While frustrated California detectives looked fruitlessly for a man accused of brutally raping 45 women and killing a dozen more people, one of his relatives was likely busy seeking information to unite a big family tree. 
 
 Their colliding searches lead to the momentous arrest Tuesday of Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, the suspected Golden State Killer who eluded law enforcement for four decades. 
 
 The bulk of the information detectives used to help capture DeAngelo came from a no-frills “open-source” genealogy website called GEDmatch that allows users to voluntarily share their genetic profiles for free. 
 
 The Florida-based website that pools raw genetic profiles that people share publicly to find long-lost relatives was the team’s biggest tool, said lead investigator Paul Holes, a cold case expert and retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector who’s spent about seven years using such websites to identify the California killer. 
 
 The website revealed a “distant relative” early this year that helped lead authorities to DeAngelo, who was arrested at his Citrus Heights home on suspicion of conducting a reign of terror up and down California, including 12 homicides, 45 rapes and more than 100 residential burglaries between 1976 and 1986, investigators said. 
 
 That information made it possible for police to focus their search, supplemented by other clues, like ethnicity, height and where he lived at the time. Then they did surveillance and retrieved new evidence — such as saliva on a restaurant dish or a discarded beer can, cigarette or Kleenex – for a more direct DNA match, leading to his arrest. 
 
 The case sheds light on a little known fact: Even if we’ve never spit into a test tube, some of our genetic information may be public — and accessible to law enforcement. That’s because whenever one of our relatives — even distant, distant kin — submits their DNA to a public site hoping to find far-flung relations, some of our data is shared as well. 
 
 “When you put your information into a database voluntarily, and law enforcement has access to it, you may be unwittingly exposing your relatives — some you know, some you don’t know — to scrutiny by law enforcement. Even though they may have done nothing wrong,” said Andrea Roth, assistant professor of law at UC Berkeley Boalt School of Law and an expert on the use of forensic science in criminal trials. 
 
 And even companies that promise privacy may be required to surrender your genetic data if confronted with a search warrant. 
 
 “As more and more genetic information becomes available, its possible use in criminal investigations becomes more and more feasible, both for direct checking and familial checking,” said Stanford University School of Law professor and bioethicist Hank Greely, director of Stanford’s Center for Law and the Biosciences. “That’s true whether it’s a genealogy database, electronic health record or research.” 
 
 Holes began his search six years ago on Ysearch.org, a similar website as GEDmatch. Last March, Holes narrowed it down to an elderly man in Oregon, but he knew it was a “weak match,” he said. 
 
 Court records obtained by the Associated Press show that in March 2017 investigators in Clackamas County, Oregon, convinced a judge to order the 73-year-old man to provide a DNA sample. The documents said they used a genetic profile based off DNA from crime scenes linked to the serial killer and compared it to information from genealogical websites. The man turned out to be innocent. 
 
 “He was cooperative,” Holes said. “We generated the legal documentation more as a matter of routine, due diligence … But he was willing all along to provide his DNA. 
 
 “I knew it was a weak match. After six years it was our only match,” he said, adding that Golden State Killer and the Oregon man shared an unusual genetic trait. 
 
 After that failure, Hole said he “recalibrated” and used his own family member’s DNA profile from Ancestry to start learning how to use GEDmatch. He was confident the new technology would provide answers and he visited the agencies touched by the serial killer’s crimes to convince them to provide some DNA for his new tactic. Ventura County offered some DNA, but to submit DeAngelo’s data to the GEDmatch, investigators would have to put it in a format that would be recognized by the website and uploaded it to the site for analysis, said CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist who has used the site in thousands of adoption cases. 
 
 The site returns a list of relatives — with names and emails — by degree of shared single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, which offer a genetic fingerprint. On average, you share 50 percent of your SNPs with a sibling, 25 percent with a half sibling, 12.5 percent with a first cousin, and 3.1 percent with a second cousin. The numbers diminish after that. 
 
 “They had luck, and they had skill,” said Moore, who owns a company called The DNA Detectives. 
 
 The hits on DeAngelo came from third and fourth cousins, Holes said. Family members directly related to DeAngelo’s great, great, great, great grandfather dating back to the 1800s when families would often have 15 kids. Holes and his team built out more than 25 different family trees. The tree that eventually linked to the Golden State Killer was so large, it contained about 1,000 people, he said. 
 
 “I’m not familiar with any other case used to capture someone like this,” Holes said. 
 
 California law limits such “familial searching” using the state’s criminal DNA database. And major companies, such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com, require a court order for law enforcement to access DNA files stored in their databases. 
 
 But there are no legal restrictions against accessing the 900,000 DNA files on the public GEDmatch database, created when consumers take information from commercial testing companies, such as 23andme, then upload it to the volunteer-run database. 
 
