Curtis Rogers, the founder of the free DNA website GEDMatch, wanted to do all he could to help police solve a disturbing assault case out of Utah.
May 26, 2019
He knew his website, full of more than 1.2 million completed DNA kits, could help. After all, it had helped solve the so-called Golden State Killer case last April through a new forensic technique known as genetic genealogy.
But there was one problem: GEDMatch's own terms of service didn't allow police to use the site for this Utah assault case. The terms assured users who submitted DNA kits that police would only use their information to solve violent crimes of murder and rape. But not assaults.
How a Utah assault case upended the website that caught the Golden State Killer