How Canadian scientists investigate crimes
DNA research has helped find criminals who have been searched for decades.
Canadian geneticists are helping to investigate crimes that took place half a century ago. For this purpose they use a fundamentally new method of deciphering DNA.
For example, in Quebec, police found the killer of Sharon Pryor, who died in 1975. She was only 16 years old when she was brutally murdered by an unknown man on her way to a family dinner. The police then managed to compile a rough sketch and obtain traces of the perpetrator's DNA, but that was the end of it. The perpetrator's DNA did not match anything in the police database.
Forty-eight years later, science has taken a step further. Now scientists use DNA analysis to identify Y-chromosome relatedness. This helps find male relatives of the perpetrator. For example, if a man in Canada committed a crime and the police database has DNA from a distant relative, police can find out his last name and other details. This greatly narrows down the pool of suspects.
This is how the scientists found out the last name of the murderer Sharon. They looked to see which bearer of that surname lived in Montreal in 1975. That's how they found the perpetrator, the now deceased Franklin Romayne. He had two living brothers, whose DNA analysis ruled out a mistake. It proved that the method worked.
Police officers are excited about the new discovery — it will make their job much easier. In the future, scientists will be able to find out even more information about a person thanks to DNA.
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