The DNA Doe Project with Cairenn Binder | Show Notes

Tuesday November 29, 2022

The Murder Police Podcast is a hobby for Wendy and David; a chance to speak with feeling about homicide investigations, the curiosity they draw and lift victims of violent crime up to be remembered with respect, as more that a Uniform Crime Reporting number or statistic.

One goal from the beginning was that if the podcast ever generated any revenue, large or small, charitable giving would be a must.

With the opening of a merch and store on the horizon in 2022, it was time.

The Murder Police Podcast Focus Group, “The Squad”, was asked for suggestions for charities that had a broad reach helping victims of violent crime and their families.

The Squad came through with many great suggestions with one standing out: The DNA Doe Project.  Our decision was cinched up with our interview with Sgt. ‘Cat’ Catalano with the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office in California, as she detailed the identification of Patricia Skiple in April 2022.  Patricia was an unidentified victim of the Happy Face serial killer and went 30 years without a name, though her killer was convicted of her murder.

The DNA Doe project is a non-profit organization focusing on the identification of human remains.  They work with law enforcement agencies to make specialized DNA sampling and testing and research to bring answers to family members and move cases forward.

The DNA Doe project can be assisted through donation and or volunteering (imagine working a case and finding answers!).  And a huge help is to upload your DNA test results to GEDMatch or Family Tree DNA to add to the database and improve the likelihood of identifying people.

Take a listen to this episode and hear Cairenn Binder, the Director of the Director of Education and Development at DNA Doe Project, talk about the project and how we all can help.

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Transcript

Cairenn Binder:

There was another true crime podcaster who follows us on social media and she chose to upload to GEDmatch during Latin American Heritage Month to find out if she’s a match to any of our John and Jane Doe’s. I told her right away that she was a match to, I think, two or three Jane Doe’s and that was really exciting for her.

Wendy Lyons:

Warning, the podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast, the DNA Doe Project with Cairenn Binder. Welcome back to the Murder Police Podcast, I am Wendy.

David Lyons:

And I’m David.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, David, we certainly have some exciting news that we’ve been wanting to share.

David Lyons:

Do tell.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, we finally have an official charitable cause that we’re supporting and we hope that our listeners will consider supporting as well.

David Lyons:

We asked our dedicated focus group to submit ideas in August of this year, 2022, and they certainly came through. Based on their suggestions, and they had quite a few, we have settled in on an organization that fulfills our goal of working with someone that has a broad reach and supports victims of violent crime and their families.

Wendy Lyons:

And we should mention that this deal was cinched up when we interviewed Sergeant Kat Catalano with the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office in California for the two episodes on the Happy Face Killer’s unknown victim which was Patricia Skiple.

David Lyons:

I agree. And folks should go back and listen to those episodes and see how our friends at the DNA Doe Project brought answers to the family of a woman murdered by a serial killer years ago that went nameless for three decades.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, fortunately we have Cairenn Binder who is the director of education and development at DNA Doe Project to tell us more about it.

David Lyons:

Yup. But before we say hello to Cairenn, I just wanted to ask the listeners to watch for a quick bonus episode dropping soon with an important call to action that we really want to see succeed.

Wendy Lyons:

Hi, Cairenn, it’s Wendy. Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast.

Cairenn Binder:

Good morning. Thank you so much.

David Lyons:

Yeah, welcome aboard. Thanks for coming and spending a few minutes with us this morning. We’re pretty excited to let our listeners know that we’d been looking for a charitable donation on anything that we make out of swag and merchandise because we just monetized that a few months ago. And our focus group led us to you and, of course, I think what nailed it down is when we interviewed Kat or Sergeant Catalano with the police department out in California on the Patricia Skiple case. We thought it’d be a good idea if the audience got to know a little bit more about you and the DNA Doe Project and whatnot so they’re more familiar with it and, hopefully, we can drive some more people to support the program because it’s a very valuable program, obviously.

Cairenn Binder:

Thank you so much for having us and letting us get our message out to your listeners.

David Lyons:

Good deal. Well, tell us a little bit about who you are, Cairenn, maybe what your background is and how you got involved in the DNA Doe Project.