 That openness is what makes the site so useful, said Moore. Because so many people contribute data, vast family trees can be built. 
 
 “The majority of companies do a really good job of protecting the genetic privacy of customers,” said Moore. “But if a company allows the uploading of files from other sources, that opens the door up for other types of uses.” 
 
 On Friday, GEDmatch operator Curtis Rogers released a statement saying his company was unaware of the search for the East Area Rapist using his site. 
 
 “We understand that the GEDmatch database was used to help identify the Golden State Killer,” he said. “Although we were not approached by law enforcement or anyone else about this case or about the DNA, it has always been GEDmatch’s policy to inform users that the database could be used for other uses, as set forth in the Site Policy … While the database was created for genealogical research, it is important that GEDmatch participants understand the possible uses of their DNA, including identification of relatives that have committed crimes or were victims of crimes.” 
 
 Rogers continued to say if anyone had concerns that their profiles might be used for “non-genealogical uses” they should remove it from the site or not upload it in the first place. He provided an email address to delete profiles. 
 
 The site does not specifically address law enforcement searches, but it stresses that it “cannot guarantee that your information will never be accessed by unintended means.” 
 
 One of the earliest uses of this approach helped detectives reopen the killing of a 20-year-old woman in Wales. In 2002, data from a 14-year-old boy in Britain’s database of offenders led authorities to his uncle. In 2010, a DNA sample from the son of California’s “Grim Sleeper” serial killer Lonnie David Franklin Jr. led to his arrest and conviction. The son had been jailed on weapons charges. 
 
 The East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer case shows the promise and potential peril of DNA as a law enforcement tool, said UC Berkeley’s Roth. 
 
 “The promise is that it’s a wonderful thing that police were able to find this person,” she said. “And the potential concern is that the government is looking at a lot of genetic information that most of us probably want to keep private. 
 
 “And even though it is easy to think of this technology as something that is used just to track down serial killers,” she said, “If we allow the government to use it with no accountability or no further safeguards, then all of our genetic information might be at risk for being used for things we don’t want it to be used for.” 
 
 Staff writer Julia Prodis Sulek contributed to this report. ||||| Sacramento investigators tracked down East Area Rapist suspect Joseph James DeAngelo using genealogical websites that contained genetic information from a relative, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office confirmed Thursday. 
 
 The effort was part of a painstaking process that began by using DNA from one of the crime scenes from years ago and comparing it to genetic profiles available online through various websites that cater to individuals wanting to know more about their family backgrounds by accepting DNA samples, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Grippi. 
 
 Paul Holes, a retired investigator with the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office, confirmed Friday that he used "open-source" site GEDmatch to help law enforcement make the DNA connection. 
 
 The investigation was conducted over a long period of time as officials in Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert's office and crime lab explored online family trees that appeared to match DNA samples from the East Area Rapist's crimes, Grippi said. They then followed clues to individuals in the family trees to determine whether they were potential suspects. 
 
 Digital Access for only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. 
 
 The process finally came to fruition last Thursday, when the investigation focused on the possibility that DeAngelo might be a suspect, a suspicion bolstered by the fact that he had lived in areas where the attacks occurred and was in the right age range, Grippi said. 
 
 Schubert said in an interview at her office that the April 19 determination that DeAngelo might be a suspect set the investigation into high gear. 
 
 Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones' investigators set up surveillance on DeAngelo in his quiet Citrus Heights neighborhood and obtained his DNA from something he discarded. 
 
 The crime lab began testing the material and Schubert said she got a call last Friday night from Grippi while she was at a high school fundraiser telling her that the DeAngelo DNA matched that found at decades-old murder scenes in Ventura and Orange counties. 
 
 
 
 
 
 "I was at a dinner at Cristo Rey High School and Steve Grippi called me," she said. "And so I probably used a few words I wouldn't put in a newspaper, but basically said, 'You'd better not be lying to me.'" 
 
 The sample provided "overwhelming evidence that it was him," Schubert said, but she decided they wanted a second sample, which sheriff's officials recovered. 
 
 The results from testing that second sample came in while Schubert was in her office Monday night, she said. 
 
 "The second sample was astronomical evidence that it was him," Schubert said, adding, "There were a whole lot of holy s--- moments." 
 
 Authorities began moving quickly to plan the arrest. 
 
 
 
 
 
 "We wanted to be able to move quickly because it wasn't like he was in custody somewhere," she said, adding that she didn't tell all prosecutors with unsolved crimes around the state in an effort to keep the discovery secret. "Not all the DAs knew at the time that the arrest was made," she said. "I think it's a fair statement that it was closely held. "There were concerns about public safety in terms of if he figured out something was going on." DeAngelo was arrested outside his home Tuesday afternoon and booked into the county jail on two charges of murder in the February 1978 slayings of Katie and Brian Maggiore in Rancho Cordova. 
 
