IGG at Ramapo College. So, I would say it was my hobby and I was able to transition my hobby into a full time career.

Ahana: That’s amazing. What about you?

David: I mean, echoing Cairenn, I would say that I absolutely am not a forensic scientist. I do not consider myself a forensic scientist in any way, shape or form. Certainly, we have a certain understanding of how forensic science works, because it is relevant to the work that we do. But my particular interest in in investigative genetic genealogy came from my work at the wrongful conviction clinic at the University of Arizona, which is where I was before I came to Ramapo. And when I was leaving that job was right about the time that IGG came about in 2018, 2019. And I recognized, as I’m sure other people did, quite immediately that this method could be used for wrongful convictions as well as criminal prosecutions and unidentified human remains. So, I came to Ramapo, sort of with that idea in mind. I have a whole long story about this, but I will get into it. So basically, a bunch of circumstances sort of piled on top of each other that allowed us to start the IGG Center with part of our mission being to use IGG in more wrongful convictions.

Ahana: Which I absolutely love, because what I was kind of started talking about before the interview is I think I decided to do forensics because I was told about the Innocence Project and wrongful convictions and using DNA, and today was the first time that this I got introduced to this, that we can use it for wrongful convictions as well, which I think is extraordinary. And for my research, for my PhD, overall it is related to unidentified remains, like we are doing burn bones and instead of using SNPs, we are going to use micro-haplotype panels just to reduce the cost and time and make it a little more available. On that note, what’s your perspective when it comes to the drawbacks of IGG? Because it’s new and people talk about a lot of drawbacks. So, what’s something that you feel is one of the drawbacks, if any, and how do you guys deal with it? What’s your perspective?

Cairenn: So, the biggest drawback right now, I mean I guess there are two; the first one being costs. And I think that that’s a hurdle for some organizations and some agencies. And I think David can speak more to how we can overcome the barrier of costs in IGG. Then the other huge barrier is underrepresented populations. So, IGG relies on a few public DNA databases that contain people who have voluntarily uploaded their DNA profiles into the database for their own genealogy purposes. And then, you know, the side quests that their DNA does is that it helps us to identify unidentified remains and crime scene samples. However, those databases are mostly made up of Caucasians from the United States, Canada, and then some of Europe. And so Western Europeans are the most, you know, predominant population in those databases. And that makes it really limited for use for any other, you know, country, race, nationality.

So, when you look at the United States, a huge crisis that we have is unidentified remains in our borderlands. About 20% of all unidentified human remains in the United States are found in those borderlands. And that’s mostly Latin American individuals right now IGG is extremely limited and in that use for Latin Americans because of underrepresentation in the DNA databases. So, one thing that we’re trying to do to overcome that is at Ramapo College, we have something called the Latin American DNA Project, where we’re distributing DNA tests to people of Latin American descent who want to help identify those remains. And, you know, they keep the DNA tests that they’re given so that they can use it for genealogy if they’d like. So, we’re hoping by increasing the number of Latin Americans in that database, we can facilitate more unidentified remains and identification.

Ahana: That’s amazing. Do you want to add something to that?

David: Yeah. I mean, I think somewhat related to this idea of underrepresentation, um, is just a sort of misunderstanding of what IGG is by the public, by legislators, even by some members of law enforcement and forensic science, not all by any means. But I think that there needs to be a lot more education for the public in general, about what this technique entails. Because ultimately, as Cairenn said, we depend on these databases made up of individuals who have chosen to participate. I think there’s a certain fear that some people have of participating in IGG. And my feeling is that a lot of that fear is driven by misunderstanding, that if the public understood the limited use to what we are to which we are using their information, they wouldn’t be as afraid of that. So, I think that’s certainly one of the drawbacks at this point, is that we only have access to those databases, and we depend on the public uploading. In a perfect world, we would somehow have access to the Ancestry database, for example, which contains many, many millions more profiles. So far there hasn’t been any traction on that. But, you know, we’re relegated to that relatively small, about 3 to 4 million profiles. And that certainly makes our jobs challenging.