Cairenn Binder:

Sure. My name is Cairenn Binder, I’ve been with DNA Doe Project since 2018 and I’m currently the director of education and development at DDP. So, I’ve been working at DDP for almost five years now, I started out as an investigative genetic genealogist on the genealogy teams and the way that I got involved was merging of two interests of mine. One of my interests was genetic genealogy, which is the application of DNA and genealogy together, and the other is true crime. So, those two interests of mine merge in the world of investigative genetic genealogy where we apply genetic genealogy to unidentified remains or suspect cases.

So, in DDP, I got involved with the first case that they were ever working on which was the Joseph Newton Chandler case. A person that took his own life in Ohio in the early 2000s and was unidentified and we were able to identify him in 2018. So, that was my first case with the DDP and then I became a team leader and took on more and more responsibility at DDP and now I’m the director of education and development.

David Lyons:

Nice. So, total time with the project so far then?

Cairenn Binder:

It’ll be five years in January of 2023.

David Lyons:

Excellent. Well, tell us how the project itself got started. I know a little bit of the background from looking at some things that the project has on its website and some YouTube videos but if you could share with the audience who founded it and how it brought up and how it got to where it’s today.

Cairenn Binder:

Sure. DNA Doe Project was founded by Colleen Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press. They both, together, had the idea to apply the work that was being used on adoptees. So, we think of adoptees as living John and Jane Does, they’re people that don’t know who their biological parents are. And so, for about a decade before DDP was started, genetic genealogy was being applied to solve adoptee cases. And then, in 2018, a few different groups started to realize that these same techniques could be used to identify John and Jane Doe unidentified remains as well as suspects in violent crimes like the Golden State Killer case.

So, Colleen and Margaret were really pioneers in getting the DNA Doe Project started and they were the first to announce a person identified using investigative genetic genealogy. So, now, Margaret Press still leads the DNA Doe Project today, she’s our founder and CEO.

David Lyons:

That’s what I was going to ask if either both of them was still involved. That’s pretty neat that they’re still with the program, too.

Cairenn Binder:

Yeah. Colleen now works for Identifinders which is a different investigative genetic genealogy agency. So, she has left the DNA Doe Project since then but Margaret Press still leads the DDP.

David Lyons:

So, what’s a typical workflow look like on how the project gets hold of a case and then how much goes into the case specifically as far as effort and the system and how it works?

Cairenn Binder:

So, usually cases are referred to us by the investigating agencies in charge of them. So, a lot of people ask us, “Can you take this case?” “Can you take that case?” They send in cases a lot of the time and want us to work on those cases but we don’t have the power to just say, “Okay, we’re going to go work this case.” The investigating agency is really the custodian of those remains. So, it could be a medical examiner’s office, a coroner, a sheriff’s department, a municipal police agency, something like that. So, those agencies have to refer a case to us for us to be able to work on it.

Typically, they’ll contact us and ask if we can help and then our team will facilitate the lab process. So, depending on what type of remains are available, like bone or hair or a blood sample or a tissue sample, our team will help facilitate the process of getting that to the appropriate lab at the most efficient and cost effective strategy for the agency. After that, then the lab process includes extraction, sequencing and then bioinformatics which is the process of basically getting a file that’s appropriate to be uploaded to the direct to consumer DNA databases that we use. Those two databases are called GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA. Those are the only databases that we use in IGG.

After they are uploaded to those databases, a team is assigned, that can be a team of anywhere from two to 10 people within DNA Doe Project and that team will begin building out family trees of the DNA matches to the John or Jane Doe. The process can take anywhere from a few hours to many years. I think I have the oldest case right now in DDP, not oldest like the remains were found longest ago, but oldest like it was uploaded the longest ago. It’s been about a little over four years of working on that case and it remains unsolved. So, it can take anywhere from a few hours to several years to solve a case.

David Lyons:

Great. So, on a case like the one that you said is running for four years, what are the things that you think you need to turn that around? What is missing perhaps maybe?

Cairenn Binder:

Well, I would say this has not been studied a whole lot since IGG is relatively new. But based on anecdotal evidence of all the cases that I’ve worked on over the years, I would say that the most important factor in the ability to identify a John or Jane Doe or a suspect using this technology is race or I guess you could say race and ethnicity.

