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
Forensic Genetic Genealogy and the New Frontier of Criminal Justice
Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG) stands at the frontier of criminal justice, offering new hope for cases that have remained unsolved for decades. This groundbreaking conversation takes us inside the Center for Human Identification (CHI) at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth - the first public lab in the nation providing comprehensive FGG services to law enforcement.
In this episode, Robert Moore, Director of the Investigative Support Unit, explains how this technology is revolutionizing criminal investigations by comparing crime scene DNA to profiles in public genealogy databases. The process has breathed new life into cold cases across Texas, particularly benefiting smaller agencies with limited resources. With 254 counties in Texas and many police departments averaging just 18 officers, CHI's free DNA testing services provide a lifeline for investigations that might otherwise remain unsolved.
The most powerful moments in this conversation come from genealogist Susan Davis, who shares her personal journey as both a sexual assault survivor and genetics expert. Her vulnerability in discussing her own 1981 attack by a serial predator underscores the human impact of this technology. "Had FGG been available then," she reflects, "it would have saved lives and prevented other women from suffering similar attacks." Her story illustrates how science can transform trauma into purpose—Davis now spends her days identifying perpetrators in hours rather than the years it often took traditional methods.
Through compelling case studies, including that of a serial rapist identified in just five hours after decades evading justice, we witness the transformative potential of genetic genealogy when placed in capable hands. The conversation reflects both scientific precision and profound human compassion for victims who have waited far too long for answers.
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. Forensic Genetic Genealogy, or FGG, is reshaping criminal investigations and breathing new life into cold cases by blending cutting-edge DNA analysis with traditional genealogical research. This process works by comparing crime scene DNA to profiles in public genetic genealogy databases kind of like the ones people use to trace their ancestry and these identify unknown human remains or discover potential new suspects, even when they were previously unknown to law enforcement. Leading this charge is the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, the first public lab in the nation to offer comprehensive FGG laboratory, genealogical and Investigative Support to Law Enforcement. Operating within the scope of the DOJ's 2019 Interim Policy on FGG, the Center focuses on qualifying cases involving violent crimes and unidentified human remains, helping agencies recover new paths to justice where old ones ran cold.
Speaker 1:With me today, to discuss how FGG is transforming the landscape for law enforcement are two representatives from CHI Robert Moore, director of the Investigative Support Unit, and genealogist Susan Brown Davis. As the Director of the Investigative Support Unit for the Center for Human Identification, robert Moore manages CHI's integrated team of genetic genealogists and investigators to provide forensic genetic genealogy services to criminal justice stakeholders. Throughout his 30-year career in Texas law enforcement, moore served as a person's crimes investigator, pio-slash-agency spokesperson, tactical sniper, multi-jurisdictional street crimes unit investigator, da, child abuse investigator and law enforcement academy director. Moore earned a BA in journalism from the University of Texas at Arlington and an MS in police and public administration from the University of North Texas in Denton. Susan Davis is an anthropologist and serves as genealogist for CHI. She has conducted genealogical research for 25 years and for the past 20 years, she has used genetic genealogy as an inductive and deductive investigative tool to help solve complex casework. Since 2019, she has been instrumental in providing investigative leads to the Texas Rangers, in addition to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, to help solve cold cases of homicide, sexual assault and unknown human remains. Her background in the criminal justice system spans more than 40 years, with insight as a victim and a survivor. She is currently a PhD candidate in criminal justice, focusing on criminology.
Speaker 1:Susan Rob, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us. Thank you, marie, for having Susan Rob. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 4:Thank you, Marie, for having us.
Speaker 1:I am so excited to talk with both of you because we've covered the topic of forensic genetic genealogy several times on the podcast on Crimes Against Women, and it's just a growing field that we can never really learn too much about, as well as too much about how it's being used, which is central to the work that you do at the Center for Human Identification. So, rob, I'd like to start with you with an overview for those who may not be familiar with your work. Tell us what the Center for Human Identification, or CHI, does and why this work is so important.
