Podcast on Crimes Against Women
The Conference on Crimes Against Women (CCAW) is thrilled the announce the Podcast on Crimes Against Women (PCAW). Continuing with our fourth season, the PCAW releases new episodes every Monday. The PCAW serves as an extension of the information and topics presented at the annual Conference, providing in-depth dialogue, fresh perspectives, and relevant updates by experts in the fields of victim advocacy, criminal justice, medicine, and more. This podcast’s format hopes to create a space for topical conversations aimed to engage and educate community members on the issue of violence against women, how it impacts our daily lives, and how we can work together to create lasting cultural and systemic change.
Podcast on Crimes Against Women
Innovative DNA Methods in Crime Solving
Discover the groundbreaking world of investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) with our guest, Leighton D'Antoni, a seasoned prosecutor and DOJ-certified expert in forensic genetic genealogy. Join us as Leighton takes us on his transformative journey from defense attorney to a leading figure in cold case prosecutions, shedding light on the innovative methods that are reshaping how violent crimes are solved. Learn how his passion for justice and the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) has revolutionized the approach to sexual assault cases in Dallas.
This episode offers invaluable insights into the distinctions between IGG, forensic genealogy, and familial DNA searching as Leighton recounts his pivotal role in the successful prosecution of serial rapist Christopher Michael Green. This episode reveals how traditional investigative work meshes with advanced DNA technologies, such as SNP and STR testing, and emphasizes the collaborative efforts required to solve complex cases. We'll also discuss the potential of IGG databases to surpass traditional CODIS systems in effectiveness, thanks to their higher success rates in linking DNA profiles to potential relatives.
Finally, we explore the profound impact of a victim-centered approach in seeking justice for marginalized communities. Leighton shares his firsthand experiences of building trust with survivors and the dedication necessary to pursue truth and justice, even in the face of historical skepticism. This episode underscores the importance of believing and supporting victims, ensuring their voices are heard and their cases are brought to resolution. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that not only highlights the strides made in prosecuting offenders but also honors the resilience of survivors in their pursuit of justice.
The subject matter of this podcast will address difficult topics multiple forms of violence, and identity-based discrimination and harassment. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult and have listed specific content warnings in each episode description to help create a positive, safe experience for all listeners.
Speaker 2:In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes are reported every year. That is one every second. Out of that, every 24 minutes there is a murder. Every five minutes there is a rape. Every two to five minutes there is a sexual assault. Every nine seconds in this country, a woman is assaulted by someone who told her that he loved her, by someone who told her it was her fault, by someone who tries to tell the rest of us it's none of our business and I am proud to stand here today with each of you to call that perpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women. I'm Maria McMullin. Investigative genetic genealogy, also known as forensic genetic genealogy, materialized as recently as 2018 as a viable tool to be utilized in criminal investigations, with the identification of the Golden State Killer propelling its value to the national limelight. Colloquially, investigative genetic genealogy, also known as IgG, may be perceived as law enforcement's version of tracing a suspect's ancestry. However, officially, according to the National Library of Medicine, igg is the application of advanced sequencing technologies to forensic DNA evidence samples and performing genetic genealogy methods and genealogical research to produce possible identities of unknown perpetrators of violent crimes and unidentified human remains. Additionally, it may be important to note that investigative genetic genealogy should not be confused with forensic genealogy, which primarily deals with identification without using DNA. Nor should it be confused with familial DNA searching DNA searching, which is a deliberate search of a criminal DNA database to search for partial matches between forensic profiles and offender profiles in that database, the major difference between the two being that familial DNA searching deals with known DNA, whereas IgG deals with unknown DNA. The use of IgG has been monumental in identifying and holding offenders accountable who may otherwise have escaped justice for their crimes.
Speaker 1:This episode will be a conversation with a seasoned prosecutor who successfully convicted a serial rapist through the benefit of IgG technology, making it the first IgG jury trial in Dallas County history.
Speaker 1:That prosecutor is Leighton D'Antoni, a passionate and dedicated felony chief at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, where he handles cold case, homicides and sexual assaults.
Speaker 1:With almost 20 years of experience in criminal law, mr D'Antoni is also DOJ certified in forensic genetic genealogy, using cutting-edge DNA technology to identify and prosecute serial killers and rapists.
Speaker 1:His mission is to seek justice for the victims and their families and to prevent future crimes by these offenders. In addition to his casework, mr D'Antoni is a national trainer for cold cases, serial killers, serial rapists, DNA and IgG, working with the Department of Justice, fbi, bja, ihia and multiple national district attorneys associations, sharing his knowledge and expertise with other prosecutors, investigators and law enforcement agencies to help them solve their most challenging and complex cases. Additionally, he contributes to the development and implementation of the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a nationwide program that aims to reduce the backlog of untested sexual assault kits and enhance the response to sexual assault cases. He joins us today to break down the successful prosecution of convicted serial rapist Christopher Michael Green using IGG. According to an article in Simply Forensic found on simplyforensiccom. Green spent more than two decades terrorizing women with sexual violence and remained at large from 2001 until 2024, when IGG was used to positively identify him as a suspect in at least 10 reported sexual assaults.
