5 Cold Cases That Were Solved In 2020

CORRECTION: The photo of the wedding announcement in the Betty Lee Jones case is actually of a different Betty Lee Jones. Case information is accurate but you can see that the dates do not match the newspaper clipping. It was an oversight on our part, and we apologize for any confusion!

In April of 2018, a new kind of tool for solving cold cases entered the public spotlight. It was called Genetic Genealogy, and it was used to help solve the infamous Golden State Killer case. Genetic Genealogy works by combining DNA testing and profiling with traditional genealogical methods to establish biological relationships between individuals. For investigators it meant being able to take an unknown DNA sample and trace it back to a suspect using their common ancestors. And with public DNA databases like GEDMatch becoming more and more popular in recent years, it meant that in some circumstances, law enforcement could tap databases previously unimaginable in size, without having to rely purely on their own Combined DNA Index System which only obtained the DNA of people who had previously had interactions with the justice system.

Though Genetic Genealogy as a forensic tool has become a subject of hot debate in the last few years, raising worthwhile questions about a citizen’s right to privacy, there’s no denying that it has become extremely useful in solving crimes — particularly decades-old cold cases like the Golden State Killer case. In fact, private laboratories like Parabon NanoLabs claim that they are helping police to crack these cases at an unprecedented rate of one per week.

With that idea in mind, and in celebration of the year’s end we decided to devote today’s video to taking a look at several cold cases that were solved in 2020 — all of which owe some or most of their success to Genetic Genealogy techniques.

Before we get to our list, don’t forget to like and subscribe to Crime Zone for more true crime content like this, making sure to hit the notification bell ti stay up to date with our latest videos. With that out of the way, here are “5 Cold Cases That Were Solved In 2020”.

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