DNA evidence credited for arrest in April Tinsley's 1988 killing

[bearsfootball516]

Source: Indianapolis Star

Thirty years after the murder of 8-year-old April Tinsley, police arrested a man in connection to her death on the same day the cold case was to be examined during a prime-time crime documentary.

John Miller, 59, of Grabill, was arrested at his home Sunday morning by members of the Fort Wayne Police Department and the Indiana State Police, according to court documents.

Hours later, Investigation Discovery's "On the Case with Paula Zahn" was set to air an episode about the search for the man who taunted law enforcement for years after the crime.

Court documents said when police arrived, they asked Miller if he knew why they were there. He answered "April Tinsley" before admitting the crime to investigators, according to court documents.

Read more: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/07/15/april-tinsley-cold-case-murder-1988-results-arrest/786568002/

[Delphinus]

1. Quite surprised!

This has been 30 years ... wow!

[bearsfootball516]

2. I spent almost all my life in Fort Wayne. Almost everyone knows about this case.

After 30 years, not man thought it would ever be solved.

[moriah]

3. It looks like they used forensic genealogy to solve.

Fortunately they are doing these in double tests -- the material had already been sequenced once with the standard CODIS technology, and then the separate sample is sent for sequencing to hit the consumer DNA test SNPs. Since the forensic genealogy sequencing is so new, it can't be relied on by itself even if the only match is a 100% match to an individual who uploaded their own consumer DNA into GEDMatch themselves (really stupid if you are a murderer).

So they use the forensic genealogy to get potential suspects, and test the DNA from them with the standard methods for confirmation. It also looks like the forensic genealogy by itself isn't being used for DNA warrants, but surreptitious sampling tested with the currently accepted CODIS-style marker tests is being used for the warrants.

In order to keep people uploading DNA and family trees into GEDMatch, I do want there to be some form of limitations on what cases they try to analyze for this -- fortunately DNA evidence is usually only associated with rape or murder investigations, or the original intent of the people designing the tech, identifying John and Jane Does. I think most people would be happy that if one of their relatives was a rapist or murderer that they helped solve it. And would be happy to help even a distant cousin who had a long-term missing child be able to bring them home for burial.

But I think the use of forensic genealogy for criminal cases should be limited to rape and murder, so enough people will continue to upload to solve unidentified decedent cases too.