## Other Cases After Golden State Killer
In the two years following DeAngelo’s arrest in April 2018, investigative genetic genealogy was applied to a substantial number of cold cases across the United States. Some of these cases had been working with genealogy database matches before the Golden State Killer arrest was announced; others began the process after the method became public.
The most prominent early resolution involved the identification of a suspect in a 1987 Idaho murder case that had gone unsolved for thirty-one years. Investigators in the Twin Falls area uploaded crime-scene DNA to GEDmatch, identified a candidate through genealogical research, confirmed the identification through discarded DNA collection, and made an arrest in June 2018 — within weeks of the Golden State Killer arrest.
Other cases followed. The method produced results in cases across multiple states — murders, sexual assaults, and cases involving unidentified remains. The pace of applications accelerated as law enforcement agencies became more familiar with the method and as private genealogy companies, including Parabon NanoLabs, developed services specifically for law enforcement clients.
Parabon NanoLabs entered the investigative genetic genealogy market as a commercial service provider. It offered genealogy database searching and family tree construction as a paid service for law enforcement agencies, providing access to expertise and methodology for departments that did not have their own genealogists. The company’s work contributed to a number of case resolutions and also attracted attention for its “DNA phenotyping” services — using genetic analysis to produce predictions of a person’s physical appearance.
The DNA phenotyping work is separate from the genealogical identification work and has been more controversial. Critics have noted that the predictions of appearance from DNA are probabilistic and imprecise, and that releasing composite images based on such predictions can mislead investigations and create unwarranted suspicion of individuals who resemble the predictions.