Wendy Lyons:

Hey, Murder Police Podcast fans, did you know that we now have a fantastic merchant swag store? You can choose from tons of clothing, drink ware and accessories to let everyone know you’re a murder cop fan and 10% of all sales proceeds are donated to the brilliant folks at the DNA Doe Project. So, you’re helping solve a mystery or two with every purchase you make. So, head to murderpolicepodcast.com and click that shopping button now.

Cairenn Binder:

The reason for that is the databases that we use have one main population that is well represented and that’s European Americans. If you know somebody that’s taken a DNA test, if you’ve taken one yourself, you uploaded to Ancestry DNA because you wanted to find out what percentage of Irish you are or something like that and that’s very common with people of European descent in the United States. But people of minority populations are seemingly less likely to take DNA tests and also less likely to participate in GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA and that’s for a number of socioeconomic and cultural reasons. As a result of that, it’s very difficult to solve cases when the John or Jane Doe is from a minority population.

So, the case that I’m referring to as my oldest case is Apache Junction Jane Doe. She is one quarter German, one quarter African-American and half Hispanic, probably Mexican. As a result, she has very few matches on her Mexican side and it’s very difficult to determine who her mother was. We have determined many things about her family tree but we’ve been unable to determine exactly who she is.

David Lyons:

Got you. So, again, it’s very dependent on samples being, if I can call them that, being sent up and put into GEDmatch and systems like that. Correct?

Cairenn Binder:

Exactly. And it requires the participation of people to populate those DNA databases in order to solve cases. And the size of those databases is really quite small compared to the larger direct to consumer DNA databases. For example, as I mentioned, GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA are the databases that we have access to in IGG. Those two databases allow law enforcement uploads and also allow users to opt in or opt out of law enforcement matching. So, a person can upload to GEDmatch and still not be compared against suspect samples. A person can upload to FamilyTreeDNA and still ask not to be compared to law enforcement samples.

The other databases which are much larger do not allow law enforcement access. So, those are databases like AncestryDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage. So, MyHeritage has about four and a half million users, Ancestry has 30 million users, these are very large databases. FamilyTreeDNA has 1.4 million users and GEDmatch has 1.5 million users. So, you’re looking at a very small percentage of the matches that would be available in AncestryDNA. Sometimes I wish that we could have access to AncestryDNA because cases like Apache Junction Jane Doe would probably be solved if we could.

But, on the other hand, we really understand that consumers deserve the right to opt in or opt out of law enforcement matching and AncestryDNA certainly has the right to protect their DNA database from law enforcement access as well.

David Lyons:

It makes sense especially in United States where we really treasure our right to privacy and the separation of availability of government to come in. And I was a cop for 28 years and I probably understand that better than anybody that those are the fine lines we always walk in this country.

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely.

David Lyons:

But a call to action would be then … Would you recommend, if people were comfortable then, if they do get a gift of maybe a DNA test or something from somebody, obviously if they volunteer that information to go into one of those databases, it would advance the program considerably, right?

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely. So, often people think that we do have access to AncestryDNA. So, I’ll talk to people about what I do and they’ll say, “Oh, I took a DNA test, so you can see my DNA, right?” And then I say, “Well, which database is it in?” And they say, “Ancestry,” “Well, I cannot see it. There’s nothing I can do with your DNA in Ancestry.” So, if you do want to help us solve cases and you feel comfortable with it, you can download your DNA information from Ancestry or 23andMe or MyHeritage and you can upload into GEDmatch for free. We have a video on our YouTube channel, DNA Doe Project. If you search for DNA Doe Project on YouTube, you will find our YouTube video called How to Upload to GEDmatch and it has screenshots of exactly how to download your DNA from one direct to consumer database and upload into GEDmatch for free.

So, that’s very helpful for us. And we just had a big push for Hispanic Heritage Month. We have a lot of Latin American John and Jane Does, as I described, who are unidentified and will probably continue to go unidentified because they have so few matches in the DNA database. There was another true crime podcaster who follows us on social media and she chose to upload to GEDmatch during Latin American Heritage Month to find out if she’s a match to any of our John and Jane Does. I told her right away that she was a match to, I think, two or three Jane Doe and that was really exciting for her. So, then she went the next level and she got her mom to upload to GEDmatch and she got her grandma to upload to GEDmatch, too. And it was so great because that got three people from a different population into GEDmatch and they did match some of our John and Jane Does so it was really exciting.