Speaker 3:Leighton- welcome to the show. Good morning. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Good to be with you. We are here to discuss the use of investigative genetic genealogy in the prosecution of Christopher Michael Green, and that is the case that you successfully prosecuted earlier this year using IgG or investigative genetic genealogy. Before we talk about that, let's talk about your expansive career in criminal law for the past 20 years. How did you get into prosecuting cold cases and sexual assaults, and when did you first experience IgG?
Speaker 3:So I actually went to law school in California and worked in San Diego for six years before coming to Dallas. I worked on the other side. I was a defense attorney and I was trained at the public defender's office in San Diego. My family and I we moved to Dallas in 2011 and pretty quickly I took a job at the DA's office, got my feet under me learning Texas criminal law versus California, but by 2015, it was prosecuting violent felonies, murders, aggravated robberies, and I had heard that our office was applying for a federal grant through the Department of Justice and BJA for cold cases. I didn't know much about it, but you know I had worked on some cold cases back in San Diego. They've always fascinated me. So when I heard that our office was doing that, I tried to find out you know as much information as I could found out that our sex assault chief at the time, amy Derrick, was writing the grant. So you know I think I reached out to her. Let her know that. You know I was certainly interested and you know I had a murder trial down to the 292nd. She came down to watch me and I think you know it was just a great fit.
Speaker 3:Our office did receive the grant. It wasn't really. You know what I thought it was. I thought it was cold cases and while it was cold case related what the grant really is it's called the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative and that's also commonly what we call SACI. And what SACI was really a big public national policy push to test untested rape kits, you know, across the country back in 2014. I mean, we're talking thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of untested kits. Here in Dallas, we certainly had almost 5,000 untested kits that we inventoried, and so the SACI grant would allow us to. You know, not only it was in conjunction with testing the kits, but a big part of it is what do you do once you test these kits?
Speaker 3:Now there's different types of SACI grants for different types of agencies all over the country. Some are for testing kits, you know, paying for the testing of kits, and ours was not. We actually had no money that was earmarked to test the kits. It was more of a forward-thinking, progressive idea of what do you do when you get all these DNA notifications or CODIS hits. Do we have the resources to tackle that? And so, you know, provided for prosecutors, investigators, victim advocates and really just we've been very blessed over the last decade here in Dallas to be, you know, funded by SACI. And you know, once I was selected to kind of start the team, it takes a while to learn. I didn't have a clue what victim-centered investigation was. I had never heard of the term neurobiology of trauma. But with SACI they flew us all up that first year and there was just a handful of sites across the country who got that first year grant in 2015.
Speaker 3:But they flew us up to the Department of Justice and really just started training us on all these things victim-centered investigations, and you know Dr Rebecca Campbell teaching us about the neurobiology of trauma and you know, before you can really even get into these types of cases you have to have that foundation and that knowledge. Once we, you know, kind of went through that crash course, you know we were off and running and it started with just sexual assault cases. We learned quickly on that. There was also a tremendous amount of unsolved sexual assault-related homicides in Dallas and we applied for more funding and received that so we could kind of expand what our team was going to be doing. And you know we've been off and running ever since.
Speaker 1:So that was started in 2015. Fast forward, here we are in 2024, and we're now using investigative genetic genealogy. Is this the first case that you were able to prosecute or even use that type of investigative technique on?
Speaker 3:No, so you know, it was for my journey in IgG and just for your listeners IgG, FGG, fig.
Speaker 2:there's a lot of different terms we're all talking about the same thing.
Speaker 3:I think it's just a matter of semantics, but I do refer to it as IGG. Igg came on my radar, you know, back in March of 2018, I was reading a book by Michelle McNamara.
Speaker 1:Also read the book. Yes, I know exactly the book you're talking about.
Speaker 3:I'll be gone in the dark. You know, having gone to law school and lived in California for a long time, I knew about GSK. You know, before it was called GSK it was called Ear East Area Rapist.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:So that was you know kind of one of the big cases that everybody do, especially if you practice criminal law in California. I finished her book in March of 2018. And then, about a month later I'll never forget it April 24th 2018, the big announcement they had caught the Golden State Killer D'Angelo. He gets arrested. And I'll just say, for that week, week after, all I did was try and find out how they caught him because, as a cold case prosecutor, I'm you know, was it? You know it wasn't a CODIS, it. We already knew his DNA was in CODIS and there was never any hints.
