DNA wasn't the only evidence police had. 3 pieces of additional information: 1) his history in the Sacramento area, 2) he served in the Navy and law enforcement which fitted the profile police were looking for, and 3) police sketches matched a photo of his from the 70s.
edit: In addition to the physical evidence gathered from suspect's house that could be linked to the crime scenes. This isn't public information yet.
Served in the Navy and law enforcement in Sacramento area isn't that large a set. Something isn't being reported correctly.
This seems more like they got his DNA, and then backfilled the correlations.
While it may have worked in this case, it's more than a little worrying because it changes the police from "finding the correct suspect" to "justifying the DNA identified suspect".
And we already have a case in California where the police let the DNA guide them to the wrong person.
This seems more like they got his DNA, and then backfilled the correlations.
This is always a concern with any investigation or analytical work. I'm curious to find out which other suspects they looked at after the initial DNA lead, and how they went about eliminating other suspects. But keep in mind the public isn't yet privy to all the physical evidence that were collected at the crime scenes.
> But keep in mind the public isn't yet privy to all the physical evidence that were collected at the crime scenes.
Agreed. They almost certainly have more evidence than they ever released to the public.
And, hopefully, they'll find concrete evidence at the house of the man they arrested. Apparently the Golden State Killer took some "souvenirs" from some of the victims and finding those would be very significant.
Lots of people in the DNA databases are relatives to someone who lived in Sacramento.
The lead came from the police searching through DNA databases which identified some set of relatives who were suspicious, but they later obtained the DNA from the suspect himself which was an exact match to what was gathered from crime scenes.
Actually all of that, together, make him a suspect. Any of it might not, but all of it does. Each piece of evidence reduces the likelihood of coincidence. Now that they have the suspect in custody they should be able to do a one-on-one test with the old DNA and confirm their suspicions to a reasonable degree of certainty, assuming they do their jobs well.
But yes, good luck explaining that math to a jury.
Previous to the East Area Rapist, the suspect lived 200 miles away, in the next town over, when the Visalia Ransacker terrorized the neighborhood with over 100 bizarre break-ins. He would break into women's houses and ransack them and only take things of little value while using leaving things of value in sight.
It has long been suspected for a long time the Visalia Ransacker moved to Sacramento to become the East Area Rapist, but there's no conclusive proof (at least yet). There was no DNA taken in the Ransacker cases. The MO and suspect were very similar, it seemed that the East Area Rapist was an escalation of the Ransacker's activities.
The suspect just happened to leave the Visalia area and move to the Sacramento area at exactly the same time the Visalia Ransacker stopped his criminal spree and the East Area Rapist started his in Sacramento.
THEN the suspect was fired from the police force at exactly the same time the East Area Rapist moved his location over 600 miles away from Northern California to Southern California. It's not currently known (to the public at least) where the suspect's whereabouts were from the time he was fired from the police force (in 1979 IIRC) and from the time he took a job at Save Mart back in the Sacramento area in the early 90s.
The crimes in Northern California were conclusively proven to the crimes in Southern California through DNA evidence, unlike the Visalia Ransacker crimes.
There's more... The East Area Rapist mentioned the name Bonnie in one of his attacks http://www.coldcase-earons.com/36.php "After the rape, (HAP: he laid his head on the pillow next to her) and began sobbing "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you Bonnie." (HAP: The victim was not certain that he was saying "Bonnie," but that's what it sounded like)." The suspect, at one point in his life, was engaged to a woman named Bonnie. Bonnie Jean Colwell.
Heh, the math will never even get brought up in the trial. They'll just talk about DNA matches and everybody on the jury will think this guy is scientifically proven to be guilty.
edit: In addition to the physical evidence gathered from suspect's house that could be linked to the crime scenes. This isn't public information yet.