Legal Breakthrough: Dutch Court approves use of private DNA databases

[ZaZara]

https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/946...-dna-uit-stamboomonderzoek-krijgt-groen-licht

After years of struggle by the police, judiciary and Netherlands Forensic Institute, there is finally a green light for the use of private dna databases for cold case investigations. The Limburg court has given permission for the use of genealogical dna databases in two unsolved murders in Limburg.

The permission for a pilot is a groundbreaking decision and could lead to a breakthrough in not only these two crimes, but eventually also in over 1,750 other cold cases.

 

[ZaZara]

This took a long time coming and it is great news! Two pilots to start with. Keep them coming!

https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/946...-dna-uit-stamboomonderzoek-krijgt-groen-licht


One of the murders from the pilot is the 2004 Limburg Hill murder, in which a married couple was severely beaten with, among other things, two tree saws.

Currently, only the national dna database containing dna profiles of convicted, suspects, traces and deceased victims is allowed to be used.

Dozens of cold cases, such as the murder of Groningen's Els Slurink in 2021, have been solved through this dna database.

Genealogical dna databases contain dna from people who download their profiles to do genealogical research. These are the US dna databases GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA, most users of which have a Northwest European origin.

This makes them well suited to Dutch criminal cases as well. Users can consent to the use of their dna for criminal investigations.

A direct dna match is unlikely, but through kinship testing, a perpetrator may come into view via a relative.

National Forensic Investigation Officer Mirjam Warnaar: "For this to happen, any genealogical research must also be successful and that partly depends on the availability and completeness of personal archives and population registers."


BBM

 

[ZaZara]

The two pilot cases:

Murder of Sjef Leukel

Among the two cold cases in which OM and NFI are now allowed to delve into the US databases is one of the most repulsive murders of recent decades, that of Sjef Leukel (68) from Berg en Terblijt, Limburg, on 14 August 2004.

In a home robbery, Sjef and his wife were badly battered with tree saws by an unidentified man. He suffered eighty stab wounds. Sjef died, his wife survived the tragedy. She was in a coma for ten days.

Investigators suspect the perpetrator is from Lithuania, judging from clothes found in the house. The case is known as the Limburg Hill murder.

Pietersplas Maastricht

The second crime selected is the murder of an unidentified woman, whose body was found off the Pietersplas in Maastricht on 6 January 2013.

She had been lying there for several months, was under forty and had remarkably small feet: size 35. She was still wearing several pieces of jewellery. The fact that it is still not clear who the woman is complicates the criminal investigation into the murder.

The kinship search in genealogical dna databases, according to the prosecution, is the ultimate attempt to find out her identity.

BBM

https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/946...-dna-uit-stamboomonderzoek-krijgt-groen-licht

 

[Bit of hope]

This took a long time coming and it is great news! Two pilots to start with. Keep them coming!

https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/946...-dna-uit-stamboomonderzoek-krijgt-groen-licht


One of the murders from the pilot is the 2004 Limburg Hill murder, in which a married couple was severely beaten with, among other things, two tree saws.

Currently, only the national dna database containing dna profiles of convicted, suspects, traces and deceased victims is allowed to be used.

Dozens of cold cases, such as the murder of Groningen's Els Slurink in 2021, have been solved through this dna database.

Genealogical dna databases contain dna from people who download their profiles to do genealogical research. These are the US dna databases GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA, most users of which have a Northwest European origin.

This makes them well suited to Dutch criminal cases as well. Users can consent to the use of their dna for criminal investigations.

A direct dna match is unlikely, but through kinship testing, a perpetrator may come into view via a relative.

National Forensic Investigation Officer Mirjam Warnaar: "For this to happen, any genealogical research must also be successful and that partly depends on the availability and completeness of personal archives and population registers."


BBM

Finally!