Speaker 3:There was just case-to-case matches right, um, and then you know, I realized and heard about, you know polls and all these guys that what they were doing with the genealogy and FBI agents in Los Angeles, and I have this email framed on my office from May 8th 2018, where I emailed every detective I could think of at the Dallas Police Department that would have anything to do with either cold cases, sex assault, homicides, and I just blasted them and I was like, you know, have you guys ever heard of genetic genealogy? Have you ever heard of jet match? Jet match is the open source database that was, you know, used to help identify D'Angelo and you know, of course, nobody was like, no, you know, a couple of men heard about GSK, but wasn't really sure how he got caught or didn't know anything about it, and so then I just kind of forwarded over to the FBI.
Speaker 1:So that case for people who I'm sure everybody knows who this is If you listen to this podcast, you've probably heard of GSK. Last year, in 2023, probably in maybe June or so we did cover the case a little bit and talk with some of the survivors. If you want to go back in our podcast library you can listen to that and catch up on what that is, because it was a game changer for everyone For victims, it changed the game for prosecutors, not to mention scientists and, of course, perpetrators.
Speaker 3:I couldn't agree more and you know, I think, even though it has been six years, the ramifications and I think you know we're still very early in the seismic shift in criminal investigations that genetic genealogy is bringing and will bring, and that's certainly something I'm very passionate about is, you know, helping others. You know, whether it be in Texas or across the country, utilize this technique, and I don't think it's just a cold case technique, you know, I think it needs to be and has been used for all kinds of cases, but it's just so incredibly successful.
Speaker 1:It is and it allows one to overcome some obstacles in these cold case investigations. Can you give us some examples of those obstacles and how IGG helps to alleviate some of the challenges from a prosecutorial perspective?
Speaker 3:some of the challenges from a prosecutorial perspective. Sure, so for cold cases, you know, unquestionably the biggest issue is identification of your suspect. You know everything else. You know time, place, victim, what happened, and it's usually just a matter of if it's a case that's gone cold, identifying the suspect. And that's what IGG does. It is an investigative tool that helps identify suspects and sometimes it's not suspects, you know, I think a big national narrative is that. You know, igg is just this very powerful prosecutorial tool. But IGG is helping to exonerate people. It helps free, you know, wrongfully convicted people. I've had a case where somebody was wrongfully arrested and was in jail and we were able to prove with IGG that he wasn't the right suspect and, you know, we were able to release him. So in terms of investigative tools for identity, it's the best I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is doing some amazing things and I know that across the country they're working to kind of build these databases and have more IGG investigators who can work on that process, because it is a process right.
Speaker 3:It is a process, you know, and it takes a lot of people. You know they say it takes a village, but you know it's not just a scientific only tool. You really do have to combine traditional law enforcement investigative work. It's not just you know getting a your listeners don't know it it's. There's a type of DNA testing called SNP testing, which is different than what we would hear DNA. What we're really talking about is STR DNA.
Speaker 3:This is the gold standard DNA that's been used in court since 1986. And it's still the gold standard that we use in court today. But once you get those results back, you're going to have a suspect pool when you start the tree building process and that does really require sometimes hours. I mean hundreds of hours sometimes of just, you know, rolling up the sleeves, doing online research again traditional investigative, detective work that you know, it's a real combination of both.
Speaker 1:And there are whole companies dedicated to just that process of doing that investigation.
Speaker 3:You know there are certainly, you know, a lot of the big traditional private DNA labs across the country certainly have gotten involved with IGG and you know I was just at ISHI last week, which is the International Supposed Human Identification one of the bigger, you know, conferences for labs and everybody is getting into the space, which I think is good but also, you know, requires a bit of caution because it is, you know, somewhat unregulated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very interesting point. I also want to point out for our listeners again, to go back to our podcast library. In 2022, we did do an episode I believe it was in June of 2022, talking about the different types of DNA and DNA testing. If you want to get a little more information and background on that, go back in our podcast on Crimes Against Women library and you will find that episode to listen to. The case we're going to talk about right now is the case of Christopher Michael Green, a serial sexual predator and rapist in Dallas who eventually was captured, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Tell us about that case.
Speaker 3:So I had known about these cases that ultimately were attributed to Christopher Michael Green almost as soon as I started doing the Saki cases. Todd Hager is a longtime Dallas Police Department sex assault detective. I tried my first big serial rapist trial, you know, two or three months after starting in the spot. He was, you know, lead detective on that case and you know he and.
