Case Studies

Since 2018, our platform has helped solve over 1000 cases that have promoted community safety and brought closure to families of missing persons. Below are highlighted a few stories of how GEDmatch has been used for those purposes.

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Case Studies

Man Who Became Known As the Mill Creek Shed Man Identified

A man found dead in a shack in Mill Creek, Washington in 2015 remained unidentified despite previous police interactions, as he had been documented under different name spellings and birthdates. Years later, the DNA Doe Project used genetic genealogy through GEDmatch to identify him as Terry Deggs, born in Baltimore to a teenage mother and raised in foster care. This identification finally provided closure for his family who had been searching for him.
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Newton County Finds Relief After 30 Years

After roughly 30 years, the bodies of three murder victims were laid to rest in rural Newton County, Indiana. Two were young men who had been killed in 1983; the third, was a woman who had been found on the side of a creek in 1988.
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Roy Charles Waller

Man Known As NorCal Rapist Convicted After Genetic Genealogy Finds Match

In 2020, Roy Charles Waller, known as the NorCal Rapist, was convicted of 46 charges related to 21 rapes across Northern California. After decades unsolved, genetic genealogy through GEDmatch led to his identification.
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Jane Doe Known As Buckskin Girl Identified as Marcia King

The “Buckskin Girl,” a murder victim found in Troy, Ohio in 1981, remained unidentified for 36 years.
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Orange County’s Oldest Case Solved Using DNA

After 52 years, DNA and genetic genealogy helped solve the 1968 murder of Anita Louise Piteau in Huntington Beach.
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Join a thriving community of law enforcement professionals, genetic genealogists, and forensic scientists using GEDmatch PRO to drive innovation and discovery in their fields. Explore how our platform can transform your research and investigative efforts today.

FAQs

Below are commonly asked questions about getting started on GEDmatch PRO.

GEDmatch PRO is available exclusively to verified law enforcement agencies, forensic laboratories, and authorized personnel who are working on forensic investigative genetic genealogy cases. This includes local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in the United States and qualified international agencies. All users must be directly involved in investigating violent crimes or identifying remains.

Agencies must register with their official agency email address. We will verify your agency is eligible to access GEDmatch PRO and enable your account.

The typical approval process takes 3-5 business days. You will receive email updates throughout the approval process.

Whole-genome sequenced and micro-array files should be submitted to GEDmatch PRO in the “23andMe” format. The file should be Build 37 aligned and be either a tab delimited text or csv file.
 
The file needs to contain 5 columns: rsID, chromosome, position, allele 1, and allele 2 (allele 1 and 2 can be combined into a single column). Genotype calls must be oriented with respect to the plus strand on the human reference sequence.
 
The file should be sorted by chromosome and then by position to ensure there are no data loss issues.
 
The file needs to contain 5 columns: rsID, chromosome, position, allele 1, and allele 2 (allele 1 and 2 can be combined into a single column). 
 
Kintelligence files come automatically formatted from the Universal Analysis Software and do not require any manipulation before upload to GEDmatch PRO.
The filters and their specifications within GEDmatch PRO are proprietary information. In general, the data maximizes signals for matches and minimizes for noise, such as kits that match a significant portion of the database, kits with low SNP counts or SNPs that are not relevant for genealogy, heterozygosity ratio etc. If forensic DNA profiles have between 150,000 – 250,000 high-quality, true SNPs, customers should be good. If customers have less SNPs or begin to impute, as a rule of thumb, the database handles no calls better than false calls/mismatches. 
 
If too much of the data have been imputed within a data file, it creates results that are too “matchy” to the database, which inhibits true matching and the kit gets flagged. Since the imputation happens prior to the file being uploaded to our database, unfortunately there is not much we can do on our end. 

GEDmatch PRO can be utilized by law enforcement agencies worldwide; however, users must comply with all relevant laws in their jurisdiction.  Users are responsible for ensuring their use of the platform complies with their local legal requirements.

Per our Terms of Use, users may use GEDmatch PRO Services for law enforcement use to identify the perpetrator of a violent crime (where ‘violent crime’ is defined as murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, aggravated rape, robbery, or aggravated assault) or to identify human remains (which, for clarity, excludes fetal remains and remains of stillborn children), and only in a manner that complies with all laws that apply to you.

GEDmatch PRO protects uploaded profiles through:

  • End-to-end encryption during transfer and storage
  • Secure, access-controlled databases
  • Regular security audits and penetration testing
  • Advanced authentication protocols
  • IP logging and suspicious activity monitoring
  • Physical and virtual access controls
  • Compliance with law enforcement data security standards
  • Regular system updates and security patches

No. Civilian users cannot see, access, or be compared directly with forensic profiles.

The system only allows one-way comparisons where law enforcement profiles can be compared against users who have explicitly selected which type of law enforcement comparisons to be a part of.

Initial results are typically available within 24 hours after upload completion. The system continues to scan daily as more users join the GEDmatch platform.

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