Speaker 1: Authram is really good at analyzing DNA that previously was
Speaker 1: thought to be unanalyzable.
Speaker 2: If they're not in the criminal database, they're not going
Speaker 2: to get caught, even though they leave tons of DNA behind,
Speaker 2: And now we can do that through FIG.
Speaker 3: I mean, what can you say? The technology that authram
Speaker 3: utilized in this case took it to a whole other level.
Speaker 4: This is the Idaho Massacre A production of KT Studios
Speaker 4: and iHeartRadio, Season three, episode nine, Sheath of Evidence. I'm
Speaker 4: Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios, with Stephanie Leidecker,
Speaker 4: Alison Bankston, and Gabriel Castillo. One of the unsung heroes
Speaker 4: of the Brian Coberger case wasn't a detective, a judge,
Speaker 4: or even a prosecutor. It was a laboratory nestled in
Speaker 4: the Bucolic suburb of Woodlands, Texas. Sits Authrum, a company
Speaker 4: that has quickly become a world leader in forensic science.
Speaker 4: AUTHORAM is renowned for pioneering some of the most advanced
Speaker 4: techniques in forensic investigative genetic genealogy, also known as FIG
Speaker 4: or sometimes IgG. Initially, in this case, the FBI was
Speaker 4: enabled to find a match for the single source male
Speaker 4: DNA recovered from the ninth sheath found in Madison Mogan's
Speaker 4: bedroom using COTIS, the Combined DNA Index system which links
Speaker 4: DNA profiles to known offenders. At that point, investigators turned
Speaker 4: to AUTHRM, and it was this decision that blew the
Speaker 4: entire case wide open. On today's episode, where Spotlighting a
Speaker 4: podcast we all admire America's Crime Lab, We're joined by
Speaker 4: its host, journalist Alan Lance Lesser, to learn more about
Speaker 4: the groundbreaking work her show is covering. Aileen has the
Speaker 4: inside scoop on how authorm's cutting edge methods changed the
Speaker 4: game and how this lab helped identify the man who
Speaker 4: brutally murdered Madison Mogan, Kylie Gonsalvez, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.
Speaker 4: Aileen's joined by Katie's Studio's producer, Alison Bankston.
Speaker 1: America's Crime Lab focuses on the intimate stories of victims
Speaker 1: and their families from some of the most heinous crimes
Speaker 1: in America and crimes that are being solved by a
Speaker 1: specific lab that exists just outside of Houston called Authrum
Speaker 1: that's using new DNA technology and I think basically Authrum
Speaker 1: the Lab wanted to get this information out there because
Speaker 1: the more people know about it, the more that detectives
Speaker 1: will know, hey, we can use this technology in this
Speaker 1: case where we simply can't figure out who left their
Speaker 1: DNA at a crime scene. And so it almost is
Speaker 1: a matter of spreading the word while also telling these
Speaker 1: really riveting stories.
Speaker 5: That's incredible, and I agree. I think it's great to
Speaker 5: get the word out on this amazing technology and to
Speaker 5: raise awareness about what it is and you know how
Speaker 5: effective it really can be. I understand it was started
Speaker 5: by Kristin and David Middleman, to geniuses in their own right,
Speaker 5: and you know you work closely with them. Can you
Speaker 5: tell me a little bit about who these two are.
Speaker 1: Kristin and David Middleman. They have been working in genetics
Speaker 1: for years. They actually met in grad school and started
Speaker 1: working together on projects. And they're actually also married and
Speaker 1: have a family, and they kind of spend all their
Speaker 1: time together and they're really devoted to this work. And
Speaker 1: essentially they had this background in genetics. I think David
Speaker 1: first started studying the genome project and then went on
Speaker 1: from there and they just felt that there was a
Speaker 1: hole that needed to be filled that they had ability
Speaker 1: to make this technology and not just study genetics, but
Speaker 1: actually use their knowledge of genetics to help people and
Speaker 1: families who are victims of horrible crimes. They're passionate about
Speaker 1: the fact that even there are so many unidentified human
Speaker 1: remains out there, you know, people who have passed away,
Speaker 1: and you know, to their families it's like they've disappeared.
