Search for serial killer led to wrong man in 2017

SACRAMENTO » Investigators hunting down the socalled Golden State Killer used information from genetic websites last year that led to the wrong man, court records obtained Friday by The Associated Press showed.

An Oregon police officer working at the request of California investigators persuaded a judge to order a 73-year-old man in an Oregon City nursing home to provide a DNA sample.

It’s not clear if officers collected the sample and ran further tests, but it was not the man arrested this week outside Sacramento in one of the state’s most notorious string of serial rapes and killings.

The case of mistaken identity was discovered as authorities hailed a novel use of DNA technology that led this week to the arrest of former police officer Joseph DeAngelo at his house outside Sacramento on murder charges. He’s suspected of being the sadistic attacker who killed 13 people and raped nearly 50 women during the 1970s and ‘80s.

Handcuffed to a wheelchair in orange jail scrubs, DeAngelo made his first court appearance Friday. The 72-year-old looked dazed and spoke in a faint voice to acknowledge he was represented by a public defender. He did not enter a plea.

He has been charged with eight counts of murder, and additional charges are expected, authorities said.

Investigators were able to make the arrest after matching crime-scene DNA with genetic material stored in an online database by a distant relative. They relied on a different website than they had in the Oregon search, and they did not seek a warrant for DeAngelo’s DNA.

Instead, they waited for him to discard items and then swabbed the objects for DNA, which proved a conclusive match to the evidence that had been preserved more than 30 years.

Also Friday, the cofounder of the genealogy website used by authorities said he had no idea its database was tapped in pursuit of the suspect who eluded law enforcement for four decades.

Authorities never approached Florida-based GEDmatch about the investigation that led to DeAngelo, and co-founder Curtis Rogers said law enforcement’s use of the site raised privacy concerns that were echoed by civil liberties groups.

The free genealogy website, which pools DNA profiles that people upload and share publicly to find relatives, said it has always informed users its database can be used for other purposes. But Rogers said the company does not “hand out data.”

“This was done without our knowledge, and it’s been overwhelming,” he told The Associated Press.

For the team of investigators, GEDmatch was one of the best tools, lead investigator Paul Holes told the Mercury News in San Jose.