That certainly isn't how they identified and caught Joseph DeAngelo the ex-cop in California who and raped or killed over two dozen women.
Check back with your LEO buddies and ask them specifically about the DeAngelo case where DNA evidence from a cold case was used to produce a close DNA match with one of Joe DeAngelo's relatives before they even knew who the suspect was.
“Check back with your LEO buddies and ask them specifically about the DeAngelo case where DNA evidence from a cold case was used to produce a close DNA match with one of Joe DeAngelo’s relatives before they even knew who the suspect was.”
You omitted from my post the most important part: “More likely, Kohberger or a close family member voluntarily uploaded DNA sequences to a public site where the DNA is available to anyone who asks.” And that is exactly how LEO identified and caught Joseph DeAngelo. LEO did not obtain the DNA match through 23 and Me, Ancestry.com or similar DNA testing companies, because the DNA testing companies will not turn the DNA sequencing data over to LEO without a warrant and to get a warrant there must be a specific target of the investigation.
In the DeAngelo case, one or more of DeAngelo’s relatives obtained their DNA sequencing from a DNA testing company and then voluntarily uploaded their DNA information to “GEDmatch,” which is not a DNA testing company, but a public database that allows anyone to post their DNA sequencing in the hopes of finding relatives who have also uploaded their DNA to GEDmatch. As Wikipedia explains, “GEDmatch users may upload their autosomal DNA test data from commercial DNA companies to identify potential relatives who had also uploaded their DNA data.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDmatch) In addition, the process of matching crime scene DNA with DNA uploaded to GEDmatch and then tracing the match to a person can take many weeks or months — assuming there’s DNA in the database to match.
In the Kohberger case, LEO probably uploaded crime scene DNA to GEDmatch, and maybe there was a match and they were working their way through the DNA to identify a suspect. More likely, once LEO traced the white Hyundai Elantra to a grad student at WSU, they we able to obtain a DNA sample from Kohberger’s on-campus office or dumpster garbage from his apartment and match the DNA to crime scene DNA is a matter of days (as opposed to weeks or months).