Your DNA Test Could Send a Relative to Jail
By Rafil Kroll-Zaidi,
The New York Times Magazine
| 12. 27. 2021
On any given day, CeCe Moore’s inbox is flooded with strangers asking her to solve the mysteries of life and death, and on a good day, she can. Over the past year, working from anonymous DNA samples, Moore helped identify the suspect in a murder by tracking old migration patterns from Poland to northern New Jersey; solved an assault case in which female DNA at the crime scene turned out to have been left not by the usual sort of explicable coincidence but by an actual female perpetrator; and made a key discovery in a murder investigation when the gravestone of an apparently childless woman was found to bear the inscription “MOTHER.” Some of these she knocked out in a few frenzied days. But there was also one cold case that had dogged her for close to two and a half years: the murder, in Gresham, Ore., of a woman named Barbara Tucker.
Moore is perhaps the most prominent figure in the field of genetic genealogy — the mapping and measuring of how relatives share DNA — which was developed...
Related Articles
By Mary Annette Pember, ICT News [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 04.18.2025
The sight of a room full of human cadavers can be off-putting for some, but not for Haley Omeasoo.
In fact, Omeasoo’s comfort level and lack of squeamishness convinced her to pursue studies in forensics and how DNA can be...
By Katrina Northrop, The Washington Post | 04.06.2025
photo via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 3.0
China's most infamous scientist is attempting a comeback. He Jiankui, who went to jail for three years after claiming he had created the world's first genetically altered babies, says he remains...
By Anna Louie Sussman, The New York Times | 04.01.2025
When Noor Siddiqui was growing up, her mother developed retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that leads to gradual vision loss. When Ms. Siddiqui’s mother was in her 30s, she began going blind. Last summer, Ms. Siddiqui told a podcast host that...
By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 03.30.2025
23andMe, a standard-bearer for the at-home health movement, announced on March 23 that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to facilitate a sale, prompting many of its 15 million customers to wonder: What happens to my genetic data now...