 
 
 He is expected to face charges in 12 homicide cases in Sacramento, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties stemming from a rape and slaying spree that authorities say stretched from 1974 through May 1986. DeAngelo faces arraignment in Sacramento Superior Court on Friday, but authorities still must determine where he ultimately will stand trial and whether he faces death penalty prosecutions. Some of the murders were committed at a time when the death penalty had been ruled unconstitutional, but others are eligible. Schubert said she wants to meet with prosecutors from the counties where DeAngelo is suspected of murders and plan a joint prosecution similar to that used in the Luis Bracamontes cop-killing trial that ended with a death penalty sentence on Wednesday. Bracamontes killed deputies in Sacramento and Placer counties in 2014, and was jointly prosecuted in Sacramento by Rod Norgaard from Schubert's office and Dave Tellman from the Placer DA's office. "It makes sense to do it in one county," she said, adding that the case could be moved to Southern California because 10 of the 12 murder victims were killed there. "The majority of the murders happened down in Southern California, so I'm comfortable with wherever it's going to be as long as everybody gets to be a participant," she said. Prosecutors also must grapple with whether to file rape charges against DeAngelo because for many cases the statute of limitations has expired. 
 
 
 
 Sacramento prosecutors do not currently plan to file such charges. In Santa Clara County, where the East Area Rapist was linked to two rapes in San Jose in 1978, the district attorney's office said it would not seek to prosecute DeAngelo because the statute of limitations had expired. But other jurisdictions are considering it, including Yolo County, where authorities said Thursday they are investigating three rapes in Davis nearly 40 years ago they suspect were committed by DeAngelo. Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig indicated in a written statement he would seek to prosecute DeAngelo in connection with the Davis attacks, the first prosecutor in the state to announce such plans. Reisig said his office would work with Schubert, the FBI and Davis police “to solve the Davis rapes, vigorously prosecute the rapist and achieve some sense of justice for the victims, family members and the Davis community.” Contra Costa County's district attorney is working with police agencies there to investigate whether DeAngelo committed nine sexual assaults in that county between 1978 and 1979, DA spokesman Scott Alonso said. Alonso said the statute of limitations may present a challenge. He said the office is evaluating cases with the county sheriff and police in Concord, Danville and Walnut Creek, where attacks linked to the East Area Rapist occurred. "I think we're very interested in pursuing justice for the victims in these cases and pursue what we can file under the statute of limitations," Alonso said. "We want to see justice for these terrible crimes." The East Area Rapist is believed to have killed 12 people, raped at least 51 and burglarized hundreds of homes from 1974 through May 1986 along the length of California. News that a suspect had been arrested in the 44-year-old mystery set off a frenzy of calls to the DA's office from news outlets around the world, and left Schubert reaching out to victims and investigators who had spent decades working to solve the case. Schubert, who grew up in Sacramento and was 12 when the attacks began, said her brother recalled their father buying a gun because of the rapes and that her mother slept with a knife under her pillow. The realization that the case might finally have been solved - and that it involved a man who had lived in Sacramento undetected for decades - comes 18 years after Schubert convinced her bosses in the DA's office to let her begin a cold case investigations unit and two years after she formed a statewide task force to focus efforts on the case. "It's just surreal, so many years of people waiting...," she said. "It’s a big deal. It's a moment in time that I don't think anybody's going to forget...Everybody here understands the significance of this case."
– A distant relative of Joseph James DeAngelo hoping to learn more about their family submitted a DNA sample to a genealogy website. They now know that they're related to a suspected serial killer. Police say they tracked the suspected Golden State Killer by comparing DNA from one of his many crime scenes to genetic information freely available online, the Sacramento Bee reports. They traced family trees for possible suspects and singled out DeAngelo, a 72-year-old ex-cop, last Thursday. Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert says DeAngelo was placed under surveillance, and DNA collected from discarded items provided "astronomical evidence" that he was the killer. Schubert tells the Bee that when she was informed of the DNA test results, "I probably used a few words I wouldn't put in a newspaper, but basically said, 'You'd better not be lying to me.'" She adds: "There were a lot of holy s--- moments." DeAngelo was arrested outside his home Tuesday. The San Jose Mercury News reports that investigators used the open-source genealogy website GEDMatch.com to search for the suspect who committed 12 murders and more than 50 rapes between 1974 and 1986. Other genealogy websites, including Ancestry.com and 23andMe, say they weren't contacted by police about the case and that they never provide customer information to law enforcement unless they're legally compelled to. (Neighbors describe DeAngelo as a "nice old grandpa" obsessed with lawn care.)