Golden State Killer Caught On DNA Harvesting Site Ancestry.
The DNA you send in the mail through genetics kits and ancestry programs like 23andMe and Ancestry can be used by police in a criminal investigation.
Recently, Joseph James DeAngelo, the man authorities suspect is the so-called Golden State Killer responsible for at least a dozen murders and 50 rapes in the 1970s and 80s, was arrested more than three decades after the last killing.
And according to the Sacramento County district attorney's office, investigators used information from an online genealogical site to determine whether the DNA from one of the crime scenes was a match.
California police plan to use a similar process via a private lab to track down the identity of the infamous Zodiac Killer who murdered at least five people and injured two others in the late 1960s.
But both Ancestry.com and 23andMe, two of the largest companies that produce genetic profiles for customers who provide DNA samples, said they don't work with law enforcement unless they receive a court order. Neither companies received a court order regarding the DeAngelo case.