So, if you do want to get involved and you want to help solve cases and you go that extra mile to help somebody else get into the database too, that makes such a difference because growing those databases will truly have an impact on solving cases.

David Lyons:

I can think of too many things that would feel as good as that is to help bring that resolution to a family and friend somewhere that are left in the dark for so long. So, pretty simple thing to do. It sounds like [inaudible 00:15:28].

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely.

David Lyons:

It’s a pretty simple thing to do. Well, a couple things, too. I’m going to assume just from some of the research I’ve done and, again, talking to Kat and we’ve interviewed some other forensic scientists on the show before about DNA. The DNA methodologies that you all use or have access to, is that a little bit different and more detailed than, typically, what crime labs are doing right now?

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely. So, the DNA testing that people are really familiar with is STR testing. STR testing uses tens or dozens of markers and the testing that we use, which is called snip testing or SNP, that uses hundreds of thousands of markers. The main difference, functionally, for law enforcement and for our team is that an STR test can only determine relationships between people who are very closely related. If you have, for example, crime scene DNA and you have suspect DNA, you can find out is it the same person. If you have crime scene DNA and a suspect’s mother or father, a direct parent to child relationship, you can get a match there, a hit they usually refer to it as.

With our type of DNA testing, SNP testing, you can determine relationships that are very distant. So, we look at things like second cousins, third cousins, fourth cousins, fifth cousins. You could never do that with STR testing because there are not enough markers to determine those more distant relationships. That’s really the main functional difference between STR and SNP testing and that’s what makes our work really different and vastly more complicated than CODIS.

David Lyons:

Do you know if that advanced testing has survived court cases or are making it in as evidence? Because I can still remember, several years ago, it’s a battle. But when DNA first came out and started being used by law enforcement, in the judicial system, there’s a process for accepting new science and finally somebody giving it anointment and saying it’s good to go. Have the new methods gone through processes like that in the court system or do you know?

Cairenn Binder:

Actually, I’ve just done some research into this recently. At this time, the process of IGG, investigative genetic genealogy, has not gone to court past pretrial motions. So, it has been examined in pretrial hearings of whether certain evidence would be introduced into court or not and it has not gone beyond that. The reason for that primarily, and so, in this conversation, we’re going to get away from unidentified remains and talk about suspect cases for a minute. If a person is identified through investigative genetic genealogy, let’s just say it’s a suspect in a violent crime like a murderer, the crime scene evidence was taken, some DNA. Before the investigating agency can advance to investigative genetic genealogy, they first have to enter that profile into CODIS, they have to enter it into CODIS and there have to be no hits. Once they have no hits in CODIS, then they can advance to investigative genetic genealogy.

The investigative genetic genealogy team will identify a potential suspect and we call that an investigative lead. It is no different than if I saw somebody outside of the victim’s house and I was like, “Oh, yeah, I think I saw Bobby outside of there,” I’m giving an investigative lead. They still have to go and collect Bobby’s DNA surreptitiously from his curbside trash or from a cigarette butt that he threw out or something like that to determine whether or not he is the suspect and that gets confirmed with an STR test which is the traditional DNA test.

For that reason, because IGG is providing an investigative lead that has to be confirmed with a traditional DNA test, which has stood the test of time in court, the IGG has not been introduced into court because the arrest was made based on the STR tests not the SNP test. Does that make sense?

David Lyons:

Oh, absolutely. That’s probably the best explanation I’ve heard of something like that.

Cairenn Binder:

Oh, great.

David Lyons:

I think the listeners will enjoy that. No, really, that was extremely clear is put in the context of a lead because that’s where, I think, some people don’t understand the limitations of a lead but which you can still do to independently corroborate that information and then get it into court. Perfectly stated, perfectly stated.

Cairenn Binder:

Oh, thank you so much.

David Lyons:

No, yeah, I think it’s very clear for people on that. We talked a little bit before about Patricia Skiple because, I think, she was identified in April of this year in California. The impact that had on that family, can you talk about what it was like when that revelation is finally made and at least those doors are opened to what happened to that loved one. What’s it like to work with a family when it happens?

Cairenn Binder:

Well, I would say that we’re somewhat lucky in being a little bit removed from the families. When we work with an investigating agency and we come close to determining a lead like that, such as in the Patricia Skiple case, the investigating agency and, in this case, our partner, Sergeant Catalano is the person that makes contact with the family. That’s a good thing because they are trained and they are used to making these notifications because what they’re doing is essentially making a possible death notification. Our team is not trained in that and we’re not the right people to do that. So, we’re really glad to have partnership with law enforcement to be able to make those phone calls and things like that.

