Grim Sleeper rapist caught with familial DNA tools

Familial DNA is a powerful forensic tool that will help arrest the suspected Grim Sleeper rapist in Los Angeles after 25 years from when his case was declared closed.

Now the cops from Virginia are intending to use the same technique to nail the East Coast Rapist, who’s DNA was found in 19 attacks from four states. The method is still not widely acknowledged and consists in identifying suspects through the DNA of a close blood relative who has already been registered in the criminal justice system after being arrested or convicted. Only California and Colorado currently use this system but the method seems to be gaining terrain. The Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys allowed the Department of Forensic Science to use familial DNA to catch the East Coast rapist which is reported to have attacked women and girls from Virginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland starting with 1997. Prosecutors wish to use this technique from now on when searching for criminals, so they passed a resolution asking the Virginia General Assembly to approve the necessary legislation. Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert says that his method might increase the chances of catching the serial rapist and wishes to try using it in the attack on three teenage girls which took place near their homes in Dale City last Halloween. In the same time, there is a bill introduced on Capitol Hill which is supposed to authorize the FBI agents to use the national DNA database to perform familial scans. Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was arrested in the Grim Sleeper case after his DNA collected from one of the serial murder crime scenes was connected to the one of his son which was arrested on a separate matter. This was the first major breakthrough in the case that lasted 25 years and reported 10 dead victims. Some states, like Maryland, where the East Coast Rapist had made victims too, do not agree to using their DNA databases for familial searches, this is why Adam Schiff’s bill requests creating a system where a state can request a familial search of the national DNA database. Without its help, it is very difficult for police officers to catch a criminal that has committed felonies in many states.

Schiff said that if Lonnie David Franklin’s son would have been convicted in Nevada, for example, no match would have ever been made because California is allowed to search only her own database for a DNA match. It seems that he started his attacks in Maryland, moved into Virginia, then up to Connecticut and Rhode Island and back to Virginia and the police says that he has studied his victims for some time before the attacks and knows his victims schedule and the time when they are most vulnerable. The last of his attacks was on the three trick-or-treaters from northern Virginia, while after raping the first one and moving on to the second, the third sent a text message to seven people, including her parents containing the words “911 cvs pls noww man with gun”, so before he could move on to the third girl police sirens scared off the rapist. Rock Harmon, the former prosecutor who acted on cases like the O.J. Simpson murder trial is trying to convince California forensics experts to use familial searches. The critics of the method say that this is the first step to invade the civil rights of the Americans. Erin Murphy, a leading DNA legal expert and professor at New York University’s School of Law says that it would be fair if every American citizen would give a sample to a DNA database, so that the familial scans would not just include blood relatives of people who had been arrested or convicted. But some people do not want the government to have their DNA stored, which shows the extent to which privacy is important for the United States citizens. David Lazer, a political science professor at Northeastern University and editor of the book “DNA and the Criminal Justice System” says that this may lead to what is called guilt by association, because a cigarette dropped at a place what will eventually prove to be a crime scene, so that people might be considered suspects even if they have nothing to do with it.