Speaker 4:CHI has been a DNA lab for many, many years. We were doing paternity back in the 80s and they've just evolved, so we are basically a DNA crime lab located on the campus of the University of North Texas at the Health Science Center in Fort Worth. We serve all Texas law enforcement agencies and medical legal authorities medical examiner's offices with state-funded DNA testing, and that's primarily to identify unidentified human remains.
Speaker 1:And so unidentified human remains that are typically related to cold cases or something else.
Speaker 4:Cold cases, outstanding cases that just happened, you name it. We also have an anthropology unit that responds to the scene to assist with bone identification and excavation. You know we assist law enforcement with understanding of the different types of DNA testing because you know they tend to think there's just one type.
Speaker 1:Right, and I thought there was one type until I've worked with others on this show and talking about the subject that I know now there is not just, there's more than one type and they all can be very different, exactly. Yeah, I would like to refer listeners back to the episode that we did a few weeks ago with two former FBI employees, steve Bush and Steve Kramer. We're on the show to talk about the case of Eva LaRue. Go back in our podcast library and learn more about genetic genealogy and how the FBI has been using it. So then, rob, how does CHI at UNTHSC provide investigative leads for law enforcement agencies?
Speaker 4:We do that through a variety of testing. We are the state's missing persons database for DNA, all DNA. So every law enforcement agency or medical legal authority when they obtain a sample from unidentified human remains legal authority, when they obtain a sample from unidentified human remains they send those samples to us and we keep those in a database. We conduct testing on those. Based on the, we determine the best testing technology for the DNA in its current state, and that depends on a number of factors. You know how much DNA is present, how degraded is it and some other scientific measures they use. Different technologies require different things to be present in the DNA for them to be able to best utilize those. So we work with the law enforcement agencies to determine what that best DNA testing is and the best samples to send us. We want to make sure they don't just throw everything in a box and ship it off to us.
Speaker 4:So, we consult with them ahead of time and they tell us what evidence they have and we will determine, based on discussion with them, what should they send us. Dna is easier to pull out of blood cards or bone or teeth, any bodily fluids, so we ask for those things first and the best samples of those.
Speaker 1:So from across the whole state of Texas, yes, which is a big state.
Speaker 4:Oh yes, 254 counties 254 counties.
Speaker 1:So approximately how many might that be in a year? I guess there are varying factors, but what could that look like for?
Speaker 4:a year. We process thousands of samples at our lab.
Speaker 1:So thousands of samples? Is it thousands of individual cases, or is that?
Speaker 4:a number of samples, thousands of individual cases.
Speaker 1:So how does this help victims and families then?
Speaker 4:Well, I mean there's agencies throughout Texas have unidentified whether they're cold cases or they happened last weekend, and the big departments in Texas. They know their resources. So we really tried to focus on the small departments. The average police department, for example, in the state of Texas is 18 officers and an agency with 18 officers doesn't have the experience to work homicides as a large department might. 18 officer department may not have a homicide every 10 years and the detective may only work one in their career at that agency.
Speaker 4:They may not have a situation it may be a once in a career where they find unidentified human remains, or UHRs as we refer, and they may not be sure what to do. Now the Texas Rangers are there to assist those agencies. They have the expertise and so the resources to come in. But as far as the DNA testing, those agencies don't know what can be done. So we try to reach to outreach to those agencies and say look, we offer this service and we will do state funded UHR identification. That means it won't cost that agency money and there are a number of private labs out there doing a lot of good work but those small departments may have to do crowdfund or seek out grants and so forth to pay for that. But we will do that for free for these agencies in Texas.
Speaker 1:And that's really important for agencies that are listening to this show to understand that there is this free service. And just to go back to your point, there are 254 counties in the state of Texas and many of them are rural. Yes, and that's why they have so few officers. And we see that here at the Conference on Crimes Against Women, which we're actually on site at the conference this week recording this episode, that we have lots of people from across the state of Texas and around the world really at the conference, but many of them come from very small police departments. So let's talk about how CHI got started, tell us a little bit about the history and who supports it.
Speaker 4:We're on a UNT system campus in Fort Worth and, as I had mentioned before, we were performing paternity testing back in the 80s.
