History of DNA Profiling Timeline

Darryl Hunt was wrongly convicted in connection with the rape and murder of a young woman in North Carolina, illustrating the importance of scrutinizing criminal identification evidence.

The United States Supreme Court's decision in California v. Greenwood held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside a home's curtilage, a ruling often cited in DNA privacy cases.

Image source: California v. Greenwood

After Anna Anderson's death, tissue stored at a Charlottesville hospital was tested to examine her claim that she was Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.

Image source: Anna Anderson

DNA evidence led Virginia to commute Earl Washington Jr.'s death sentence to life imprisonment one week before his scheduled execution.

A man residing in the United Kingdom was arrested on accusation of burglary, forming part of the history of controversies surrounding the interpretation and use of forensic DNA profiles.

Raymond Easton, a disabled man from Swindon, England, was arrested and detained for seven hours in connection with a burglary because crime-scene DNA appeared to match him.

DNA profiling proved Frank Lee Smith innocent of murdering an eight-year-old girl after he had spent 14 years on Florida's death row.

Image source: Eddie Mosley

More advanced DNA testing led to a full pardon for Earl Washington Jr., whose death sentence had earlier been commuted on the basis of DNA evidence.

Gordon Graham murdered Paul Gault at Gault's home in Lisburn, Northern Ireland; the case later featured in the development of DNA-supported criminal investigations.

Wayne Butler was convicted for the murder of Celia Douty in a case included in the expanding use of DNA evidence in criminal investigations.

The body of James Hanratty, hanged in 1962 for the A6 murder, was exhumed in 2002. DNA samples from his remains and family members were analyzed.

Annalisa Vicentini was shot dead in Tuscany in August 2002, an event connected to a subsequent cross-border DNA investigation.

Bartender Peter Hamkin was arrested in Merseyside on an extradition warrant and appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court over whether he should be taken to Italy to face a murder charge.

New DNA evidence enabled Dennis Halstead, John Kogut and John Restivo to win a retrial in June 2003. Their 1986 murder convictions were struck down and they were released.

DNA testing shed new light on the mysterious 1912 disappearance of four-year-old Bobby Dunbar. Tests on his son and nephew showed they were not related, establishing that the boy found in 1912 was not Bobby.

Image source: Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar

The United Kingdom's Human Tissue Act 2004 prohibited private individuals from covertly collecting biological samples such as hair and fingernails for DNA analysis, while exempting medical and criminal investigations.

Image source: Human Tissue Act 2004

Gary Leiterman was convicted of the 1969 murder of University of Michigan law student Jane Mixer after DNA from her pantyhose was matched to him.

Image source: Michigan Murders

DNA from a drop of blood on Jane Mixer's hand was matched to John Ruelas, who had been only four years old in 1969 and was never otherwise successfully connected to the case.

Anthony Curcio was arrested for masterminding one of the most elaborately planned armored-car heists in history, with DNA evidence contributing to the investigation.

Sean Hodgson, convicted of killing Teresa De Simone in 1979, was released in March 2009 after testing proved that DNA from the crime scene was not his.

Scientists in Israel raised serious doubts about relying on DNA as law enforcement's ultimate method of identification.

Part 1 of the United Kingdom's Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 required DNA samples to be deleted when suspects were acquitted or not charged, subject to exceptions for certain mostly serious or sexual offenses.

In Maryland v. King, the United States Supreme Court ruled that DNA sampling of prisoners arrested for serious crimes is constitutional.

Image source: Maryland v. King

In 2014, Congress extended a bill intended to help United States states deal with a backlog of forensic evidence.

In X and Anor v Z (Children) and Anor, the Court of Appeal for England and Wales decided that a DNA profile created by police during a criminal investigation could not lawfully be used for a paternity test.

Anthea Ring, who had been abandoned as a baby, used a DNA sample and a DNA matching database to discover her deceased mother's identity and her roots in County Mayo, Ireland.

Image source: Genetic genealogy

Using the Next Generation Identification System's enhanced biometric capabilities, the FBI matched a fingerprint belonging to Timothy David Nelson and arrested him 20 years after an alleged sexual assault.

Richard Buckland was exonerated despite having confessed to the rape and murder of a teenager near Leicester, demonstrating DNA profiling's ability to overturn an apparent confession.

Genetic fingerprinting was used in a United States criminal court for the first time in the trial of a man accused of unlawful intercourse with a mentally disabled 14-year-old girl who gave birth to a baby.

Florida rapist Tommie Lee Andrews became the first person in the United States convicted as a result of DNA evidence. He was convicted of raping a woman during a burglary and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Image source: DNA profiling

Led by Detective David Baker, the investigation obtained voluntary blood samples from about 5,000 local men. The results exonerated initial suspect Richard Buckland and helped secure Colin Pitchfork's conviction.

Colin Pitchfork was convicted in the Narborough murders after DNA profiling helped identify him through a large voluntary blood-sample investigation.

Image source: Colin Pitchfork

The murder of a young student in Brno became the first criminal case in Czechoslovakia solved by DNA evidence; the murderer received a 23-year prison sentence.

DNA obtained from a palo verde tree was used as evidence to convict Mark Alan Bogan of murder.

Kevin W. P. Miller and John L. Dawson at the University of Cambridge compiled an early mitochondrial DNA concordance from data collected for Miller's PhD thesis.

Image source: Mitochondrial DNA

The Y haplotype reference database, or YHRD, was created as an online resource for Y-chromosome haplotype information.

Image source: Y Chromosome Haplotype Reference Database

South Wales police used familial DNA matching to identify Joseph William Kappen as a triple killer, although he had died 11 years earlier.

Crime-scene evidence from the 1988 Lynette White murder was re-examined using STR techniques and matched to Jeffrey Gafoor's nephew, who was 14 years old when the evidence was re-examined.

Familial DNA database searching was first used in an investigation leading to a conviction in the case of Jeffrey Gafoor, who was convicted of murdering Lynette White.

Familial DNA searching was used again in 2004 to find a man who threw a brick from a motorway bridge and killed a lorry driver.

Denver, Colorado, conducted the first familial DNA search in the United States that led to a subsequent conviction, using software developed under the leadership of Mitch Morrissey and Gregg LaBerge.

Familial DNA later led to the arrest of 21-year-old Elvis Garcia on charges of sexual assault and false imprisonment of a woman in Santa Cruz in 2008.

Familial DNA searching helped catch the Los Angeles serial killer known as the Grim Sleeper.

Image source: Grim Sleeper

As of 2011, familial DNA database searching was not conducted nationally in the United States; individual states determined whether and how to conduct familial searches.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell announced in March 2011 that Virginia would begin using familial DNA searches.

At a Virginia press conference on 7 March 2011, prosecutor Paul Ebert and detective John Kelly said the East Coast Rapist case would have been solved years earlier if Virginia had used familial DNA searching.

The same genetic genealogist who assisted in the William Earl Talbott II case also helped police make 18 other arrests during 2018.

Image source: Investigative genetic genealogy

Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested as the main suspect in the Golden State Killer case using DNA and genetic genealogy techniques.

Image source: Joseph James DeAngelo

William Earl Talbott II was arrested as a suspect in the 1987 murders of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg with assistance from genealogical DNA testing.

The United States maintained the world's largest DNA database, with the Combined DNA Index System holding more than 13 million records as of May 2018.

Image source: Combined DNA Index System