In that case specifically, it was heartbreaking to learn about what the family had gone through because they didn’t just have one, they had two missing people in their family. So, part of what we had to do was determine which missing person Patricia’s remains were most likely to be. That was a difficult thing and I’m really thankful for the support of Sergeant Catalano in that case because her hardworking nature was absolutely integral to solving that case.

David Lyons:

Yeah, that was something else. And again, the complexity and the tragedy of two missing people and then the odds of having to make that determination on the remains to see just who that is. And I think we’re going to be following up with the sister, Gloria, I believe, and see if we can talk to her to get some awareness out on her daughter that’s still outstanding as a missing, too. Well, I’ll tell you what, you mentioned before, what’s the name of the podcast where the woman uploaded her DNA? She probably won’t mind because I love plugging other podcast on our show. Yeah, what’s the name of that one?

Cairenn Binder:

That’s True Crime Cases with Lanie. Lanie Hobbs is the name of a podcaster.

David Lyons:

Fantastic. So, our listeners, hopefully, will tune in. I know I’m going to download it and take a listen when I’m flying this week.

Cairenn Binder:

Awesome. Yes, I’m traveling this week, too. I’m going to load up on so many podcasts today for my drive tomorrow.

David Lyons:

Oh, yeah, for sure. It’s the way to pass time. So, I believe you’d sent me a link and it was a really good YouTube video podcaster that did an in-depth interview. Do you remember the name of his show?

Cairenn Binder:

That was Dylan Curious and he does a podcast that is also on YouTube. So, it’s like film and sound.

David Lyons:

Exactly. I can recommend that to people too because I enjoyed watching it, the production is exceptional. Now, has the project been the focus of any other national or international exposes or television shows or documentaries that you are aware of?

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely. So, there was a Dateline episode about Lavender Doe, the episode is called The Girl with No Name. So, I think that people can get that on Peacock if they have NBC’s Peacock streaming service. We just had an article come out in the New York Times two days ago, so that was on the 27th of October and that was about Wendy Stephens, the victim of the Green River Killer which was a case that I led in 2020 going into 2021. This victim was known as Bones 10 Jane Doe when she was killed by Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer back in the 1980s and we identified her in 2021. So, that was a big international coverage for us.

We’ve also been covered on Malpractice Podcast, Crime Junkies Podcast. I’m trying to remember, there’s been certainly a lot of podcasts that have covered us. Oh, the Fall Line podcast is a great one, victim-centered podcast, Defense Diaries is another. And then we’ve also had an episode of Cold Case Files that was about Kern County Jane Doe now known to be Shirley Soosay. She was a First Nations individual and she was killed in Kern County, California and was identified by DNA Doe Project as well. So, there has been quite a bit of media coverage for us. I keep on thinking of things as I list them but we also were at CrimeCon earlier this year, in end of April, beginning of May 2022, and we had a big presentation there where we talked about all things DNA Doe Project and I hope that we’ll be there next year as well.

David Lyons:

Fantastic. And now, let me ask you this, roughly how many people are on staff at the project at any given time that do similar things that you do?

Cairenn Binder:

We have just a handful of employees, actual employees that are hired. We have about five of those and then we have many, many volunteers. So, we have about 80 to 100 volunteers in various stages of activity at a time. I’m going to say about 80 genetic genealogy team volunteers. So, that’s quite some growth since we started. I think, when I joined the project, there were about six or seven of us and so we’ve grown tenfold since then, more than tenfold. At the time, we didn’t imagine that we would ever have employees but we need them now because we have so many cases that we need to have a structure of people that are dedicated full time to our processes.

David Lyons:

And yet, you probably know where I’m going with this, if somebody out there, because there’s a lot of people who have such a genuine interest in investigations and bringing resolution to families. If somebody wanted to assist with their time, we’ll talk about donations, obviously, in a minute but, with their time, is there a process that they can reach out to the project to look at being accepted as a volunteer?

