why can't they enter his DNA through an ancestry database and even if he is not in the database, it could link him up to family members which will be a step closer to solving who the culprit was.
I have a lot of questions about this also. I’ve done some research, but I admit I may not have the best understanding. Basically, there are several sources of DNA profiles that could potentially be used for doing familial searches:
- Consumer sites like Ancestry.com and 23andme.com: these don’t make their DNA databases accessible to law enforcement – supposedly, 26 million people have done DNA test kits through consumer sites. Law enforcement can’t use any of it unless the user loads their own results into GEDmatch or another open database.
- GEDmatch is where people can upload their DNA test results from Ancestry or 23andme, but only about 1.2 million people have done this. Law enforcement and companies like Parabon Nanolabs can use GEDmatch to search for familial DNA.
- CODIS is a database only accessible by law enforcement – there are about 17 million profiles in CODIS. Most states run DNA evidence against CODIS for matches. The problem is that only a handful of states allow familial searches in CODIS.
So unless I’m missing something, in most states the only way law enforcement and/or Parabon can do familial testing is through GEDmatch, which is a relatively small database. The Unresolved episode on Brittany indicates that they’re using Parabon to do familial testing, but there doesn’t seem to have been any close family matches: “from the analysis, it wasn’t a real good one, but they are looking at some like 5th or 6th or 7th or 8th cousin…”. I do not know if Oklahoma allows familial testing through CODIS.
Have the police investigated anybody that was in her college classes with her, or any neighbors that lived within the vicinity of her apartment unit?
Yes. From the Unresolved episode: “However, police insist that
virtually every young man tentatively connected to Brittany has submitted a DNA sample, and has had said sample compared against the suspect's DNA profile.
This includes all of Brittany's ex-boyfriends, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, classmates, etc. Investigators ran more than
3,000 individual tests, and none came back as a match; implying that this individual, whoever he was,
was someone that Brittany either did not know, or did not tell anyone about.
I highly doubt that someone would climb up a balcony to get through french doors or shimmy through an attic just to break in and rape her.
I agree with you that the motive probably wasn’t robbery. And I also agree with you that it’s most likely the killer ambushed her and came in through her front door. However, I don’t think anyone should rule out the attic or the French doors – whatever the killer’s motive was, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that his means and/or opportunity were influenced by his knowledge of the attic space or their ability to get up to the French doors.
I do think the question of how the killer got into the apartment is really important to answer. If he came in through the attic, then he must have known about the shared layout beforehand… and if that’s the case, then you can create a shortlist of people who would have had that information, and you can start to build a list of people to clear (maintenance workers, utility employees, contractors, current/former residents, etc.)
But if he came in through the front door, then then I think the list of suspects is pretty much anyone who matches the DNA composite sketch that was in the area at the time. It's probably a pretty long list.
You think it could be a possibility that there was an unknown serial killer in Tulsa?
It’s possible. John Robert Williams was active in OK during that time, but Brittany's case doesn't really fit his MO. There may have been another killer active around Lawton at that time, but his MO is different also.
There's a website murderdata.org that lets you search murder victims by year, age, race, gender, and whether or not the case has been solved. I've pulled some initial research to see if there are any unsolved cases similar to Brittany's (same age, race, in OK and neighboring states), but I haven't had time to go through it. It's kind of complex, because the site doesn't give the name of the victim, so you sort of have to google unsolved cases in the area where the murder occurred, then, if you find the right case, you can compare whether or not facts are similar. The cases in Tulsa that I've looked at aren't very similar to Brittany's, but I only went back to 1994.
