Phenotyping is the latest crime-fighting tool in helping solve cold cases, most recently in the disappearance and murders cases of Lindsey Baum and Jennifer Bastian.
"DNA Phenotypin is predicting someone's appearance or their biogeographic ancestry, just from DNA," said Ellen Greytak, PhD., Director of Bioinformatics.
Local detectives send DNA samples to Parabon Nanolabs in Virginia. The labs then create sketches of the possible suspects.
Phenotyping predicts more than identity, it can tell police things they weren't able to tell before, without the technology.
"DNA is a blueprint for a person. It defines our hair color, eye color, skin color. All of that is written in the DNA. And the trick is just to figure out what parts to look at in order to make those predictions and learn something new about a suspect, just based on the DNA," Greytak said.
"For example, if they had a case that happened 20 years ago and this (the sketch) comes out and they go, 'ya know I had a friend of mine he looked like that 20 years ago, that could be him. Then they can go see if it is him and if it's close enough they can get a DNA sample on that guy," said Cloyd Steiger, Chief Criminal Investigator for the State Attorney General's Office.
Though sketches are another useful tool, there are no guarantees that it'll lead to identifying a suspect.
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