Speaker 4:And that's how we got our start and we've been doing DNA testing ever since. We have an R&D department, so we have faculty and staff working on their degrees that are also publishing and performing studies and so forth. We became a state designated criminal justice agency in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, chapter 63. That's where we were also designated to be the missing persons DNA database clearinghouse for the entire state. Since then we have we've helped DPS with help clear their backlog of sexual assault kit cases because there was a big push to make sure they get those things off the shelf and get them tested.
Speaker 4:So we helped clear that backlog and they now passed a law that those kits have to be processed in 90 days. We're constantly moving with those sexual assault kits and that is a daily thing for us with those sexual assault kids, and that is a daily thing for us. In 2023, we decided to move into the FGG space, which was previously occupied by just the private labs, and, like I said, they've been doing a lot of good work.
Speaker 4:So we became the first public lab to step into this space and we created this investigative support unit. They decided that they wanted this unit to be separate from the lab. They hired me, a retired law enforcement officer, to direct that portion of the unit. We hired genetic genealogists full-time staff and we were the first public lab to step into this space I know in the country, probably in the world, and we were the first ones to put FDG on staff, because up to now genetic genealogists were mostly contract work.
Speaker 1:They were people that had not Hobbyists, more or less Self-educated. Okay, yes, I like that term.
Speaker 4:A wealth of experience. So when we decided to hire some genealogists, we stole Susan here from the FBI. We got another genealogist, wendy, and they've got decades of experience. So we're trying to tell these agencies as well. The FBI has a training program for forensic genetic genealogy. It's a 40-hour course and that's great. But these departments that maybe are not very large. If they go to that class, they we've got decades of experienced genealogists here which are also state funded. So why not let us do that for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that does make perfect sense. Now are you the only public lab in Texas doing this work?
Speaker 4:I believe DPS has hired some genealogists and they're beginning to do that. And what about in the country? There are a few labs state labs that have gone on to hire genealogists on their staff as well. So we're seeing those labs pop up across the nation.
Speaker 1:So you talked about the rape kits and UHRs, unidentified human remains but what does the actual workflow look like? Take us through the process from crime scene to lab to forensic genetic genealogy and generating investigative leads.
Speaker 4:Okay, well, because we're the missing persons database, we have access to a number thousands of cases already existing. So the first thing we did was we culled through that missing person database to see what cases qualified for FGG, that we already had samples in our possession. We contacted those law enforcement agencies, the medical examiner's offices, and said, hey, you know, if you haven't sent that sample to someone else, if you haven't already identified this person, would you like us to attempt FDG on these cases? So we loaded up, I guess the beginning we did about 60 or so cases that we had identified that we could proceed with and we've conducted the lab work on that. And as we were doing that, we started trying. My unit started engaging in outreach to those area departments. I was going to conferences in the state and letting everybody know that here we are and trying to notify people. Hey, send us your stuff now. And a lot of times when we contacted them about those older cases that we had in our possession, sometimes I got on the phone with a detective and they said that's great that you do this, but I got two other ones and I'm like send them, you know, send them. So we started establishing that link so they could send it. They knew to send us their current cases and stuff that they wanted us to work. But we got the samples.
Speaker 4:We conducted a SNP testing single nucleotide polymorphism profiles and if we could develop a good enough profile then we would look and see which technology we had that we could utilize. We have three technologies so far. One is about the whole genome. Sequencing is about to go online here in the fall and that maps the entire genome. So we're real excited that's been through our R&D and we're confident we're going to be able to start offering that service in the fall.
Speaker 4:But we also had sequencing, which is intelligence which maps a very small portion of the DNA, like 10,000 SNPs. And we also have microarray which maps like 650,000 SNPs. So we look at C based on the degradation and the amount of sample we have and all these other factors and if we could develop that SNP profile through one of those technologies, we would then upload those profiles to one or two of the accessible genealogy databases. There's two that right now that let law enforcement upload profiles to them so that GEDmatch and FTDNA allow that. So we upload to that and then we assign the cases to the genetic geologists, five at a time and they start their research work, and that could be 45 minutes or it could be, you know, several, several weeks of making attempts to narrow down to see if they could help come up with an investigative lead for the agency.
