She took a DNA test for fun. Police used it to charge her grandmother with murder in a cold case

CNN via MSN ^ | December 14, 2024 | Taylor Galgano

[DoodleBob]

It was the middle of Jenna Gerwatowski’s workday at the local flower shop in Newberry, Michigan, when she got a call from an unknown number.

The now 23-year-old doesn’t usually answer unknown calls, but says she decided to pick this one up in May 2022.

To her surprise, it was a detective from the Michigan state police.

“He was like, ‘Have you heard of the Baby Garnet case?’” Jenna told CNN.

Jenna had heard of it. In 1997, a deceased infant was found in a campground pit toilet at the Garnet Lake Campground – right where Jenna grew up. …The case went cold, and the “Baby Garnet” case became a known murder mystery in Jenna’s small town for decades.

“Your DNA was a match,” Jenna says the detective on the phone told her. She was related to the dead infant from 1997.

Jenna was in shock. The detective sounded sure, Jenna said, but she wondered how he had even obtained her DNA.

About six months earlier, her friend had gotten a FamilyTreeDNA test for Christmas and Jenna decided to order her own. DNA from other Baby Garnet relatives led detectives to Jenna’s FamilyTreeDNA kit, according to court documents.

…

An analysis of Jenna’s DNA kit showed she was the half-niece to Baby Garnet, according to court records.

On June 1, 2022, detectives spoke with her mother, Kara, who agreed to provide her DNA. Kara was the half-sister of Baby Garnet, according to court records.

…

Kara, now 42, had not spoken with her mother, Nancy Gerwatowski, since she was 18 because they had a bad relationship, and Jenna had never met her grandmother. Regardless, both were shocked Nancy, who was living in Wyoming when police questioned her, would be the one behind their town mystery.

[Wayne07]

“23&Me had their whole database stolen. ~6 million genetic fingerprints and the associated personal information ... POOF.”

You’ve got the story pretty wrong.

23andMe has not been hacked, they never lost their database, and no genetic data has been stolen.

What did happen was that hackers logged into people’s accounts (14k) using phished or reused credentials, and scraped family tree records that covered 6 million people.

So what they have is some names, and relationships, but not genetic data.

[jocon307]

“Not that I have anything to hide.”

Sure you don’t. But how about your grandmother? Or your third cousin twice removed?

That’s the issue here.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Of course

[DiogenesLamp]

Probably had a clause for “law enforcement purposes” in the multi-page Terms and Conditions that everybody just clicks through.

This is another aspect of our legal system that is dysfunctional. Too many tricks are pulled by the "fine print". People are agreeing to things without realizing they are agreeing to them.

I think that a signature is too easy. I think contracts should be hand written out, so that everyone will know exactly what they are agreeing to do.

Same thing with bills in Congress. Every congressmember should be required to write out any proposed bill in their own handwriting, in order to vote for it.

These requirements would prevent a lot of stupid stuff in our world.