Mother Matched Using Genetic Database in Baby Jane Doe Cold Case
FRENCHVILLE, Maine (WAGM) -
A new development in regards to the 36 year old cold case of Baby Jane Doe. Further details have been released on how Maine State Police tracked down the mother. NewsSource8′s Brian Bouchard has the story.
“This case took three years, about 2 and a half years.”
Colleen Fitzpatrick is the President and Founder of Identifinders International, a company that helps solve cold cases through genealogy. Recently, the Maine Department of Public Safety announced this company was instrumental in providing investigative leads through genetic genealogy that led to the arrest of Lee Daigle in the baby jane doe cold case.
Fitzpatrick wouldn’t comment specifically on this case, but Identifinders uses genetic data submitted through at home tests, such as 23&me and ancestry to help solve cases.
“There’s a third party database called GEDMatch and you can upload your data to do more analysis on a genealogical platform. So that database is made up of people who have done that.”
Fitzpatrick says Identifinders uses this public database to compare those who have voluntarily uploaded their data to the database, with samples from cold cases around the world. Frank Bemis of Law Firm Bemis and Rossignol says this isn’t a new technique.
“The scientific discoveries that we have related to genetics are causing us to rethink a lot of things that we never really thought about before. Is it right or wrong? It’s just the new world that we live in. In the Golden State Killer out of California as well as locally there was a Maine man that was found via this sort of evidence in Alaska for an Alaskan murder, and was recently convicted for it. So, yes, it’s something that’s growing over the last few years but very recent. I don’t know how, in this particular case up in Frenchville the connection was made between the suspect and the baby involved, but it could be some other family member used 23&me or ancestry provided their DNA, maybe they provided a sample at request of law enforcement. We don’t know, I assume that will come out later in affidavits or in the actual trial.”
Fitzpatrick says the Baby Jane Doe case was a difficult one.
“I really have to say, the Maine State Police did a brilliant job on their end. You know before we got involved there were just years of investigation and then afterwards of course they have to track down the mother, they had to do their own legal work, which took some time, so I have to say it was great working with them, and we look forward to working with them again.”
Both Fitzpatrick and Bemis say this wasn’t the first time this technology was used and it won’t be the last.
Brian Bouchard, NewsSource8
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