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely. So, from time to time, we’re looking for volunteers with specific skills. A lot of those are related to populations that are not well represented in the databases. So, let’s say, for example, somebody that’s very familiar with reading records in Spanish or somebody that has experience with Ukrainian records, something like that. We post those help wanted notices on our website at dnadoeproject.org/contact-us. And on our contact us page, you can find the volunteer application and the specific roles that we’re looking for at any given time. We do get a lot of applications, just to share with everybody, and we can’t take everybody in because maintaining that structure of volunteers is difficult. But we also have an apprenticeship program which runs twice a year.

We just ran the first apprentice program over the summer. This program is for investigative genetic, or sorry, for experienced genetic genealogists. So, people that have practiced genetic genealogy on things like adoptee cases. They have to take an exam and then, based on their exam performance, we choose six to eight apprentices. The apprentices work on a real case and they go through a four-week program led by me and they get to apply their skills to a real John or Jane Doe case. So, over the summer, we had our first apprenticeship program, it was four weeks in July and they solved the case of Downtown Phoenix John Doe who is now known to be Frank Beck. So, that was really exciting that we were able to bring up this educational program and people were participating in it and actually solve the case in their completion of the program. We’ll be running our next one in January.

David Lyons:

That’s phenomenal. Because myself, personally, after doing it with a PD for several years in homicide investigation, I’m a firm believer that there’s room for what some people call amateur citizen detectives in this world. And I know the relationships with police departments can be tenuous sometimes but what a way for people to roll up their sleeves and actually get a taste of what that’s like and to get those wins and, again, to help out a family somewhere. That’s incredible, incredible.

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely. And there’s also a few education programs popping up throughout the United States. The ones that I know of, University of New Haven has an investigative genetic genealogy certificate program and they also have internships that they do with DNA Doe Project. And then I’ve recently had a career switch, I still work for DNA Doe Project but I also now work at Ramapo College of New Jersey where we are starting an investigative genetic genealogy center and an investigative genetic genealogy certificate program. And I believe that University of Central Florida also has some investigative genetic genealogy programming going on as well.

There are definitely programs popping up all over the place and people can learn how to do this because this might be the way of solving all cold cases in the future.

David Lyons:

Oh, hopefully. The advances are just incredible. Yearly, just the way they move through on bringing answers to those so that’s good news in and of itself.

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely.

David Lyons:

Obviously, the project itself is a nonprofit, correct?

Cairenn Binder:

That’s correct.

David Lyons:

Yeah. So, when people do this, I know that we’ll be donating, like I said, proceeds from swag and merch and things like that and maybe some other input too on behalf of the podcast itself. So, if people go to the website and they want to donate to the project to help find answers for these people and to identify these people, is that a pretty straightforward process to do?

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely. So, just to speak on the nonprofit model for what we do and how it helps agencies. Being a nonprofit, as I mentioned, we do have a couple of employees but any donations that come into us, we don’t have any shareholders to answer to, we don’t have investors, all income generated goes back into the programs that we run. So, meaning, for our case manager to be able to support communication with law enforcement agencies, for our lab and agency logistics director to be able to process samples through the lab, that’s where the money goes. And more than that, the money donated goes to the case work itself, the actual lab fees. You’ll see from time to time, we’ll post cases that we’re asking for something like $3,500 to process the sample related to a specific John or Jane Doe. We have those cases on our website at dnadoeproject.org and then you click on doe-nate cases, so it’s D-O-E, dash-nate.

Those cases, we’re specifically asking for funding for because the agency does not have the finances available to fund that John or Jane Doe case to be processed through the laboratory. That’s happening more and more, there’s very little money for cold cases. The cases that are usually prioritized are the ones that are very recent and active and that makes sense because you certainly want to catch violent criminals that are on the loose right now. And so, I can see why it’s like this for agencies but it’s unfortunate as well because John and Jane Does are missing people, they have families that are waiting for them, funding is really needed to solve their cases, too.

By clicking on that part of the website, you can look for a specific John or Jane Doe that you’d like to finance. So, it really helps and we have thermometers on some of them so you can see how much money has been raised for each one. We’re really thankful that we’re able to help agencies get these cases solved through our generous donors.

David Lyons:

And it’s just not the money, it’s the time. We’ve talked on here we’ve done some cold case things with cold case detectives and the realities in a police department is they only have so many people and new cases are coming in. It’s like raking leaves on a windy day as they say. And again, that’s why I’m big on the whole thing of incorporating more people in the private industry or private world into crowdsourcing cases is because of the availability of time and there’s been plenty of people out there that are citizen detectives that have done phenomenal things with that time. So, good, yeah.