Speaker 4:If we are able to develop an investigative lead, we contact that. We send the office of the department a report to let them know that we have that. Generally, what we're asking them to do is go out and target. We're asking them to go out and find. Like we say, we think that the target or the source, the donor of this DNA is this person and we've identified this close family member. We'd like you to go see if you can find them and see if they'll give you a family reference sample, give them a cheek swab and send that back to us so we can do an actual comparison for verification.
Speaker 1:What about a success rate related to all of this?
Speaker 4:Well, we have just stepped into the, moved into this area. We have less than 10 cases where we've made identifications, but we do that also. We do identifications also through CODIS, the national system. So I think our indigenous populations, through the MERG grant, I think they've made like 30 or so identifications through that, like 30 or so identifications through that. So we have access to do comparisons, not only in the FGG route but we're also doing it through other means as well.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So let's talk about FGG forensic genetic genealogy. Susan, what can you tell us about FGG, how does it work and how does it differ from other genealogical studies?
Speaker 3:Originally there was just kind of genealogy in general, right, just traditional genealogy, which was no genetics involved. 20 years ago we were just doing paper trail type of lookup and research. And then genetic genealogy kind of stepped into the world of genealogy and around early 2000s it was introduced as a way to connect to your cousins, your genetic cousins, to verify your paper trails, to explore, confirm some of the trails that you've had, the paper trails that you may have searched all those years. And then forensic genetic genealogy really stepped in as a way to well, some airship like people who have filed for in the court system for airship, looking for relatives, descendants of a particular person, to resolve those types of cases field. But then forensic genetic genealogy is more obviously using the forensic side, also investigative side, to help solve cases, to help provide investigative leads. And so since the Golden State Killer case came about in 2018, the word forensic genetic genealogy really became an item, like it became the new paradigm for resolving or providing investigative leads. And so I've been doing genealogy, you know, from 30 years ago.
Speaker 3:I've been through the whole paradigm the whole different types and I've watched it evolve over the years, all the different actors that have been, you know, all through the years, and it's been interesting to see the evolution of how we are where we are today, and so I think that I'm excited about this new tool, I'm excited about how it works. But just to go back, so I've been working with since 2019, I've been working with federal agents, texas Rangers, other agencies, law enforcement agencies across the nation, helping them provide investigative leads for their cold cases and have been, you know, successful with those and have helped a lot of victims and families to find answers and to provide some resolution on those types of cases.
Speaker 1:It seems like this requires the collaboration of experts across numerous fields, so give us an idea of what's involved in going through the process of FGG for the purpose of trying to provide leads or solve a case.
Speaker 3:Yes, so it really is a collaboration between investigators. I would say it begins with investigators understanding, looking for, researching their cases to understand what they have in their case, like that would be. The investigator really is kind of the beginning point of the case. So they need to look in their file, they need to look to see, they need to check with their DNA analyst in their department or maybe the lab or maybe the medical examiner's office. They need to collaborate with their other agencies or someone within their department to identify if there is DNA part of the case.
Speaker 3:So, and hopefully there is DNA part of the case. And then the next question is how much DNA? So that's kind of where our lab comes in. Experts come in to try to identify what could be quantified, what type of extract, how it can be extracted and what type of quantification can be done to get us to a SNP right, what we talk about as a SNP. As a genealogist, I'm looking at the SNP results to work on my genealogy part of it. So going back, it's basically the investigator and then looking at what's in the case and then working with a DNA analyst. And then the next question obviously is is a district attorney willing to prosecute a case? Is there enough evidence there to prosecute a case? That's where they need to consult with the DA's office to see if that's viable, you know, if it's a viable option in perpetrator type cases.
Speaker 1:Does that help you kind of prioritize what cases you're going to work on if a DA says that yes, we want to prosecute this?
