From information I have gleaned, I believe the following is how this guy was caught. I may be proven wrong after more comes out, but I stand by this for now.
Ancestry.com and other online DNA companies will compare submitted DNA against their records and identify anyone who appear to be relatives. They then notify the submitter of possible relatives he may not be aware of. These companies, however, guarantee confidentiality and will not co-operate with Law Enforcement. A Law Enforcement agency could submit a sample claiming to be a private citizen but, since this would be fraudulent, there is concern that US courts would disallow any evidence obtained this way and prosecution would not be possible. In Australia, however, such a use of these records is perfectly legal and Law Enforcement there has access to those DNA data bases including American DNA records.
In Australia, there is an as yet unidentified serial criminal referred to as Mr. Cruel who began operating in 1986, soon after the last known EAR/ONS crime. His crimes involved abducting and raping children so they weren’t that similar and he is only know to have killed once, so he isn’t technically a “ serial Killer” but due to the timing, there was some speculation that EAR/ONS may have moved down under and changed his game a little.
Apparently, Australian authorities were interested enough in this possibility to compare the EAR/ONS DNA against the Commercial DNA data bases, in a search that was completely compliant with Australian Law. They found no matches or relatives in Australia but they did identify one or more close family member of EAR/ONS who lived in the US. They relayed this legally obtained information to the FBI.
Cynics might suspect that nobody really believed Mr. Cruel had anything to do with EAR/ONS and it was all just a rouse to get around the US confidentiality laws. Who knows?
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