Western Pa. lawmaker's bill would expand use of forensic genetic genealogy

A Western Pennsylvania lawmaker wants to expand law enforcement’s ability to use a more-detailed form of DNA analysis when identifying victims in cold cases.

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, introduced the Cold Case Modernization Act which would expand the criteria for federal Department of Justice grants funding the use of forensic genetic genealogy. The process leverages hundreds of thousands of DNA markers to establish long-range relationships with distant genetic relatives.

The process has been used to help identify remains in several Pennsylvania cases in the past couple years.

Nearly 66 years after the battered body of an unknown young boy was found stuffed inside a cardboard box in Philadelphia — it came to be known over the decades as the “Boy in the Box” case — investigators using forensic genetic genealogy were able to identify him as Joseph Augustus Zarelli.

In early 2023 using the process, Bucks County investigators identified a skull found more than 35 years ago on the banks of the Delaware River as that of a New Jersey man who went missing on Christmas Eve 1984.

Current Department of Justice policy requires that a body must be declared a homicide victim in order to be eligible for grant funding to use forensic genetic genealogy. Reschenthaler’s bill would expand it to include bodies for which a manner of death hasn’t been determined, or has been ruled a non-homicide.

“Across the United States, investigators lack the critical resources to solve the cases of tens of thousands of unidentified human remains,” Reschenthaler said. “The Cold Case Modernization Act puts these deceased Americans and their grieving families first, using state-of-the-art DNA technology to uncover answers and find the truth.”

Click here to read the full text of the bill.