Speaker 1: They don't know where they are, but the government hasn't
Speaker 1: even identified who they are, which is the first step
Speaker 1: in any investigation if it's a murder or something. And
Speaker 1: so basically they've made this their life's work and they
Speaker 1: literally are working all the time. Like I think I
Speaker 1: work hard, No, they work hard. They like live and
Speaker 1: breathe their science and just doing everything they can to
Speaker 1: make sure their science is at the most rigorous level.
Speaker 1: But then also they're trying to get the word out
Speaker 1: there and they're trying to help as many people as
Speaker 1: they can.
Speaker 4: Authroom specializes in forensic investing negative genetic genealogy, a cutting
Speaker 4: edge science that uses public genealogy databases to connect unknown
Speaker 4: DNA to profiles already uploaded by everyday people to help
Speaker 4: us break down what FIG is and how Authroom's approach
Speaker 4: differs from the traditional DNA testing done in most law
Speaker 4: enforcement labs. We brought in renowned expert doctor Gray Comikian.
Speaker 4: Doctor Hamikian is the founder of the Idaho Innocence Project
Speaker 4: and a former professor at Boise State University. He travels
Speaker 4: all over the world offering his forensic insight on complex
Speaker 4: criminal cases. He's joined by Katie Studios producer Alison Bankston.
Speaker 2: Investigative genetic genealogy is really a giant leap forward using
Speaker 2: some tools that have been around for a while. So
Speaker 2: the first tool, and I think the kind of novel
Speaker 2: thing that was brought into forensics, was the traditional genealogist
Speaker 2: folks who would work out a libraries and newspapers and
Speaker 2: court documents trying to construct family trees. And that was
Speaker 2: done before DNA was done, and was used in the
Speaker 2: courts principally to show who's related to who for the
Speaker 2: purposes of inheritance. Then with the advent of molecular biology
Speaker 2: and DNA sequencing in particular, we were able to combine
Speaker 2: two fields, my field, which is sequencing DNA and reading
Speaker 2: sequences or reading lengths of DNA, and these folks working
Speaker 2: newspapers and documents and all these great records from hundreds
Speaker 2: of years back. So what we're looking for is a
Speaker 2: long piece of DNA. We want to find the longest
Speaker 2: piece of DNA we can that the person of interest
Speaker 2: has in common with other people in the database. So
Speaker 2: if the person of interest is actually a piece of
Speaker 2: evidence from a crime seeing, the police will load that
Speaker 2: up into a database and treated as if it is
Speaker 2: a person looking for their true parents, you know, and
Speaker 2: orphan looking for their true parents, and the.
Speaker 5: DNA needs to be in a certain format, right you know.
Speaker 5: Most law enforcement agencies use the STR profile which stands
Speaker 5: for short tandem repeat and these types of profiles can
Speaker 5: be read through CODIS, whereas labs like AUTHROM, you know,
Speaker 5: they have the capability to convert these DNA samples into
Speaker 5: SNIP profiles which stands for single nuclear polymorphism profiles, and
Speaker 5: these types of SNIP profiles can be analyzed.
Speaker 6: Into genetic databases.
Speaker 5: Can you tell us a little bit about the differences
Speaker 5: between what most law enforcement crime labs use, which is
Speaker 5: STR and SNIP profiles which are needed for forensic investigative
Speaker 5: genetic genealogy.
Speaker 2: The chemistry is different, the machines are different, the software
Speaker 2: is different, and I think most importantly the mathematics is different.
Speaker 2: So in the case of the standard STRs, we're looking
Speaker 2: at the length of a piece of DNA, We're only
Speaker 2: going to look at about twenty three of those lengths,
Speaker 2: and it identifies a person. They allow us to differentiate
Speaker 2: from one person to another.
