Never had a chance. Here’s how I suspect it went:
1. Cousin submits DNA sample to 23 and Me.
2. He does his crime, but leaves DNA (very hard not to, for that crime).
3. Police/FBI test sample, no match. Then to to 23 and Me, and get 100 possibilities of relatives, with rankings as to the closest.
4. Police/FBI then give the list of names to their former co-workers at the phone carriers and database managers to look for phone pings and search license plate camera databases for the 100 persons.
5. One hit clearly stands out with pings in the area (since nearly all others are in the Eastern US). They have their man.
(now on to making their work look legal and/or not giving away their techniques, so they have to show some shoe leather)
6. Police make a point of interviewing a relatively large number of people and then concoct a ‘witness’ or two who “saw” his white Hyundai at the scene.
7. Police then get warrants as required, to access the phone pings and license plate databases legally.
8. They then follow the suspect and arrest him.
“concoct a ‘witness’ or two who “saw” his white Hyundai at the scene.”
Actually they had the white Hyundai on a nearby convenience store security cam footage in the time frame of the murders and started sifting through the registration data bases immediately. The suspect had a WSU parking pass, so his name was known to police earlier than we realize. Then they got the warrant for his cell phone and watched him while waiting for the forensic DNA processing to be completed.
Once the had that hard evidence match, they arrested him. And the Moscow police kept their mouths shut, unlike the gossipy Pennsylvania cop.
An alert staffer/manager/owner working in a nearby convenience store went over security camera footage discovering white car images that were captured by the media device at or near the time of the murder and reported it to law enforcement.
Using the data provided, the type of vehicle was determined- to the most accurate extent possible and the hunt was on to find the owner.
“Never had a chance. Here’s how I suspect it went:
1. Cousin submits DNA sample to 23 and Me.
2. He does his crime, but leaves DNA (very hard not to, for that crime).
3. Police/FBI test sample, no match. Then to to 23 and Me, and get 100 possibilities of relatives, with rankings as to the closest.”
Not quite. 23 and Me, Ancestry.com, and other commercial DNA testing companies, will not release DNA sequencing information to LEO without a warrant, and to get a warrant, LEO needs a suspect and probable cause. What likely happened here is that a relative of Kohberger downloaded their autosomal DNA data files from a commercial DNA testing company like 23 and Me, and then uploaded the data to GEDmatch or a similar platform that acts as a public clearing house for DNA data, which is open to the public free of charge or for a nominal fee. (GEDmatch and similar platforms are popular because they allow, for example, a subscriber to 23 and Me to search for relatives who subscribe to Ancesrty.com — provided both relatives have uploaded their DNA data to the public clearing house). Since the DNA data is available to the public, LEO do not need a warrant to search the database. For further information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDmatch and https://resources.selfdecode.com/blog/upload-raw-dna-data/#:~:text=Websites%20where%20you%20can%20upload%20your%20raw%20DNA,%28Start%20Free%29%202%20Promethease%203%20GenoPalate%204%20DNAfit.