Parabon NanoLabs

Memphis police detective Stephen Shepherd went out about finding funding and he pushed and pushed and the funding finally came through.

The sample went to a company out in Virginia called Parabon Nanolabs.

You have probably heard about them before.

I feel like they're kind of becoming a household name.

This sketch did get the Chapel Hill Police Department in touch with someone else, though.

It was a company called Parabon Labs, which makes the FDP composite software.

They also do something that's probably more familiar to our clues crew, and that is genetic genealogy.

So in 2018, six years after the murder, police announced that they were working with Parabon to track down the killer through his genetic relatives.

41 years after the murders, detectives focus on Christiansen.

They send the DNA found at the crime scene in Eugene to a genetic analysis company called Parabon for phenotyping, a technique that uses DNA to make a sketch of the suspect.

The, uh, results of the phenotyping were, uh, incredible.

It was almost like a drawing of Thor's face.

It's the use of public ancestry databases to trace a family line from the DNA left at the crime scene.

News media was talking about the Golden State Killer crime having been solved with, uh, DNA and, uh, genetic genealogy.

So I ended up contacting Parabon Nanolabs, and we ended up submitting our DNA sample to them.

Initially, Parabon's investigation was not productive.

During that time, he learned a lot about how people were solving cold case homicides and identifying Jane and John Does, thanks to breakthroughs in the field of investigative genetic genealogy.

One of the leading labs in that space at the time was Parabon NanoLabs.

So in the summer of 2020, Cullen got in touch with them, and in short order, the lab staff informed him that the remains he had in the Summit Meadow Jane Doe case were good candidates for whole genome sequencing, which is a process that analyzes DNA and then creates a genetic profile for a person based on things like eye color, ethnicity, race, hair color, and so forth.

After analyzing the Summit Meadow Jane Doe remains, Parabon determined the woman was white with blonde hair and blue eyes, so definitely not Hispanic with dark hair, which is the description the clay reconstruction from the '90s had purported.

That process was tedious and time-consuming, but eventually she found a family with a couple in it whose daughter looked a lot like the latest reconstruction image, and her genealogy fit nicely with the DNA matches to Jane Doe.

Also, as it turned out, that young woman hadn't been heard from since 1982.

[birds chirping] [gentle music] On January 4th, 2021, NPS Special Agent Cullen Tucker learned from Parabon NanoLabs that the Summit Meadow Jane Doe whose remains his mom had initially investigated and who he'd spent years trying to identify was likely a woman named Patricia Hicks Dahlstrom.

28-year-old Patricia, who it seems often went by the nickname Patty, was originally from Spokane, Washington.

This article was authored by Michael Ruiz.

With great investigative power, genetic genealogists have a great responsibility to conduct themselves ethically to preserve a system that is entirely reliant on public participation to solve violent crimes, according to C.C. Moore, a pioneer of the industry and chief genetic genealogist at Parabon Nanolabs.

Like, I've never understood why anybody would send their genetics to one of these companies.

You don't know if it's safe.

This article was authored by Michael Ruiz.

With great investigative power, genetic genealogists have a great responsibility to conduct themselves ethically to preserve a system that is entirely reliant on public participation to solve violent crimes, according to C.C. Moore, a pioneer of the industry and chief genetic genealogist at Parabon Nanolabs.

Like, I've never understood why anybody would send their genetics to one of these companies.

You don't know if it's safe.

That was done using a standard test that has been accepted in courtrooms for decades to establish paternity.

C.C. Moore, chief genetic genealogist at Parabon Nanolab set on News Nation on Saturday.

So that is very, very high confidence.

And just about every forensic expert that we hear from says the same thing, that there's going to be a lot more DNA at this scene that's going to tie Kohlberger to these murders.

That was done using a standard test that has been accepted in courtrooms for decades to establish paternity.

C.C. Moore, chief genetic genealogist at Parabon Nanolab set on NewsNation on Saturday.

So that is very, very high confidence.

And just about every forensic expert that we hear from says the same thing, that there's going to be a lot more DNA at this scene that's going to tie Kohlberger to these murders.

You know, if you could identify this offender, that'd be a feather in your cap.

And she was like, well, what do you got? And at the time we had done this Parabon snapshot.

This is sort of that facial profile based off of DNA, kind of like a phenotype.

Right.