The untold story of how the Golden State Killer was found: A covert operation and private DNA

Paige St. John reports:

The dramatic arrest in 2018 of Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. was all the more astounding because of how detectives said they caught the elusive Golden State Killer— by harnessing genetic technology already in use by millions of consumers to trace their family trees.

But the DNA-matching effort that caught one of America’s most notorious serial killers was more extensive than previously disclosed and involved covert searches of private DNA housed by two for-profit companies despite privacy policies, according to interviews and court discovery records accessed by The Times.

Read more on the Los Angeles Times.