Speaker 3:I just kind of hit it off. You know, I think, share that same kind of passion and enthusiasm for these types of cases and he had always told me about these cases. You know, at the time he was calling him the South Dallas Trucker and you know we had some DNA case to case matches. We, you know and we're not just talking about a few cases I think they had a belief even back then that there was at least double digit victims. But you know, just couldn't solve the case.
Speaker 3:And as a prosecutor, you know, sometimes it's like on the TV show, the first 30 minutes you know the police doing their thing, then they hand the case over and then we do our thing. But I really enjoy being involved in the investigative side of things or, you know, assisting law enforcement when they have a case like this. So Todd and I and you know Amy and Derek, we went through everything we could do on this case. We tried all kinds of you kinds of different types of DNA testing, private lab, amy and I went to our bosses and got a lot of money to do some DNA phenotyping, which was kind of an advanced thing.
Speaker 3:We had never done that before.
Speaker 1:But we just couldn't solve the case Meaning you couldn't identify a suspect.
Speaker 3:Couldn't identify a suspect.
Speaker 1:Now I've read different reports about this case, Some say more than 10 victims.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's easily more than 10. You know, if you look at studies that say you know if you have a serial rapist and you're able to for sure say you know because of DNA we link them up to this many cases, it's usually a minimum of three to four X more than that.
Speaker 3:And we've, you know, had some serial rapists that we've been able to debrief and agree to sit down with us and tell us. You know, we had a guy who we had six DNA cases on and he told us it was easily 30 to 50.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible. I also read about this particular case that this perpetrator was a little bit more challenging to identify and apprehend because he did not have another felony on his record, so he wasn't already in your system and people looking for him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and again, a big part of IGG is, I think nowadays the first thing people come to me is hey, I got DNA matching one in CODIS.
Speaker 2:Can we do?
Speaker 3:IGG on it and that is certainly the first prerequisite. These cases are cases where we have a known DNA profile. It has been uploaded into CODIS, which is the national FBI's offender database, and there's no match. There's a lot of cases. I mean, again, we were going to be busy for a long time having this criteria and that's why you know IGG.
Speaker 3:In my mind, the studies have shown so far your success rate or the chances of solving or identifying your suspect are so much greater with IGG than traditional DNA encodes. You know, I've had conversations with you know people at CODIS, you know from the FBI that run it. I don't know if it'll be in our lifetime but I strongly believe that you know a SNP database or IgG database will replace CODIS one day, because everybody you're matched to everybody, even in GEDmatch right now, everybody you're in there. Even in GEDmatch right now, everybody you're in there. It might be very distant but we've never uploaded a profile that didn't have what we call cinnamorgans, some kind of relation to another relative, and with CODIS, you know, it's maybe like 20, 25% chance of getting ahead.
Speaker 1:So, as we mentioned in the intro of this episode, this particular case was the first jury trial in Dallas County based on investigative genetic genealogy. How does this unprecedented jury trial impact sexual assault cases going forward, specifically for prosecutors in Dallas?
Speaker 3:Well, so it was the first case we took to jury and to verdict. That had been you know where the suspect was identified with IGG. But we had had some, you know, pretty groundbreaking IGG convictions. Before we had a guy, david Hawkins, who was the guy I was talking about.
Speaker 3:We had 60 in eight cases matched and he told us it was at least 30 to 50. That was the first conviction in Dallas County. Earlier this year we had the first murder conviction, laborio Canales, which was solved. Again, he was identified using IgG and you know this case follows in that pattern and the fact that. So when you have this sort of repeated success and you're able to demonstrate, you know we have a good working formula for the repeated success it gets people to buy into it and that's what we really need. You know we have a good working formula for the repeated success. It gets people to buy into it and that's what we really need. You know you need buy-in. I need buy-in from my administration here at the DA's office to allow us to continue to do this Certainly. Dallas Police Department, dallas FBI.
Speaker 1:You know now that we are showing a pattern of success.
Speaker 3:and again, these are cases people told us were unsolvable. Yeah, and yet the, the IgG evidence cannot be submitted as evidence in the trial. Is that correct? Well, you know, it's, it's new and this will. This will change, I think, in jurisdictions, and there'll be certainly, you know, court opinions and appellate courts who rule on this.
Speaker 3:But from my point of view, I am never trying to admit any of the IgG evidence at trial because that's not the evidence I'm using to prove my case. So you know, when we go to trial, we have an indictment. That indictment has certain elements that we have to prove and obviously in these cases, identity it's a big part of it. I'm not using anything from IgG or the IgG portion of the investigation to prove identity. We are still using that traditional STR DNA and that's the evidence that we would present to court.
