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USA Today
08-04-2025
- USA Today
Remains found 29 years ago near Charlotte stadium ID'ed as woman last heard from in 1991
Remains found 29 years ago near Charlotte stadium ID'ed as woman last heard from in 1991 Remains found in a wooded area in North Carolina nearly 30 years ago have been identified as those of a woman last heard from in 1991, police announced Friday. The remains of Betty Jean Benton, which sat unidentified for nearly 30 years, were found on July 18, 1996 near what's now called Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. Benton's family last heard from her in February 1991, when she said she was in North Carolina. Family members in 1992 reported her missing out of Louisiana, her home state, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said. Benton's remains were found four years later, when she would've been about 42 years old. The remains were taken to the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner's Office, where officials determined the victim was female, police said in the news release. Officials ruled her death a homicide but detectives were unable to find out who she was. It wasn't until officials submitted remains for genetic testing in 2024 that Benton was identified soon after. Using DNA to identify slain woman To identify Benton, detectives tried a new approach in 2022 and sent the woman's remains to Raleigh for an osteological examination by a forensic anthropologist, police said in the news release. The team also sent bones to Othram Labs in Texas for advanced DNA testing. The team's first attempt to get DNA wasn't successful due to the condition of the woman's remains, police said. But in 2024, the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner's Office sent more bones to Othram Labs for another DNA extraction, police said. Othram Labs was able to get a genetic profile this time around, police said. Investigators then loaded the woman's profile into two consumer genealogy databases that work with law enforcement, GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA. Authorities then worked with the Ramapo College of New Jersey, where genetic genealogy research allowed the center to identify the victim as Betty Benton. Detectives were able to contact her family, who let them know she hadn't been heard from since the early 1990s. They compared the woman's DNA to a DNA profile from a family member, confirming the remains belonged to Benton. Who was Betty Jean Benton? Benton was born in Louisiana on Feb. 27, 1954, police said. Although she spent most of her life in Chicago, she told family in February 1991 she was in North Carolina. Despite searching, detectives weren't able to find any record of her being in North Carolina prior to the discovery of her remains. The police department's next task is finding out what Benton was doing during the last few years of her life. Authorities ask that anyone who had contact with her in North Carolina contact detectives at (704) 432-8477. According to Charlotte police, the department's cold case unit still has nine other victims to identify, with remains having been discovered as early as 1932. Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Yahoo
Skeleton found near BoA Stadium in 1996 identified as woman with cryptic past, CMPD says
A skeleton found in 1996 near Bank of America Stadium has finally been identified, and investigators say there is no record of the dead woman ever being in North Carolina. Police identified Betty Jean Benton through forensic genetic genealogy, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department news release Friday. Her death was ruled a homicide, police said. Remains found in woods near the stadium on July 18, 1996, were taken to the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner's Office, where the victim was determined to be female, police said. 'Despite efforts to identify the victim through conventional means, detectives were unsuccessful,' police said Friday. In 2022, police sent the remains to Raleigh for an osteological examination by a forensic anthropologist. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Foundation paid Texas-based Othram Labs to do advanced DNA testing on bones. Because of the condition of the remains, DNA couldn't be extracted, police said. Last year, the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner's Office sent more bones to Othram Labs, which obtained a genetic profile, CMPD said. The foundation also paid for that additional testing, according to police. The victim's profile was loaded into two consumer genealogy databases, GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA. Both companies cooperate with police, according to CMPD. The CMPD Cold Case Unit partnered with the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College in New Jersey to conduct investigative genetic genealogy research. IGG analysts 'quickly identified the victim as Betty Benton,' according to the CMPD statement. Police next contacted Benton family members who said she hadn't been heard from since the early 1990s. A DNA profile from a family member confirmed the victim was Benton, CMPD said. Benton was born in Louisiana on Feb. 27, 1954, police said, and spent most of her life in Chicago, Illinois. 'She was reported missing in 1992 and last contacted family members in February 1991, telling them she was in North Carolina,' according to the CMPD statement. Police have found no record of Benton in North Carolina and are asking the public for help. Anyone who contacted Benton in North Carolina is asked to speak to a CMPD police detective at 704-432-8477. As of Friday, the CMPD Cold Case Unit was still working to identify at least nine other homicide victims, whose remains were discovered as far back as 1932.
