DNA testing

A man convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl more than three decades ago is asking a court to allow advanced DNA testing on the victim’s clothes. The Portland Press Herald reports that Dennis Dechaine attended a Superior Court hearing virtually on Friday at the Knox County Courthouse in Rockland. Dechaine is serving a life sentence for the murder and sexual assault...

David Reed, 53, formerly of Acushnet and New Bedford, was indicted last week by a grand jury in connection with the death of Rose Marie Moniz inside her New Bedford home, according to a statement Thursday from Bristol District Attorney Thomas Quinn III.

DNA recovered from the interior of a conch shell thought to have been used as a weapon in the 2001 killing of a Massachusetts woman has led to the indictment on a murder charge of the victim’s half-brother, prosecutors said.

DNA analysis has been around for decades, and it’s a crucial tool for solving violent crimes, but until recently, it was nearly impossible to collect DNA evidence left at shooting scenes. That changed with a process developed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The day after Christmas in 2019, two men walked into a Denny’s in...

For Korean-American adoptees, the search to find relatives can be complicated by the sheer number of Korean children adopted to foreign countries without records or any link to their past. “Nov. 13, 1971, I was found at a railroad station in Daegu, Korea,” said Christine Pennell of Berlin, Connecticut. Abandoned at age 2, then adopted at age 3 to a…

The grandson of President Warren Harding and a lover has asked a court for permission to dig up the Republican’s remains

A Northern California judge on Thursday approved prosecutors’ request to take more DNA samples from a man charged with being the infamous “Golden State Killer” who eluded arrest for decades. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Steve White also told prosecutors to informally decide who is empowered to consider defense attorneys’ offer have Joseph James DeAngelo plead guilty in exchange for…

When a body was found at a mobile home park during the Sandalwood Fire in Calimesa last October, family members of 89-year-old Lois Arvickson feared it was her. They were on the phone with the mother, grandmother and great-grandmother when the line went dead. They searched nearby shelters to see if Arvickson had survived, but couldn’t find her. It...

Two families with lifelong secrets unearthed because of home DNA test kits are now dealing with the truth. Here’s what their stories tell us about the shock that can come from new ancestry technology, and how to deal with it.