Speaker 3:So you know, it's an incredibly strong and powerful investigative tool, but it's not evidence and people, I think, sometimes have not a problem but an issue of just kind of comprehending that. You know, I've gone and done trainings for prosecutors all over the country about it and they always think, oh, yeah, so you just you know how do you put your IGG evidence on. And I'm like I don't, you know, just like if you had done, your officer or your detective had done a polygraph on a suspect and that is an investigative tool that helps you kind of move the ball down the line. But you're not going to be putting any polygraph evidence in a trial. Cases get solved with anonymous tips all the time. That evidence is admissible it can show how it led the investigation to. You know that point where you're able to get probable cause or a search warrant. But you know proving identity and using the traditional STR DNA. You know it's still the same, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, from what I read about this particular case, the IgG helped to identify the suspect, but then the actual victims were able to positively ID this perpetrator.
Speaker 3:And so and this was in all cases are certainly different than usual. This was you know. Typically, what you're going to do is you're going to hopefully build your tree to a point where you sometimes you get one suspect Sometimes there's brothers, cousins, they're all you know in terms of the science and your tree building could be possible suspects and you have to painstakingly eliminate each one, and that could be, you know, doing a trash pull or checking you or checking DNA surreptitiously.
Speaker 3:In this case, we had done some surreptitious DNA collections on other suspects that were not Christopher Michael Green, and we were able to eliminate those. And that's exactly how it's supposed to be. You're not supposed to jump the gun. You go through methodically, make sure that you're getting to the right person. And you know, you go through methodically, make sure that you're getting to the right person. And it just happened to be right when we kind of started eliminating almost everybody and Green was sort of the last guy left, the detectives brought in some of the victims and they all I mean four out of six.
Speaker 3:you know, popped them right away and it's, you know, when somebody identifies a suspect, especially in such a horrific crime as aggravated sexual assault, and you just feel the emotion and the overwhelming.
Speaker 3:They were all 100%, it's this guy. It's this guy and that ultimately ended up being the probable cause that was used to arrest Green. But then also we get a search warrant and that search warrant is for what we call a buckle swab and that's, you know, the Q-tip and the cheek. And so when he's arrested we have the probable cause to get his DNA from his cheek, take the swab and then that goes to the crime lab and that's where we get our match to the crime evidence.
Speaker 1:Well, kudos to you and the team for apprehending this individual, because he had a long history, from what I understand, of violent sexual crimes against women. He did.
Speaker 3:I mean this was a bad, bad dude, and I mean obviously anyone who commits sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault, not a good person, but there are. You know, there are different degrees of them and he was violent. There was one case back in 1999 where I think he really thought he had killed her. He had beat her so badly and he used a knife a lot of the times and left her for dead under an overpass in South Dallas under I-45.
Speaker 3:But he wasn't sure she was dead so he took a cigarette and was poking her in the chest to see if she would move.
Speaker 3:And she just remembers being in and out of conscience. But then she described it kind of having an overwhelming feeling that she felt was very godly, that just allowed her to play dead Uh-huh, Even though they were, and she still has the scars all over her chest. But he thought he killed her and she plays dead and is able to get away. But now he was. He was horrifically violent with his victims and you know I reserve this term for only the worst of the worst, but he was definitely a monster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is sounds like what he was or is Now in various news coverage about the case. You mentioned that the assistance of the Bureau of Justice's Sexual Assault Kid Initiative, also known as SAKI, as you mentioned, was highly instrumental in aiding the prosecution of this case. I just want to ask you to clarify what SAKI is and how it works, and, in conjunction with IGG, how does it help identify, capture and convict sexual offenders?
Speaker 3:Sure, so again, SAKI is the name of the BJA DOJ's grant, and there are different types of SAKI grants, I think, as I mentioned before, and ours specifically is to help fund the prosecution and ultimately convicting sexual predators, serial rapists. You know, we've even had serial killers. We've identified and convicted. And what's so important is, you know and it's not just here in Dallas, but you know, whether it's law enforcement or prosecutors, everyone's strapped. You know, money is always an issue and these cases cold cases in general are far more complicated than regular cases.
Speaker 3:They require a higher intensity of investigation travel. Dallas is a very transient city.
Speaker 3:So, we're working on cases in the 80s and 90s. Most of those witnesses don't live here, so we have to spend a lot of money going to. We go fly out to different states, we fly people in from different states, different countries. Sometimes To put these cases on that would be very difficult without BJA's assistance. So, first and foremost, that funding has been the driving force to help us and it allows me and my team to really sit down and spend time on these cases. You know it's not. You know, unfortunately, some other.
Speaker 3:you know divisions and other offices I've worked in you know, you are kind of flying by the seat of your pants and you might be walking into court not as prepared as you should be or want to be, but because of BJA's funding we're allowed to really, you know, do right by these cases and these survivors and you know I look back on the last decade we have tested all of our 5,000, almost 5,000 backlogged kids. Our team has now identified 440 offenders and that represents 800 total victim survivors. We have gotten 150 criminal indictments. 13 of those indictments are now for sexual assault-related murder. We have 83 convictions and 16 life sentences.
