Decoding A Killer
TRACKING DOWN THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER
BY DOLORES DAVIES
WHEN BARBARA RAE-VENTER ’ 72 , PHD ’ 76 , retired from her career in patent law
in 2005 , she was looking forward to a different kind of work — working on her tennis game for one thing , or exploring her family history , maybe finding that long-lost cousin she ’ d heard about . She certainly did not expect to be collaborating with law enforcement to catch some of the nation ’ s most notorious killers . But when the call came , she answered , and has since helped solve more than 40 cold cases . Retirement , it would seem , can wait .
Today , Rae-Venter is recognized as a trailblazer in the nascent field of investigative genetic genealogy . But her story began decades earlier at UC San Diego , where — as a biology student in the ’ 70s — she was exposed to the burgeoning field of DNA science . Ultimately , she would couple this knowledge with new genealogy and ancestry-mapping skills and create a novel method of identifying and narrowing down criminal suspects . It ’ s a development only made possible by the recent surge in consumer DNA testing and the availability of huge genetic databases ,
enabling people — including sleuthing genealogists — to connect the genetic dots in a way never before possible .
No one could have anticipated such a confluence of events , including Rae-Venter . Her genealogical journey began with explorations of her own family tree , but she soon became proficient enough to volunteer as a “ Search Angel ” with DNAAdoption , an organization that teaches adoptees how to identify their birth relatives using autosomal DNA , the genes that govern trait inheritance .
Her work as a “ Search Angel ” eventually included a project for the Crimes Against Children Detail of the San Bernardino County Sheriff to identify the immediate family of Lisa Jensen , a woman in her 30s who was abducted as an infant . In 2016 , after many hours of searching publicly available genetic databases and building two very large family trees , Rae-Venter successfully identified Jensen ’ s biological mother , which subsequently revealed that Jensen ’ s abductor — her mother ’ s live-in boyfriend at the time — had committed a string of murders in California and New Hampshire .
TRITONMAG . COM 29