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Yahoo
Bryan Kohberger case: FBI's DNA tactics didn't violate law, but they raise another public safety concern
With great investigative power, genetic genealogists have a great responsibility to conduct themselves ethically to preserve a system that is entirely reliant on public participation to solve violent crimes, according to CeCe Moore, a pioneer of the industry and the chief genetic genealogist at Parabon NanoLabs. The use of investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) to solve violent crimes has overwhelming public support, she said, but privacy concerns are still an issue in cases like University of Idaho student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger's, where the FBI accessed two databases that purport to exclude law enforcement from their services. As a result, unwitting users could be submitting clues that lead detectives to their own relatives without knowing it. Transcripts unsealed of a closed-door hearing on the defense's attempt to have DNA evidence thrown out of court revealed that the FBI violated a Department of Justice interim policy and the terms of service of the two private databases agents turned to after the smaller ones, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch PRO, didn't pan out. Idaho Judge Unseals Transcript Of Closed-door Igg Hearing "Our policy is to stick with just those databases because of the concern that the public could turn against this tool," Moore said, explaining why her team at the private lab avoids doing what the FBI did. "We don't want to just solve one case and lose out on being able to use this for potentially hundreds of thousands, millions of cases in the future." The FBI declined to comment and instead pointed to Judge Steven Hippler's Feb. 17 order, in which he wrote that investigators had not violated Kohberger's constitutional rights or broken any laws when they uploaded samples to MyHeritage and GEDMatch (without the "PRO"). Read On The Fox News App "This is not the first case where this has been brought up," Moore told Fox News Digital. "It's not the first case where a judge has weighed in on this question and made a similar ruling, because legality and companies' own terms of service are not the same thing – and so that is how the FBI is able to legally use that non-consented database." Idaho Court Releases Surviving Roommates' Text Messages From Night Of Student Murders Four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in a home on Nov. 13, 2022 – Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. Bryan Kohberger Doesn't Want Amazon Shopping List Revealed At Trial Under Mogen's body, police found a knife sheath that helped crack the case – it had a DNA sample on it. The sample did not match anyone in the FBI's national criminal database, nor did it match anyone in two small genealogy databases that share their material with law enforcement. So, the FBI checked two other publicly accessible databases that ultimately led them to Kohberger, who was first identified as a person of interest on Dec. 19, 2022, and arrested on Dec. 30, 2022. SIGN UP TO GET True Crime Newsletter If investigators hadn't turned to IGG, a suspect may have never been apprehended. They'd spent weeks with no solid leads, although Kohberger was studying for a Ph.D. in criminology at Washington State University, just 10 miles from the crime scene. He had driven home to his parents' house in Pennsylvania before he was arrested. Idaho Police Recovered A 3-Person Mixture Of Dna Under Maddie Mogen's Fingernails "The more violent crimes I've been working and seen, the incredibly negative impact it has on surviving victims, their families and society as a whole, I can really see both sides now, a lot more than I did when I first started working with law enforcement," Moore said. "There's certainly a part of me that is supportive of doing everything we can within the law to stop these people in their tracks." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE True Crime Hub In essence, law enforcement is allowed to go anywhere the public can, Moore said. Even though the individual database's terms of service may say that detectives need to stay out, they aren't violating the law by going in anyway. Follow The Fox True Crime Team On X The concern among critics, however, is that law enforcement could risk dissuading members of the public from participating in genetic genealogy testing over concerns that their data could be taken behind their backs, despite companies claiming it is protected. Many users want to trace their family trees, not necessarily help solve crimes. The two largest databases, 23andMe and Ancestry DNA, don't face this issue, because they don't allow copied files of DNA samples to be uploaded. They require them to come directly from the source: a highly accurate sample from a cheek swab. That kind of sample typically doesn't exist in the early stages of a case where police turn to IGG, usually with something collected from a crime scene. So far, the methods continue to show strong public support, Moore said. "Most people out there want us to use this tool to stop violent criminals," she told Fox News Digital. "I believe it was 91% of the people that we surveyed . . . [who] said that they want it used for this purpose, and I was surprised how many people even wanted it used for lesser crimes."Original article source: Bryan Kohberger case: FBI's DNA tactics didn't violate law, but they raise another public safety concern
Fox News
09-03-2025
- Fox News
Bryan Kohberger case: FBI's DNA tactics didn't violate law, but they raise another public safety concern
With great investigative power, genetic genealogists have a great responsibility to conduct themselves ethically to preserve a system that is entirely reliant on public participation to solve violent crimes, according to CeCe Moore, a pioneer of the industry and the chief genetic genealogist at Parabon NanoLabs. The use of investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) to solve violent crimes has overwhelming public support, she said, but privacy concerns are still an issue in cases like University of Idaho student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger's, where the FBI accessed two databases that purport to exclude law enforcement from their services. As a result, unwitting users could be submitting clues that lead detectives to their own relatives without knowing it. Transcripts unsealed of a closed-door hearing on the defense's attempt to have DNA evidence thrown out of court revealed that the FBI violated a Department of Justice interim policy and the terms of service of the two private databases agents turned to after the smaller ones, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch PRO, didn't pan out. "Our policy is to stick with just those databases because of the concern that the public could turn against this tool," Moore said, explaining why her team at the private lab avoids doing what the FBI did. "We don't want to just solve one case and lose out on being able to use this for potentially hundreds of thousands, millions of cases in the future." The FBI declined to comment and instead