Speaker 1:That is incredible and that's really due to the funding that you received that allowed the team to investigate all of these cases.
Speaker 3:It would be such a small fraction had we not had BJA's assistance and funding, and it's not just funding, you know.
Speaker 3:What I love about SACI is that it's become. It's a small, you know. We started kind of as a small group and it's certainly gotten a lot bigger, but it's a very close group, so it's not uncommon for me to be talking to prosecutors all over the country. You know, and it's at the point now, since we're sort of the senior one of the the United States, that we get calls from oh we just got this grant. Hey, what do we do? And we were those people 10 years ago.
Speaker 3:So we love returning the favor and, especially with IGG, the success we've had with IGG is directly because of BJA, not just the funding but the relationships that we had built even pre-2018 with the FBI FBI absolute best in class in any IGG work. You know we certainly, and the Dallas FBI office in particular. Their IGG team is phenomenal. But you know I was able to have some relationships with those folks prior to IGG coming on the scene. That you know it really helped get me into the door. You know they took me seriously, I took them seriously and then in 2020, when Agent White started running the Dallas FBI IGG team, you know he and I again just sort of like with Todd Hager at DPD you know we were just very like-minded, passionate in this work and you know we were able to create this repeated formula for success. But it all goes back to BJA and their, you know, assistance and not just funding again and training relationships. It's really the key to all of this.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about one of the other acronyms many, many acronyms that we have today for all of these subjects, and that one is CODIS. For people who may not be familiar with what CODIS is, could you tell us what that stands for and how it is helpful, but sometimes not enough, and why? Igg would really be beneficial.
Speaker 3:So CODIS is the combined offender database system that is run and maintained by the FBI, and what it essentially is is that you have been convicted of a felony anywhere in the United States and, going back a pretty good ways, your DNA is going to be taken, typically either before you're released from prison or you know and again, it's state by state they do it differently. But what it should be is that, even if you were convicted of a felony and put on probation, you know the probation officer would take your DNA and we could spend a whole another hour on what we call lawfully owned DNA.
Speaker 1:Yes, there are many, many, many opinions on all of those things.
Speaker 3:And so when we have DNA from a crime scene that you know isn't directly comparable to any suspect or there's no suspect to compare it to, that DNA profile is uploaded into CODIS and if there is a match, then the law enforcement agency would get notification of that match. And you know we solve tons of cases with CODIS. You know it's still, you know probably, you know in terms of numbers, our best tool. But there are certainly lots of cases where the suspect has not ever been convicted of a felony or, as we've come to find in one of our recent homicide cases, had been convicted of a felony, multiple felonies but they never got his DNA, for whatever reason you know it was the prison's fault, probation department's fault.
Speaker 3:you know, and that's an unfortunate reality that we face is that many of these people should be in CODIS or not. But the fact is, if you're not in CODIS and we don't have a suspect, DNA is not going to solve that case. Traditional STR DNA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, understood. So how do all of these systems then work with VICAP?
Speaker 3:So VICAP is also an FBI house and VICAP is great because, you know, this was started a few decades ago. Really, I think the birth of VICAP came from people committing serial offenses in different jurisdictions.
Speaker 3:A lot of that was truck drivers and things like that, and agencies weren't talking to each other. You know you might have agencies like you know, for instance, here just in north texas, you have so many agency here in dallas county. You know collin county has lots of agencies, tarrant county didn't, but a lot of these agencies don't talk to each other. Or you do have people that are committing crimes, maybe in louisiana, Arkansas and Texas, and they have such unique traits. You know the modus operandi is. You know very specific, that VICAP allows law enforcement to enter that information into their system and you know be able to say, hey look, you know these similarities, the way they operated, you know the methods that they were used, these unique characteristics. There's a possibility that they could be connected. It could be the same offender. Let's at least have that conversation. Those agencies should be talking to each other.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And the FBI does a great job, you know, facilitating that. One thing I haven't mentioned yet are what we call the interim DOJ guidelines for IGG. I haven't mentioned yet what we call the interim DOJ guidelines for IGG and it's again a best practice manual. It's not mandated at this point for all agencies, but certainly if you're receiving federal funding to work these cases or you are a federal agency like the FBI you absolutely have to follow these guidelines.
Speaker 3:And one of those guidelines is, you know, certainly it has to be a DNA profile that's been uploaded to CODIS, doesn't hit anybody, but the case has to be entered into VICA. You know, it's not just a hey, it didn't match anybody in CODIS. Let's just start, you know, doing IGG. You have to do a lot more. You kind of have to really exhaust all you know investigative techniques before you go to IGG.
