when kinship DNA solves investigations

Betrayed by DNA, but not by his DNA. The “woodland predator” had been wanted for years. This alleged serial rapist, arrested last December, has admitted most of the assaults on teenage girls of which he is suspected. His genetic profile was not in any file, neither in France nor abroad. The key to the enigma was 6,000 km from Paris, in a private American genealogy laboratory, to which several of his relatives had sent their own DNA. At the origin of the case, a now proven technique: so-called kinship DNA.

The Elodie Kulik case solved thanks to this technique

If the genetic trace taken from a crime scene is not identified, French law allows investigators to extend their search to family members. Even very distant members, like little cousins. “From an unknown profile, we will look for individuals, registered in the database, who have characteristics which may be those of the parents or children of the person at the origin of this trace”, explains Claire Lions, senior technical and scientific police engineer. It is this technique, which made it possible, ten years ago, to solve the case of Elodie Kulik, a young director of a bank branch, raped and killed in the Somme.