Seattle Police use genealogy website to make arrest in 23-year-old cold case
Mar 12, 2021, 5:58 AM
1997 surveillance video shows a homicide suspect leaving a gas station. The woman was wanted in the death of a baby found in a trash can. (Seattle Police Handout)
(Seattle Police Handout)
It’s a case that has haunted detectives for more than two decades, and an arrest was finally made on Thursday.
In 1997, a newborn boy’s body was found in a trash can at a Lake City gas station. An autopsy showed the baby had been born alive.
Police released a surveillance photo of the woman they believed was responsible.
Investigators received several leads, but they were unable to identify the woman.
Police ran DNA taken at the scene through the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab’s database, but there wasn’t a match.
In a similar technique that helped crack the Golden State Killer case, detectives turned to a genealogy website.
Police say that’s where they found a DNA match to a woman who fit the description in the surveillance video.
Detectives then went undercover to get a sample of the woman’s DNA, which they say was a match to the sample collected from the scene.
The now 50-year-old woman was arrested and booked into the King County Jail.
She will have her first appearance before a judge on Friday.