Speaker 1:Let me just make sure I understand what you just said. If you want to use IGG using federal funding, the case had to be in CODIS and you have to put it in VICAP before you can use IGG. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's several other things you have to do as well, and you know we are, we are very adamant even if it's so. We have agencies that certainly don't receive either receive federal funding or are not bound by the DOJ interim guidelines. But I tell them we're not going to take your case unless these guidelines are followed, and that's to protect. You know, the privacy, rights of the citizens and the ethics for using IGG are so important that you know I always tell people my big fear is that there's going to be someone who messes this up for everybody else because they were reckless.
Speaker 3:And they didn't either adhere to the DOJ guidelines or you know they weren't trying to protect. You know third parties and innocent folks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That is an excellent point and I hadn't really thought about that no-transcript.
Speaker 3:Sure, and I think the DOJ intern guidelines certainly take that as an important. You know, anytime you're working any sort of investigation with law enforcement, you know there are tons of ethical guidelines. There are more so, I think, with IGG, because you know there are misconceptions out there. I do think there's people out there who think that law enforcement are, you know, using like 23andme or you know ancestrycom's databases, and they're not. They're completely prohibited from using it. Don't even try and use them and just kind of back up a little bit how the process really works is you know, for example, say you or somebody who sends off for a 23andme or ancestry kit. You know you're curious about your own genealogy and history and they'll send you. You know, basically what is your SNP profile. You can then take that information and upload it to other databases. Some are protected and they're all very clear. Like you know what you're getting to. The one that we talk about the most is JetMatch because it's the largest repository, but it is an open source website and they are very clear.
Speaker 3:You know you've got to check a bunch of things and click a bunch of boxes and say, hey, just so you know anybody can search this. You know literally anybody, law enforcement, anybody. So if you are uploading your profile, which you own, you know you have a right to do whatever you want with it. Just so you know it can be used by anybody and searched by anybody. But if that person elects not to do that and they want to keep it private on one of the, you know, private consumer databases we're, you know law enforcement's not going to have access to that and it's not going to be searched against. So at the end of the day, you know you own the privacy rights of your profile and if you want to, we have used IHG, again, like I said, to help exonerate, to help clear suspects. You know, when we're building the trees and we have that suspect pool and there could be, you know we've had I think we had one case.
Speaker 3:They showed me a tree that was like 32 people at the same cousin level that were males, that potentially could have been the suspect and I tell them you can't arrest anybody, get a search warrant for anybody or do anything based on IGG. Even if you got down to the right person, you still have to be able to get that traditional STR DNA and it has to be a match before we arrest anybody and before, certainly, we charge anybody. And that's just following those DOJ guidelines, guidelines. If you follow the doj guidelines, you're not going to be arresting the wrong person and in fact it's quite the opposite. You're going to be able to clear suspects and clear people and, like I've had the experience, somebody was falsely accused of one of our cases before we, our office, got involved and we were able to really, you know, know, fix that wrong. And I can't stress it enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, using this technology is incredibly helpful. It has had amazing results in convictions and getting justice for survivors but it's complex. The process itself is very complex and it requires a lot of people to collaborate in order for it to work. So I'm curious about how this particular case might be used as a model for prosecutors and others who are handling similar cases, in particular, if you could help us understand the critical need for collaboration across departments and agencies when IGG has a central role in a possible conviction.
Speaker 3:Sure. So you know, once we were able to, you know work a few of these cases, and again it was the Dallas FBI office and we've done it with multiple law enforcement agencies here in Dallas, not just Dallas Police Department. We've solved cases for Mesquite, garland, but again, sticking with, you know kind of how we did it at the very beginning with the Hawkins case. You know, working with the FBI, working with Todd Hager at DPD and creating that formula. And you know, I always stress to them, whether it's IGG or any type of investigation, creating a repeatable formula that can show you to be successful. Do it right and it will repeat itself. And so we certainly in Dallas have several what we call MDTs, multi-disciplinary teams. We have a SART program that's one of the best in the country, one of the best in the country, and for those who don't know what SART is, it's an MDT that in this case it's the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, several of our local law enforcement agencies, all of the hospitals that are participating in the SANE program. So that's Parkland, methodist, baylor, presby, and then you know, we have our MDT community partners, which Dallas again has some of the best in the country. We have the SANE Initiative, courtney's Place, darcy, turning Point. We're all collaborating, we're all meeting, you know, talking about these cases Our crime lab, we call it SWIFT's, but they're an incredibly important part of this process process and so when we bring something like IGG to, you know a SART meeting which also goes to the Texas Department of Public Safety's crime lab, and we're telling them, and especially for SWIFT, our local crime lab, you know, here I'm telling you know, I know y'all are like completely overworked with so much to do.
