DNA Sample from Son Leads to Arrest of Alleged Serial Killer Father

wired.com

11 points·phsr··2 comments

The headline tells us that we will be reading about how DNA solved yet another case. The twist being a son's DNA being good enough to convict the Father. So why exactly do they include tidbits about how blacks will be disproportionately affected?

At the end of the 5th paragraph you get "A disproportionate number of people with profiles in the database are African American." So? What does this have to do with the DNA convicting a serial killer?

Seems more that there really is not much of a story so lets stick in some race baiting flame war topic to drum up the story.

The son's DNA was not good enough to convict the father. The son's DNA was good enough to lead police to investigate the family which lead to the arrest of the father.

The problem regarding race that the article mentions is simply one of social statistics: if 10x more convictions per 1k convictions occur for group A than group B and we assume convictions are familially independent (close enough), people in group A are 10x more likely to be suspected of a crime via familial inference than those in group B.

It's not quite racial profiling but it does imply that you have fewer rights as a genetic relative of a convict than as a non-relative. That's somewhat disturbing.

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