In need of a retirement project following a successful law career, Barbara Rae-Venter had just begun to dip her toe into the arcane science of using people’s genetic information to map out family trees when she was contacted by a California police detective. He hoped she could use what she’d learned to help him identify a woman who’d been abducted as an infant. That email set her on a path to helping to crack numerous cold cases, including that of the infamous Golden State Killer. Rae-Venter spoke with PW about her work using DNA to track down criminals, detailed in her forthcoming I Know Who You Are (Ballantine, Feb. 2023).
What drew you to this work?
It was more that it found me. It’s really compelling work; I pull all-nighters all the time because I get started, and I know it’s just going to take a couple more hours, and I’m going to figure this out. It’s a little weird to say it’s fun to work on mass murderers, but it is. It’s the thrill of the chase, and when you finally figure it out, it’s a real high.
What does it feel like when you finally figure it out?
It’s usually the wee hours of the morning and you realize you’re probably the only person besides the suspect who knows who did it, which is where the title of the book comes from.
A lot of people doing this work are women. Why do you think that is?
In my own group we’ve got two guys and 15 women. Part of it is that historically you do tend to see more women in volunteer work. I’m retired and I don’t need the income, and I think that’s true for most of the people in my group. Cases take months if not years to solve, so if you were charging for that, law enforcement couldn’t afford it.
If someone reading this was thinking of getting into this work, what would be their first step?
I don’t know if there’s any right kind of training for doing this. I think it’s more about being able to think creatively. My mother always said I had a ‘grasshopper mind,’ that I would connect things that didn’t appear to be connected. That’s what you’re doing when you’re looking at these family trees. You’re trying to put together pieces of information that on the surface don’t appear to be connected.
Do you see a downside to this technology, which makes personal information public?
These genealogy databases can be hacked, but, really, what is somebody going to do with your information? People are often concerned about the privacy of their health information. On the Family Tree DNA site and also on the GEDmatch site, they do try to strip out some of the markers that are associated with disease. But there are pretty heavy civil and criminal penalties for an insurance company to take your personal information and try to use that against you, so I really don’t think it’s a concern. You’re closing the barn door after the horse has already left.