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely.

David Lyons:

So, two things, I think, that we could easily ask people to do is to volunteer their DNA information into GEDmatch and the other one was … What was the other one again?

Cairenn Binder:

FamilyTreeDNA.

David Lyons:

And then to consider making financial contributions and maybe find other businesses that would like to make financial contributions. That definitely is a better source sometimes for those more expensive rates that you’re looking for for that, so we definitely could do that.

Cairenn Binder:

Yes. Another person that I’ll just mention, there’s been so many people that have reached out and helped lately. There’s a person that I’m friends with on social media and she reached out about a specific case and wanted to help it get funded. They work for Google so she and her partner made a donation through Google and then Google matches those donations. So, if you have an employee matching situation at your workplace, that can double whatever you give. So, that was so incredibly helpful and I just really thought like, “Wow, what a great creative way to give more to us.”

David Lyons:

Absolutely. Especially with the importance of what that work is.

Wendy Lyons:

I’ve always been very fascinated by DNA and you mentioned the Ancestry and David had gotten a kit for me to do and it is really neat to see the matches that come along. Some people that you have no clue who they are but I’ve always been very fascinated by that and the connections and places that can lead you to. And so, I’m so glad that you all, even with cold cases, are working so many of these to get answers for families who, likely, for years have been waiting just for a smidgen of a piece of information.

So, I think your job is incredibly fascinating and I caught a bit and piece of you talking about the intern and some things that volunteers could do and all I could think is how cool would that be for somebody to, not only do that and immerse themselves in it, but mostly help solve a case, like you said, was solved for a family that’s out there seeking answers. But also it helps you all with your caseload, I’m sure, does it not?

Cairenn Binder:

Absolutely. Those apprentices that we had over the summer, they were so valuable to us. The original intention was to have them for four weeks and then let them go and we decided to keep them all because they were just so incredibly good and valuable to our work. And another point that you just brought up, Wendy, is one that I forgot to make and it is such an important piece of this. So, you mentioned that you look at your DNA matches and you don’t even know some of them. And a lot of times, when I have conversations about uploading to GEDmatch, people will tell me things like, “Oh, well, I don’t have any missing people in my family so that won’t help.”

But if you think about it, me, personally, I really only know my first cousins. I couldn’t even name all of my second cousins and I certainly cannot name all of my third cousins because we have our close family and most of us are not that familiar with our extended family. But as I mentioned earlier, we use second, third, fourth and fifth cousins to solve these cases. So, even if you don’t know of a missing person in your family, that doesn’t mean that your DNA is not valuable to the cases that we solve. So, I thought that was a really important point that you just brought up.

Wendy Lyons:

Yeah, you’re exactly right because, while you aren’t missing anyone, like you said, maybe that third cousin that you have no clue of, maybe their sister’s missing and you didn’t even know you’re related to that person. So, DNA has come so far and I think that’s a great resource for locating people or solving cases or just knowing your history which is what most people want to know.

David Lyons:

Well, I guess it’s pretty clear now, Wendy, we have to take your download results and get them up on GEDmatch.

Wendy Lyons:

Cairenn, thank you so much for coming on this morning and speaking with us about the DNA Doe Project. Again, to our listeners, if you go to dnaproject.org and look for that Bone Lake 1993 Minnesota unsolved murder, consider making a contribution to them so that they can help solve this case and bring answers to the family who’s likely missing this lady. And again, Cairenn, thank you so much for what you do and for all your hard work that you put in and we really appreciate you being on the show with us today.

Cairenn Binder:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really thankful that you’re putting the word out for these cases and partnering with us on some of this fundraising effort. Thank you so much.

David Lyons:

We’re very proud to be associated with your organization. I was very tickled when we finally deduced that this is where we were going to head, so we’re extremely proud. So, please stay in touch. I think the listeners will hear more down the road about some of the cases that you’re working on.

Cairenn Binder:

All right, sounds great. Thank you so much.

Wendy Lyons:

Thank you.

David Lyons:

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform as well as at murderpolicepodcast.com where you’ll find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, which is closed captioned for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us.

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