pointed to Judge Steven Hippler's Feb. 17 order, in which he wrote that investigators had not violated Kohberger's constitutional rights or broken any laws when they uploaded samples to MyHeritage and GEDMatch (without the "PRO"). "This is not the first case where this has been brought up," Moore told Fox News Digital. "It's not the first case where a judge has weighed in on this question and made a similar ruling, because legality and companies' own terms of service are not the same thing – and so that is how the FBI is able to legally use that non-consented database." Four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in a home on Nov. 13, 2022 – Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. Under Mogen's body, police found a knife sheath that helped crack the case – it had a DNA sample on it. The sample did not match anyone in the FBI's national criminal database, nor did it match anyone in two small genealogy databases that share their material with law enforcement. So, the FBI checked two other publicly accessible databases that ultimately led them to Kohberger, who was first identified as a person of interest on Dec. 19, 2022, and arrested on Dec. 30, 2022. SIGN UP TO GET TRUE CRIME NEWSLETTER If investigators hadn't turned to IGG, a suspect may have never been apprehended. They'd spent weeks with no solid leads, although Kohberger was studying for a Ph.D. in criminology at Washington State University, just 10 miles from the crime scene. He had driven home to his parents' house in Pennsylvania before he was arrested. "The more violent crimes I've been working and seen, the incredibly negative impact it has on surviving victims, their families and society as a whole, I can really see both sides now, a lot more than I did when I first started working with law enforcement," Moore said. "There's certainly a part of me that is supportive of doing everything we can within the law to stop these people in their tracks." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB In essence, law enforcement is allowed to go anywhere the public can, Moore said. Even though the individual database's terms of service may say that detectives need to stay out, they aren't violating the law by going in anyway. The concern among critics, however, is that law enforcement could risk dissuading members of the public from participating in genetic genealogy testing over concerns that their data could be taken behind their backs, despite companies claiming it is protected. Many users want to trace their family trees, not necessarily help solve crimes. The two largest databases, 23andMe and Ancestry DNA, don't face this issue, because they don't allow copied files of DNA samples to be uploaded. They require them to come directly from the source: a highly accurate sample from a cheek swab. That kind of sample typically doesn't exist in the early stages of a case where police turn to IGG, usually with something collected from a crime scene. So far, the methods continue to show strong public support, Moore said. "Most people out there want us to use this tool to stop violent criminals," she told Fox News Digital. "I believe it was 91% of the people that we surveyed . . . [who] said that they want it used for this purpose, and I was surprised how many people even wanted it used for lesser crimes."
CBS News
20-02-2025
- CBS News
Judge in University of Idaho killings case makes ruling on key DNA evidence
An Idaho judge declined to throw out key evidence against the man charged with murder in connection with the killings of four University of Idaho students, saying Wednesday that the genetic investigation process that it hinges on was not unconstitutional. Judge Steven Hippler was not swayed by legal arguments made by Bryan Kohberger's defense team that law enforcement violated his constitutional rights when they used a process called Investigative Genetic Genealogy, or IGG, to identify possible suspects. The decision came nearly a month after a two-day hearing on the matter, removing what could have been a major wrench in the prosecution's case before trial starts in August. The judge said no one would be allowed into the courtroom but that the open portions of the trial would be livestreamed from the court's YouTube page. Kohberger is charged with four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, who were killed in the early morning of Nov. 13, 2022, at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho. When asked to enter a plea last year, Kohberger stood silent, prompting a judge to enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted. The IGG process often starts when DNA found at the scene of a crime doesn't yield any results through standard law enforcement databases. When that happens, investigators may look at all the variations, or single nucleotide polymorphisms, that are in the DNA sample. Those SNPs, or "snips," are then uploaded to a genealogy database like GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA to look for possible relatives of the person whose DNA was found at the scene. In Kohberger's case, investigators said they found "touch DNA," or trace DNA, on the sheath of a knife that was found in the home where the students were fatally stabbed. The FBI used the IGG process on that DNA and the information identified Kohberger as a possible suspect. Defense attorney Anne Taylor had argued that police never sought warrants to analyze the DNA found at the crime scene, nor did they get warrants to analyze the DNA of potential relatives that had been submitted to genealogy databases. She argued the court should suppress the IGG identification and everything that came from it. The judge said that in order to throw out evidence based on a warrantless search, Kohberger's defense would need to "show that he had legitimate expectation of privacy in the item or place searched." "Any privacy interest he can claim in this DNA was abandoned along with the sheath, to which he claims no ownership or knowledge," said Hippler. "Even if no such abandonment occurred, defendant has not demonstrated it is reasonable to recognize a privacy interest in DNA left at a crime scene." The judge also ruled against three other defense motions objecting to the way warrants were issued and to suppress evidence such as cellphone data. "He deserves to die," victim's mother says Last November, Kristi and Steve Goncalves, the parents of Kaylee Goncalves, said the details of the case show the death penalty is merited. "You've got four victims, all in one house - that's more than enough," Steve Goncalves said. Kristi Goncalves said she talked to the coroner and knows what happened to her daughter. "If he did anything like he did to our daughter to the others, then he deserves to die," she said. Steve Goncalves told "48 Hours" last year that "there's evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that situation," saying "she was trapped" based on the way the bed was set up Goncalves' family said in the spring that they were frustrated by how long it has taken the case to progress through the judicial system. "This case is turning into a hamster wheel of motions, hearings, and delayed decisions," the family said in a statement.