Speaker 4:CHI traditionally was a UHR system. We mostly identified human remains. So for our FTG, the cases that appear to be homicides, those move to the top of the list. If an agency contacts specifically and says we need this case, we're actively working on this case. Maybe it's a fresh case, whatever that might move up the priority. But we're also moving into that realm of forensic cases where we would assist identifying the perpetrator. So if we're looking at trying to help them identify a violent offender who may be?
Speaker 4:out and about, then those cases would move to the top of the list as well.
Speaker 1:So, susan, then do you have to stop working on one case and then move on to another if this priority changes?
Speaker 3:Yes, and that would be the case. If we have one that comes through the door and it's a high priority, especially if it's having to do with safety, safety issues we're going to put it at the top and begin working, because it's most high importance that it is designated as high importance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a relief. Yes, Can you give us an example of some successful case or something that was really meaningful to you to work on?
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's interesting because my experiences with the federal agency FBI began in 2019. And you know, we learned a lot of things along the way about how to process FGG cases and how we look at matches and how we determine which particular part of the tree that we need to look at, for, you know, doing reference testing.
Speaker 2:And sometimes.
Speaker 3:Originally it was kind of called target testing but I think that word has evolved to reference testing. But you can hear it either way target or reference. So one of the first cases I did was with Susan Eade's case and she was sexually assaulted, raped and then murdered. Her perpetrator, arthur Raymond Davis, he actually passed away probably within about three months of the murder but this case wasn't solved until 40 years later. So it took 40 years for us to be able to provide answers to the family. And it was really meaningful because I, you know, I was able to go to her memorial service and, you know, see the family and that was very meaningful to be able to provide them some answers about who the perpetrator was and who had murdered Susan, and so that was very meaningful.
Speaker 3:Another case that I think is here in Dallas is a David Thomas Hawkins case and he's a Texas traveling rapist that you know he raped probably at least possibly 30, up to 30 women across kind of range of areas Shreveport, dallas, all the way up to the Amarillo area and with that case it took me probably about five hours to identify or to provide the investigative lead. I should say All of the genetic matches pretty much led to him.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so Did he have a profile on CODIS as well.
Speaker 3:Yes, because, well and this is where the victim advocacy comes in is because a lot of the women that their kits had not been tested and uploaded had. Finally they pushed forward and they said we need our cases to be processed, we want Dallas County to process these. And so they did. And of course, the mail profile then was uploaded into CODIS. So, yes, his profile was in CODIS but had never hit what we consider as a hit.
Speaker 3:We used FGG. Right, we used FGG to do this, and the beautiful thing about it is, like I said, it's a fantastic investigative tool and it can be, you know, we can use it, provide investigative leave or solve a case within, you know, a couple hours, like you know, and you think about investigators how long they spend on a case. I mean, I think some spend years trying to find a perpetrator and this new tool is just a game changer for everyone. You know, for victims and for families, and some of the women here in Dallas have been waiting 40 some odd years for to find an answer, and so we were able to provide that to them, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that can be so helpful and life-changing for victims who've been waiting decades to know if their you know perpetrator was behind bars or dead or you know otherwise could now stand you know trial for their actions. Yes, in the case that you were just referring to, the one in Texas, what happened to that perpetrator?
Speaker 3:David Thomas Hawkins.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:He is in prison right now and he is serving, I believe it's full back-to-back life sentences, for I believe there were at least four cases or five cases that were brought and all adjudicated serving back-to-back.
Speaker 1:Excellent, Susan. So you and I talked about that you are a sexual assault survivor. Will you share your story with us?
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you for asking me because that's you know, that's always something I think difficult for some people to ask. But just tell me about your story and so I will. I want to kind of take you through my journey and where we are now with FGG and I kind of go through some of the things in my case that could have been done, that wasn't done and how FGG could have helped at the time. So my sexual assault I also just call it rape, I think rape for me is more of a brutal word than sexual assault.
