Could "Familial DNA" testing become the norm across the country?

Police in at least two states are increasingly using a DNA crime-solving technique that some legal experts say amounts to guilt by association: If your brother, father, uncle or son has been in trouble with the law and is in a DNA database because of it, you, too, could fall under suspicion.

The technique is known as a "familial DNA" search. And in what is believed to be a precedent-setting case, Denver police used it to help catch the burglar who left a drop of blood on a passenger seat when he broke a car window and stole $1.40 in change.

A growing number of law enforcement agencies nationwide are considering whether to adopt the technique, which scientists say holds great promise.

"How can we look a rape victim in the face and say, 'We could have prevented your rape if we had looked at this evidence?'" said Fredrick Bieber, a Harvard medical professor who co-wrote a research paper suggesting familial DNA searches could solve up to 40 percent more crimes in which DNA evidence is present.

The conventional way of using DNA to identify the perpetrator of a crime is to gather blood, semen or other genetic material at the scene and run it through a database of criminals to see if it yields an exact match. But that approach isn't helpful if the perpetrator is not in the database.

That is where a familial DNA search comes in. It entails looking through the database for a near-match - that is, for a close male relative of the perpetrator. Police can then use that information to zero in on whoever committed the crime




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