Speaker 5: Right, they can tell us if the person is male
Speaker 5: or female, and if it matches someone in codis, then great,
Speaker 5: you know there's your answer. But without a match, it's
Speaker 5: unfortunately not really going to get you anywhere.
Speaker 2: And the case of the snips, we're looking at hundreds
Speaker 2: of thousands of areas in someone's genome. There are three
Speaker 2: billion bases, so there's a lot of places you can choose,
Speaker 2: and we're reading the actual sequences the single nucleotide bases
Speaker 2: at particular areas.
Speaker 7: So it's a very much more information rich, detailed profile
Speaker 7: when you do a SNIP, and people are putting their
Speaker 7: DNA in these databases.
Speaker 5: Right and willingly, you know, in an effort to find
Speaker 5: more about their heritage. Sites like my family Tree, Jetmatch,
Speaker 5: my Heritage List goes.
Speaker 6: On for the types of sites these people are uploading to.
Speaker 2: And if we find a relative of someone who matches
Speaker 2: that the SNIP profile, police can investigate that family and
Speaker 2: then find the perpetrator. In this case. It's just a
Speaker 2: wonderful tool because when you have a great DNA fingerprint,
Speaker 2: and if they're not in the criminal database, they're not
Speaker 2: going to get caught, even though they leave tons of
Speaker 2: DNA behind. And now we can do that through fig
Speaker 2: forensic investigative genealogies because not those criminals, but their nice
Speaker 2: relatives have contributed DNA to public databases. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very exciting. It opens up a whole new area.
Speaker 4: Here's journalist American Crime Lab host and authroom insider Alien
Speaker 4: Lance Lesser.
Speaker 1: One other really exciting piece of this is also the
Speaker 1: technology at AUTHRM is really good at analyzing DNA that
Speaker 1: previously was thought to be unanalyzable. But what's cool is,
Speaker 1: you know, at a crime scene, it's not like a
Speaker 1: clean swab of a mouth the way you might get
Speaker 1: when you're sending in your DNA. It's often contaminated, it's degraded,
Speaker 1: it's been sitting out in the snow, in the rain,
Speaker 1: animals have interacted with it. Maybe there's plant DNA mixed
Speaker 1: up with the DNA. Maybe the victims. DNA is mixed
Speaker 1: up with the DNA and so quite often you're getting
Speaker 1: a really not so good sample to analyze in a
Speaker 1: lot of cold cases. And so this technology can handle
Speaker 1: that more degraded DNA than other technology has been able
Speaker 1: to do previously.
Speaker 6: That's amazing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've definitely heard that their major cold case solving pioneers,
Speaker 5: which is just so impressive. What are some examples of
Speaker 5: cases that really defy the odds? I think before you'd
Speaker 5: told me a little bit about the Carla Walker case
Speaker 5: being particularly impressive.
Speaker 6: Can you tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: The Carla Walker case happened years ago in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: and Carla Walker was a seventeen year old girl. She
Speaker 1: was a high school cheerleader, very like spunky, energetic, and
Speaker 1: the night of her Valentine's Day dance, she disappeared. She
Speaker 1: went to the dance with her boyfriend, Rodney, and later
Speaker 1: that night Rodney would later say that they were in
Speaker 1: a bowling alley parking lot after the dance doing you
Speaker 1: know what teenagers do, kind of sitting in their car
Speaker 1: kissing a little bit. Suddenly the door opened and they're
Speaker 1: at gunpoint with either one or two men and Rodney
Speaker 1: he had just been beaten across the face, but when
Speaker 1: he woke up, Carla was gone, and three days later
Speaker 1: they found her body in a cattle culvert just outside
Speaker 1: of the Fort Worth area. Anyway, through all this they
Speaker 1: just don't get enough evidence and the case goes cold
Speaker 1: for years and years and years. I do think it's
Speaker 1: a case that stayed alive in that community, like people
Speaker 1: always wondered what happened to Carla after years and years. Eventually,
Speaker 1: of course, DNA technology comes on the scene and they
Speaker 1: do luckily have some DNA preserved on Carlo's clothing, and
Speaker 1: eventually authroom here is about the case, David and Kristen
Speaker 1: and they get involved and they say, we think we
Speaker 1: can help solve this case. They did find just a
Speaker 1: little bit more DNA on her dress. It was just
Speaker 1: I think it was four nanograms, which is like the tiniest,
Speaker 1: tiniest amount, like just a matter of a handful of cells.
