Posted on 12/29/2013 2:09:33 PM PST by nickcarraway
Santa Cruz police recently identified one of the county’s most famous unidentified homicide victims using a new technology—a process authorities hope can also be used to make a break in other local cold cases.
Two hikers discovered the body of so-called Pogonip Jane while searching for mushrooms in the Pogonip area back in January 1994. For more than 15 years, Santa Cruz police were at a loss as to who she was. The petite teenager had been bludgeoned to death and was naked in the middle of a trail when her body was found.
In November, she was identified as Kori Lamaster, a 17-year-old who had run away from her home in Pacifica in December 1993.
“The whole case initiated prior to the DNA technology being what it is today,” says Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark.
As the investigation progressed, DNA was collected from the body and compared to other cases throughout the years. Eventually, in 2008, it was entered into the state Department of Justice (DOJ) system. This October, the agency notified Santa Cruz police that a “partial hit” had been made using what’s called familial DNA.
Familial DNA is a relatively new technology that wasn’t approved in California until 2008, according to state officials. It hinges on the scientific concept that close relatives—parents, siblings and children—will have more genetic data in common than unrelated individuals. The state DOJ’s familial DNA team accepts only a limited number of cases annually.
One of the first cases in which familial DNA was used in California was in Santa Cruz County. Elvis Garcia, who was convicted earlier this year, was linked to a sexual assault at a Santa Cruz coffee shop through DNA collected from his father and entered into the state’s database. The elder Garcia had been arrested for a vehicle conviction in Southern California. There are some two million DNA profiles in the state’s database, but that only includes samples taken from either people arrested for violent crimes or samples voluntarily submitted by relatives of missing persons.
The technology was also used earlier this year to identify the body of a woman found in the Sacramento River in 1996. In that case, Butte County Sheriff’s deputies were able to use a DNA match from Victorene Lee Pyrskalla’s mother to identify her. Pyrskalla, 42, went missing from a ranch near Chico in January 1996. The Butte County Sheriff’s Office submitted DNA from her mother to the state DOJ in January to be entered into the missing persons database.
news2-2Pogonip Jane, the county's most famous unidentified homicide victim, was recently identified as Kori Lamaster, a 17-year-old runaway from Pacifica. Here, a clay model made based on the remains of Pogonip Jane is compared to a photograph of Kori Lamaster. After getting the “hit” in Lamaster’s case, Santa Cruz police detectives were finally able to make contact with an adopted sister in Washington state. In what Clark called a lucky break, given the two women wouldn’t share biological data, the sister happened to find a fingerprint card belonging to Lamaster. Fingerprints from the card were matched to prints taken from the body.
The case was complicated by the fact that no one reported Lamaster as missing until 2007. Clark said he couldn’t comment on why the family hadn’t reported her disappearance sooner, and says police have promised the family they won’t say much more than that Lamaster came from a troubled background. In a strange twist, the teenager had run away to Santa Cruz previously and been returned to Pacifica by authorities here, Clark says.
Lamaster’s successful identification has given Santa Cruz police hope that the same type of technology can be used to solve other cold cases, such as the homicide of Deborah Cargill. The body of the 19-year-old woman, who was last seen at her grocery store job in San Jose, was found floating in the San Lorenzo River not far from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in 1975. Her killer has never been arrested. Clark says the police department has now sent a request to the DOJ asking them to do a familial DNA search in Cargill’s case. Her case was one that haunted Ron Truitt for years after he left the Santa Cruz police department, and he’s now returned to work on the case as a volunteer after retiring from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
“We’re very hopeful the DOJ will take the case,” Clark says.
The Lamaster case held significant importance to Sgt. Loren “Butch” Baker, one of two Santa Cruz police officers slain in February by a sexual assault suspect. The case was his to investigate, originally, and his colleagues say it always stuck with him. Making headway on the case this year has been somewhat therapeutic for the department in light of his death.
“It was hugely important to him,” Clark says. “And it was important to his team to bring that [case] to some closure.”
Identifying Lamaster is a huge step forward in the case but the investigation is now focused on finding the person or persons who killed her. Clark says they have been looking into a father and son, the latter of whom is now deceased. The elder man—Wayne White—now lives in eastern Tennessee. Detectives have been interviewing him and he’s considered a “person of interest,” though Clark declined to call him a “suspect” at press time.
I suspect the government has been using DNA for a long time. The military had the internet back in the 50s or 60s.
The article tries to justify the taking of DNA information by the government of all citizens, because it closed some old cold case homicides.
But the question must be raised, as with the vast government surveillance of electronic communications, treating the entire population as criminal or terrorist suspects, are our lives *improved* by this, or *diminished*?
At a personal level, would you be willing to pay someone $10,000 a year to keep you and your family under intense surveillance at all times? There are likely some people who would.
I am astounded. This means that Al Gore was only about 8 or 10, when he invented the Internet. He must be a brilliant man, and an expert in weather also. He is my hero. SARCASM OFF
The idea that the military had deployed anything like "the internet" back in the 50's or sixties is pure hokum. The military was funding some very early research which was being carried out by private and public institutions at the time, but there were no secret military "internet" installations. In 1969, ARPANET allowed researchers in MIT to use a semi-trailer sized computer which cost 100's of thousands or more to talk to a few other similarly situated computers.
One of the first ARPANET transmissions was described like this:
"We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys at SRI...," Kleinrock ... said in an interview: "We typed the L and we asked on the phone,
"Do you see the L?"
"Yes, we see the L," came the response.
"We typed the O, and we asked, "Do you see the O."
"Yes, we see the O."
"Then we typed the G, and the system crashed"...
If anyone is interested here's a short history on the beginnings of the internet. History of the Internet & World Wide Web:
All that trouble “sending” a few letters. I wonder how the teletype worked?
“The article tries to justify the taking of DNA information by the government of all citizens, because it closed some old cold case homicides.”
Maybe I missed it, and I’m too lazy to go back and read line-for-line, but I didn’t get that. People with missing relatives are donating DNA, that should be sufficient to ID any bodies, although obviously not to ID their killers.
It is odd that her family didn’t report her missing for decades, what a shame.
RIP poor girl.
Peddle your BS somewhere else. The first Arpanet message was sent in October, 1969 (and the network crashed after the first two letters of the first word were sent). At that time, the 'internet' consisted of four linked machines.
The article tries to justify the taking of DNA information by the government of all citizens, because it closed some old cold case homicides.
Aw, heck, yes. Some people commit crimes, so everyone must be punished. If that kind of thinking was good enough for Stalin, it's good enough for the oligarchs who've destroyed the American republic in all but name and flag.
with an analog signal...
Um did you forget your sarcasm indicator??? You cannot actually believe that the ‘internet’ existed in the 50s
Britain decided a while back that it had the authority to get DNA samples from all citizens for many reasons. First and foremost to identify criminals, second so they would have a giant database to do medical research and make money.
But the big reason was that they had the technology, it was an easy effort to demand or surreptitiously obtain DNA samples, and no citizens were permitted to refuse.
In the US, twice now, once in Texas and once in California, “DNA roadblocks” have been set up with very dubious authority, to demand mouth swab samples from random citizens. Lots of effort to evasively suggest it was mandatory, and people really had to be stubborn before they were allowed to leave—assuming that the takers were not able to craftily get a sample from their vehicle.
There is some real evil at work here. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Biblical evil; but good old fashioned totalitarian human evil is bad enough.
I don’t know why they don’t catalog the DNA of newborns. Future crime solving would be so much easier if the only traceable evidence was just a strand of hair......
Yes, I agree. I’m sure they could get enough data voluntarily.
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