Ahana: I totally understand that. It’s hard, but you guys are doing a great job. What do you have to say for, let’s say, countries which are not as developed as us? I can give good examples; let’s say Mexico or India. I’m from India, so hence India. What do you think? Since using DNA as a key factor for solving crimes is still so underdeveloped in a lot of countries, IGG is way farfetched. So, what advice do you think they can work? Or for, let’s say, professionals like me, who want to become like you guys one day? But it’s for countries who are not as developed as us. So, what do you think is good advice that you can give me today, which maybe I can use five years from now? But anything on those lines, any advice, suggestions?

Cairenn: So, we have a partnership with a university in England and they’re, you know, working to implement IGG in that country. And what we’ve learned from working in England is that there are cultural, you know, points that we don’t understand as Americans. You know, we can’t just go to, say, India and be like, “Hey, we’re going to implement IGG for you in this country”, because there’s going to be things that we don’t know about that are, you know, cultural context. For example, in the United States, we use IGG a lot to identify infant remains. And then sometimes their mothers are arrested and prosecuted. And there are people in other countries that have a big problem with how we’re implementing that here. And in America, it’s widely accepted that we do this. So, I think the most important thing is that whoever is implementing IGG in a specific country, it has to be people that are from that country and understand the cultural context that they’re working in. If people outside come in and try to implement it, it’s going to cause problems. So that would be my main piece of advice.

Ahana: Which I love. That’s amazing. No, it’s great.

David: I think that that’s great advice. It has to be someone who knows that culture. But I think from my perspective, the best thing that somebody could do for a country that hasn’t utilized DNA in general, and IGG in particular, is to really point to the damage and the harm of violent crime and what it does, not to the just the individuals immediately impacted by it, but to the neighborhood, the society in general, and in the United States, some researchers have sort of calculated that as a numeric value. And it’s, you know, tens and hundreds of billions of dollars a year in damage. And I think if you really emphasize that, and you can show people, “Look, we could stop this. We could solve most of the old cold cases and we could stop repeat violent crime.” I’ve been repeating this a lot lately, and it’s taken me a little while to sort of be on board with saying it, because it sounds sort of farfetched, but I really don’t think it is. I really think with enough resources and buy in from the public we could essentially stop repeat violent crime. And getting people to really understand that, members of the public or legislators in the country, whatever country you’re talking about, I think that would go a long way.

Ahana: That’s an amazing point as well. Coming back to US and IGG here. What do you think IGG will be five years from now in the United States? I personally feel IGG has great potential and it’s going to, you know… I don’t know where the limits are. I was reading this article a few days back and they had this paragraph, the last paragraph, I think, where they said that when STR typing was new, it was expensive back in the days, but now it seems like it’s not that big a deal. I mean, it’s a big deal, but like cost wise, it’s not as big a deal. Similarly, IGG for now it seems it’s very expensive, but later it might not seem like it’s that expensive. So, what do you think about five years from now? Where do you see IGG in the US?

David: I mean, it’s very hard to predict. I certainly think there’s an optimistic take you could have, which is that prices come down, as they almost always do. For any kind of genetic testing, they’ll reduce over time and that more legislators, members of the public, private donors, recognize the power, put the money forward that is necessary for it to promote the educational programs that will get more people doing it. And I think you could see a sea change, really, in the way that crime is resolved in the United States. But that depends on many things coming together in the right way. There are a lot of other waves coming from the other direction that could potentially significantly slow the pace of IGG, or in some cases, outright stop it. So, it’s hard to know. Obviously, at the IGG Center, our goal is to make this technique available in more cases to promote justice as much as can be done, but we’re always battling some competing interests that want to shackle the technique or in some cases, stop it.