Speaker 3:You're not, and since y'all don't do this type of SNP testing, but here's what I need you to do. I need you to go find evidence. I need you to what we call want it. See how much is there DNA left. You know, extract it. I need a CODIS approved lab to extract the DNA and then package it off and send it off.
Speaker 3:You know that's not in their job responsibilities and that takes a lot of time and time away from all the other things that they're doing. But you know they answer the call time and time again and I think that's because of our you know what we call big start, our dallas start in dt um. We've been doing it for for so long, you know, I think what 15 years or so? Right, and we all know we're all good at what we do, that we're committed to and most of us have been in our roles for quite a long time. But you have to have that buy-in and, even at a smaller level, what I call our kind of IGG MDT, with our office, dallas FBI office and our local law enforcement agencies and SWIFTs again, when we started solving these cases, convicting know success just breeds buy-in at all levels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's important advice for anyone who has a new cold case investigation initiative or otherwise working on with IGG or with multidisciplinary teams. Before I let you go, I did find some interesting other information about this case. In a press release from Dallas County about the case. There was a quote from your closing argument where you stated quote Predators can't live with the truth, survivors can't live without it. So let's talk about the truth for a minute. Dr Judith Herman wrote in her book Truth and Repair that what survivors have told her they want is to be believed. They need the truth to be exposed. They need law enforcement and prosecutors and others to work with them and on their behalf to get to the truth so truly as you said they survivors cannot live without the truth. What can you share with those listening who work on similar cases about the pursuit of truth and, ultimately, the pursuit of justice for victims of these crimes?
Speaker 3:So with the Green case and you know, really like any of our big serial rape cases or trials we've had over the last decade, or, you know, serial killers and homicides, because, again, going back to the funding we get from BJA to really turn these investigations and prosecutions into a victim-centered approach, a lot of these cases were cold because police maybe didn't believe the victims, or they were. You know what we call our marginalized community. They may have had drug problems, prostitutes, mental health issues, but for a variety of reasons nobody listened to them or nobody thought they were telling the truth. We you know, megan, this is a big thing for me we need to spend as much time building relationships with our survivors ever before we take them into court and I think our success in trials is a direct reflection of those relationships we build. You know most of these survivors. When we're going and knocking on their doors, you know they still look at us as, like you know, the police from 20, 25 years ago. Nothing was victim centered at that point.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And you really have to be able to get them to trust you and you build on that relationship. And in this green case, you know, we got to know and we're talking about such a variety of different victims. You know all races, all different. You know different ages, backgrounds.
Speaker 1:And some of these cases happened so long ago.
Speaker 3:Yep, we had cases going back to 1999. And I think our latest case was 2012 or 13. And most of them were very distrusting of law enforcement. So you know we did spend the time and you let them know. Here's the deal. I can't fix what happened, you know, 20 years ago. But here's what we can tell you is that we believe you, we know this happened to you and I always tell them I don't care if you did drugs or prostitute, you know, none of that stuff matters. And I always use the example.
Speaker 3:One of my first big serial rape trials. I had a victim who we had to bring back from prison because she had been convicted of capital murder. I said I don't care what you've done. You can be a convicted capital murderer, but before that you had been sexually assaulted. You do deserve to have your day and you do deserve to be able to speak your truth. These are difficult cases to try. Juries often struggle, especially in a he said, she said case, and we don't win every case. But even the cases that we've either lost or it was a hung jury, you know, just for that survivor to be able to go into that courtroom and speak their truth is so powerful that oftentimes and they've told me, you know the outcome wasn't as important as me being able to do that.
Speaker 1:That's so perfect, because that's exactly what Dr Herman said. It wasn't about the sentence for the perpetrator, it was about being believed, and by the people who matter?
Speaker 3:And in these cases I think we're an incredible example of that because you know, I mean it was flat out written in some of these reports. You know back in the day that the human officers didn't believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you know it's frustrating to you know, when you start working a case like that to see that. But I and I don't want to, you know, speak badly of law enforcement back in the day, but there has been a pretty significant shift in how these cases I mean Dallas Police Department really has led the charge here locally and victim-centered investigations, and former Sergeant Amy Mills deserves a lot of credit for really transforming the sexual assault division there and it's a different time.
Speaker 3:We're more educated, people are more enlightened and it's great to see it's a different time we're more educated, people are more enlightened and it's great to see that. We have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1:We do and I think you're, for what it's worth doing. A great job, leighton Dan. Tony, thank you so much for talking with me today. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. The 2025 Conference on Crimes Against Women will take place in Dallas, texas, may 19th through the 22nd at the Sheraton Dallas. Learn more and register at conferencecaworg and follow us on social media at National CCAW.