Speaker 3:But in January of 1981, the agency say that I was probably one of the first rapes of Wesley Wayne Miller. We didn't know at the time but he went on to rape, sexually assault other women and eventually murder, rape and murder a victim, aretha Stratton. So at the time of my sexual assault, my rape, the police came and of course, first of all, I just want to say that the sexual assault was very violent and the police came and I was 16 at the time and I, you know, they took my police report and just kind of walked away Like okay, and what am I supposed to do with this? Right, I wasn't taken to the hospital, I wasn't, a rape kit was not done. All the things that should happen didn't happen. But I write it off as being early 1980s, that it was. Still. Maybe they didn't understand what to do those kinds of things. But there was DNA on me. I mean, there was genetic material on me that could have been tested.
Speaker 3:My point with that part of it is that if you are a sexual assault victim, demand that you go to the hospital with a police officer or have a friend take you, have a family member. Take you Whatever you need to do, go to the hospital. It's hard, I know it's hard, but go to the hospital and get some help. Make sure that you have a sexual assault kit processed. Make sure that you get the help that you need at that moment. Don't wait, do not take a bath, Do not take a shower, do not do anything Immediately. Go to get some help and to get the sexual assault kit performed, because the sexual assault kit is what's holding the key to who is your perpetrator and that is the DNA. And that part is where that all leads into FGG and where we are now. So previously, 1981, you know really all we had, I think even before 1990, we just basically had fingerprints, right, right.
Speaker 3:And so in 1990, 1994, we started to get the STRs, the short-term repeats that would be put into CODIS, and so we've kind of been living on the CODIS spectrum I call it the CODIS spectrum since the 1990s. But we're now in the current day FGG world and it's a game changer for so many, so many people and so many sexual assault survivors and homicide victims and UHRs and everyone that could be victims and has DNA that's available it now is really helping to resolve some of those cases. So had we had this tool back in 1981, we probably would have, you know, they could have processed if they had taken me to the hospital, had they done a rape kit, had they preserved the DNA and processed it. If there was no kit in CODIS, then we could now process it through FGG and use genetic genealogy to help at least narrow down to some investigative leads within a short amount of time. Right, and not just an investigator knocking on someone's door or doing a canvas of a neighborhood knocking on doors and saying did you see anything?
Speaker 3:I mean they still need to do that portion of investigative work. They still need to do interviewing. Again, that's a collaboration. Part of it is that investigators have their part in this whole picture, but it's all the things that investigators have learned previously, but now they need to know FGG is. What is the process, what are the protocols? When they go and they ask for someone to do reference test or a target test, we need to make sure consent forms are signed. We need to make sure that they, you know, that they understand what some of the protocols are.
Speaker 1:With having a protective FGG world, you know, using this new tool, so, had FGG been available at the time of your assault, how might the outcomes for other victims of the serial perpetrator have been different?
Speaker 3:Yes, and I meant to touch on that earlier as well. So there were at least six women that were sexually assaulted, possibly more, but I do believe that had FGG had been available at the time, that it would have saved Ritha's life. I think it would have saved additional women from being sexually assaulted by a serial rapist. It just would have. It would have helped so much. And you know, I my work is. I love my work, because I know I'm helping other people and I know that I'm helping provide answers to victims and survivors and families, and because I know what it's like to be there.
Speaker 3:I know what it's like to wait a year and that's a year is not very long. Some women have been waiting 20, 30, 40 years and we finally have this new tool that can help with those victims and people that are families of homicide victims, to provide answers to them as well. So it really would have been this tool had it been in the 1980s. You know, looking back, it would have. I think it would have changed the case tremendously and I think it would. The outcome would have been a lot different for some of the women by not going through the sexual assault, the brutal sexual assaults that they went through and so it's yeah, it's an amazing tool and I just I hope everyone, like I said, if you're, if you are, a sexual assault victim number one, make sure you go to the hospital, get the sexual assault kit completed, but know that.
Speaker 3:Or if, for some reason, your case has been sitting there for 20 years, go to your agency. Go to the agency that originally processed your case and say I want my case reopened. I want you to look at FGG. I want you to see if there's enough DNA in my case. Is there enough there to try to move forward with doing some kind of additional investigative work through the FGG process?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it can take time for survivors to be able to self-advocate in that way and really take charge of their case, because unfortunately a lot of the onus gets put on that survivor to follow up with police and law enforcement and other agencies to find out what is going on with their case, where is it in the process, was my rape kit tested, and so on.
