State crime lab offering DNA testing funds to help local police departments

As more and more cold cases are solved using forensic genealogy, Connecticut's forensic lab is offering funding to local police departments that are looking to take a fresh approach to unsolved crimes by testing DNA evidence for familial links.

Investigators use DNA samples to locate new leads in cold cases by comparing DNA samples found at crime scenes to now-available public databases that have millions of DNA samples that have been sent in to genealogical companies.

Those samples can help investigators link their suspects' DNA samples to particular families, narrowing the pool of potential suspects.

“In forensic genealogy you are using public databases that can be used to link family trees and find a possible relative to a possible perpetrator,'' said Sevasti Papakanakis, deputy director of Forensic Biology and DNA at the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory in Meriden. “There are so many cases we have in this state that haven't been solved.”

“We are talking about cases that were tested anytime from the 1970s or 1980s to very recently and they just don't have any investigative leads that are useful,'' Papakanakis added.

“Forensic genealogy helped solve two notorious serial sexual assault cases in recent years in Connecticut and now the Division of Scientific Services at the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection has grants available to local police departments for long dormant cold cases,” said Rick Green, a spokesperson for DESPP.

Papakanakis said the grant funding will allow the state lab to work hand-in-hand with law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to identify cases that may benefit from funding for DNA testing.

The average cost of analyzing a DNA sample is about $7,500, according to the DESPP.

Police departments are asked to contact Papankanakis' office with cases that they have DNA samples for so that the lab can determine if the case is suitable for the funded testing.

“They can bring it forward, and we'll see what we can figure out together,” Papankanakis said.

This year's funding, through the Bureau of Justice Assistance's grant “Fiscal Year 2024 Prosecuting Cold Cases,” is being used differently than it has in the past.

In previous years, the grant's funding has been given directly to law enforcement agencies to work cold cases in certain cities or towns. But this year, the funding is going directly to the state lab.

“The way it's set up is that we were given the funding and the cases will be worked through us,” Papankanakis said. “It's a different kind of collaboration this time around.”

This new approach will allow the lab to look at cases state-wide, working with multiple jurisdictions.

The funding in 2020, Papakanakis said, applied only to Hartford cases. Papakanakis said she remembered coming across cold cases that could have benefited from the funding but that weren't eligible because they were outside of Hartford.

“It's really important that we serve the entire state,” she said.