Latest news with #ParabonNanoLabs
CBS News
27-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Woman found dead by San Jose police in 1981 identified by cold case detectives
More than four decades after a woman's dismembered torso was found in a San Jose field, cold case detectives said they have identified the victim. According to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office, Vivian Moss was found dead on July 11, 1981, in a field where the VTA Berryessa Transit Center and BART station parking garage are now located. Detectives used genealogy to identify Moss, who was 54 years old at the time of her murder. Moss was born in Arkansas in 1927. The DA's office released an AI-generated image of Moss based on her family photos. An AI-generated composite image of Vivian Moss, who was found dead in San Jose on July 11, 1981. Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office "Vivian Moss was her name. My Office knows it. I know it. Her family knows it. And now our community knows it," District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. Moss had no identification when she was found, but two religious pendants were found near her body. Investigators at the time ruled her death a homicide from multiple stab wounds to the chest and dismemberment. The case went unsolved for decades. In 2023, the DA's office partnered with forensic genealogists at Parabon NanoLabs to identify the woman. Last year, the lab hypothesized the victim was likely Moss. Investigators interviewed Moss' granddaughter who said that Vivian had planned to pick her up to stay the night at her home, but she did not show. The DA's office concluded the victim was Moss based on genealogical testing comparing the granddaughter's DNA to crime scene evidence. Investigators said Moss attended Mount Zion Spiritual Church in Oakland and was close to leader Louis H. Narcisse, who died in 1989. Moss may have also worked at an Oakland elementary school before she disappeared. The Cold Case Unit and Moss' surviving family are hoping the identification will lead them to her killer and are asking the public to come forward with any new information about the case. "One day soon, I hope we will know the depraved person who took her life and left her in a field, hoping she would be forgotten. If her murderer is still alive, they will know that we don't forget in Santa Clara County," Rosen said. Anyone with information is asked to contact 408-792-2466 or to email the Cold Case Unit at coldcasetips@
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."