Speaker 1:And that's why, to your point, susan, victim advocates are so important to this process to make sure that things keep moving along and to also empower survivors to ask the right questions and to try to be more involved in the process of getting some kind of resolution. Because in your case it turned out the perpetrator was someone that you knew. Yeah, and most often that is the case for women who experience sexual assault or rape, especially when it's related to maybe a former intimate partner, which I don't think that was the case for you. But it was someone that you knew and a life could have been saved if the process was different back in the 80s. So how do you envision FGG developing in the years to come? Are there some possibilities for advancement in this technology or its application?
Speaker 3:Yes, so right now we're using GEDmatch and we're also using FTDNA, which are basically, for the genetic genealogists from the early 2000s, databases that citizens just wanted to know what their ancestry was. And so I personally I envision, I would hope that we someday we would have a system similar to CODIS that would be not so much driven by volunteer citizens or someone who's just uploaded their you know, wanted to know their ancestry, that kind of thing. So I would hope that at some point we would move that direction. But you know, that could be years away, but I would rather see it more in that realm. I think that that would be good.
Speaker 3:But as far as education, I think education is really important. I think it needs to be for genealogists. There needs to be either a degree or a master's degree in this, which would include criminology coursework, legal coursework, forensic coursework, victimology coursework, all the different types of crime scene coursework. And there's really not a program, there's really not an educational program yet, but that I envision, that I hope that at some point we will have an institute that will encompass all of the different subjects, that forensic, genetic genealogy, where it your?
Speaker 1:story and your experience with us. I think having that context is really meaningful to understanding in a kind of 360 way, not just what the Institute does, but also how forensic genetic genealogy really was full circle for you as both a professional and a survivor. Now, rob, I want to ask you what is the future of CHI?
Speaker 4:We're looking at fee-for-service models for out-of-state cases. We already are offering our services to out-of-state cases through the SAKI grant from the BJA, so we'd like to start working some forensic cases to ID violent offenders seeking more federal grants that might assist in us being able to expand the scope of our services to a greater range of stakeholders. We'd like to connect with victim advocacy agencies all over, at least starting in Texas, so that they can help us refer those victims to us for knowing that there's an entity out there that can perform this service for free and they don't have to do some kind of crowdfunding thing or something like that to get it done, collaborating with other missing persons organizations in the state, so that we're making sure we're working all on the same page.
Speaker 4:And to me, most importantly is to uphold the public trust is to uphold the public trust.
Speaker 4:Fgg is a very volatile discussion and you have some people that have some very strong ideas and opinions about law enforcement's use of databases and that's why there's only two, but there's several of the big name databases that their databases are huge, that were we able to lawfully go in and utilize those databases, we could solve a whole lot of cases that way, because it would be just a large database to compare across.
Speaker 4:But the only way we're going to get those databases to allow that and the people who patronize those agencies is to maintain that public trust. Wear the white hat, follow the DOJ interim policy, follow terms of service with the services we do use and make sure we're always trying to do the right thing and we need to gather that public trust and law enforcement has had a long and rocky road in maintaining that. So that is a big ask. But it's imperative on the entities that are performing FGG to make sure that we are following all the rules to get there so that we can convince those people to upload their kits to GEDmatch and not be afraid to opt in and that kind of thing, so that we can solve more cases.
Speaker 1:Sure Sounds good to me. How can people learn more about CHI or get connected with someone at the center?
Speaker 4:We're on the web. We have an email address, isu, at unthscedu and that is monitored by my whole unit. So myself and another investigator and the two genealogists. We have a toll-free number 800-763-3147. And, like I said, we offer these services, these UHR services, to every agency in Texas At no cost. At no cost to them, yes, safe funding.
Speaker 1:And what's your website? It?
Speaker 3:is unthscedu slash chi.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that, and Susan and Rob, thank you so much for talking with me today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, maria, thank you for having us, thank you, thanks so much for that, and Susan and Rob thank you so much for talking with me today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, maria. Thank you for having us. Thank you, thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe and follow us on social media. At National CCAW.