Cairenn: And I’ll add that I think that the main question about the future of IGG that’s forefront in my mind, is who will be doing IGG or like where will IGG be taking place in five years? And so, for the last five years, IGG has mostly been performed by people like me that were volunteering on casework. I’m a civilian and I learned this IGG technique because I used to work on adoption cases. And I’m connected to an adoptee. And so, I took those same adoption genealogy skills, and I applied them to IGG. And that’s where most IGG practitioners were born the last five years. The people that were working on adoption cases and came over to do IGG. So now, we’re seeing more and more… I mean, we heard a talk from the FBI today. They have 250 people in-house practicing IGG, and those are not going to be a bunch of adoptees who learn this on their own. You know, genealogy. And I think that that’s where the trend is going. More and more law enforcement agencies, especially large ones and big metropolitan regions, are going to have in-house IGG practice. And so, we certainly hope that the technique is used responsibly and diligently and efficiently so that it can continue to be a tool for law enforcement. I think other people have different opinions about where it’s going. Maybe it’s going to be brought in to only be used in public laboratories, or maybe it will continue to be done by civilians like myself. I personally think that it will be done more in-house law enforcement, but I guess we’ll know for sure in five years.

Ahana: I’ll be done with my PhD by then, hopefully.

David: Can I just add one more?

Ahana: Yes, absolutely.

David: So related to that question, but also to the issue of expense. So much of the cost of IGG comes not from the genetic testing, the SNP testing that’s done. Yes, that’s expensive. But if you were to roll in the cost for all the genealogy work that’s done, in some cases you’re talking about, you know, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. In some cases, if you have a case where somebody’s been working for years, or a team of people have been working for years for thousands of hours, the costs in that can be astronomical. And that gets to the issue of training. It is possible for people who are not well-trained genealogists to be successful in IGG to a certain extent. There’s always going to be easy cases. And then even more difficult cases, if you spend enough time, you do enough reference testing and stuff, you can get to a result. But that all adds to the cost and the time. And I think the more cost and time involved in IGG, the harder it is to get legislators on board with funding it. And so there has to be that training element. People who are doing this have to be well trained so that they are doing it in an efficient way. And that’s something that we’re trying to work on at Ramapo. With our program that we’ve developed, that we think takes people who have little to no experience sometimes in genealogy and within 15 weeks turns them into really proficient researchers who can solve cases efficiently.

Ahana: Wow, great. So, my last question for you, you guys is not related to IGG. It’s a general question for forensic science students out there like myself. Do you have any advice for them if they want to pursue a career in forensics or related to forensics like you guys do? Do you have any advice or suggestion for them on how to be successful in this field?

Cairenn: I would just say, you know, I think that we’re going in this direction as a society. Like, take care of yourself. Take care of your body. Take care of your mind. And, have positive work life balance. I think that those of us that get into a job where we’re helping others (my past career was in healthcare, and now I’m in this career), we tend to put ourselves last and sacrifice our own, like, mental and physical health, sometimes for the good of society, which is very noble. But if you’re not here to do this work, then you know it’s not getting done. So, you have to put yourself first sometimes and take care of your body and your mind before you can help others.

Ahana: Not feel guilty when doing that, right? Yes, that’s a great advice. I try to implement that, but it’s hard. It is hard. Yeah, but that’s a great advice. All the students. Great advice. What about you?

David: So I think at Ramapo, our most recent president, President Jeb, she created a new slogan for Ramapo. And it’s bold, be kind and be good teammates. And I think, you know, this can sound a little sappy, perhaps, but I think ultimately, if you drill in on those concepts, they’re also important to success, especially in a field that is rapidly changing. You have to be willing to put yourself out there and make bold moves that are going to upset some people, perhaps. But then you also have to you to be kind. You have to recognize that most people in this space are operating in good faith. They’re trying to do the best. Everyone wants to achieve the same goals. And so, you have to you have to work together with people. You have to be willing to make compromises. Listen to people whose views you disagree with, even if it’s frustrating at times. Because ultimately, I think certainly this has been my experience, is views that you hold very strongly. If you open up to opposing views, you’ll find that your mind changes sometimes. So, we have to be willing to do that. Be open.

Ahana: Great advice. Thank you so much to both of you for agreeing to do this. That’s all the questions I had for you. Hope you have a great night. Thank you so much.