Speaker 1: It was also DNA mixed with other DNA, so again
Speaker 1: it's and it's also degraded. At this point, it's forty
Speaker 1: six years later, so this DNA has also just been
Speaker 1: like sitting around gradually degrading for all those years, but
Speaker 1: AUTHROAM says, we're confident we can get a result. So
Speaker 1: they do the testing, and they get a result, and
Speaker 1: they have a name, Glenn Samuel McCurley junior, and so
Speaker 1: police go and find him. They ask for DNA squad,
Speaker 1: which he eventually does, and they're able to check if he,
Speaker 1: in fact is the person who left this DNA the
Speaker 1: seman on Carlos dress and it is a match. And
Speaker 1: eventually Glenn Samuel L. McCurley Junior confessed, that is.
Speaker 5: Seriously so impressive forty six years later, very degraded DNA,
Speaker 5: only four nanograms of it. AUTHORAM is truly changing the
Speaker 5: world here.
Speaker 4: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 4: a moment. When the Idaho State Police Lab couldn't get
Speaker 4: a hit from COTIS on the DNA found on the
Speaker 4: knife sheath, investigators turned to David and Kristen Middleman at
Speaker 4: AUTHRM to see if they could process the sample using
Speaker 4: forensic investigative genetic genealogy, renowned for solving cold cases. This
Speaker 4: marked one of the very first active cases AUTHORM had
Speaker 4: been approached about. Here's journalist Alan Lance Lesser explaining how
Speaker 4: authoram handled this crucial sample.
Speaker 1: I think when they first were asked to come on,
Speaker 1: they were actually a little bit nervous, just because of
Speaker 1: how much attention was focused on it and because they
Speaker 1: typically have done kind of these older cold cases. But
Speaker 1: I think Kristen said when she thought about, we just
Speaker 1: have a duty to try to help. I mean, David
Speaker 1: and Kristen had a child at the time who was
Speaker 1: a sophomore in college, and they were like, what if
Speaker 1: something like this happened to our child, Like, we would
Speaker 1: absolutely want our technology to be used. So despite some
Speaker 1: kind of nerves around that, they jumped right in and
Speaker 1: they were able to get DNA from that sheath right
Speaker 1: at the snap, because you know, when you snap something,
Speaker 1: you like really have to pull at it. Because of that,
Speaker 1: there was actually quite a bit of DNA left behind.
Speaker 1: It was just like touch DNA. It was a very
Speaker 1: clean sample, which was comforting in that it wasn't mixed
Speaker 1: with other DNA and there was like a lot of it.
Speaker 1: So they run the tests, and it takes a little
Speaker 1: while to complete the tests, but initially the information they
Speaker 1: get from some kind of the preliminary testing is some
Speaker 1: basic kind of geographic information about the perpetrator. They find
Speaker 1: that it's someone likely of European heritage, of specifically Italian heritage,
Speaker 1: and that he probably is connected to kind of a
Speaker 1: multi generational family that lives in Pennsylvania. Actually, so they've
Speaker 1: got that kind of information going, which also is connected
Speaker 1: to the fact that the white Hyundai Elantra that's seen
Speaker 1: driving around the crime scene at around the time of
Speaker 1: the murders doesn't have a front license plate, which is
Speaker 1: common in Pennsylvania cars, and.
Speaker 5: That's such an important clue just even being able to
Speaker 5: whittle down the Lantras, you know, it was such a
Speaker 5: popular car. It still is. I think at some point
Speaker 5: I saw it was reported there are approximately twenty two
Speaker 5: thousand white Hondai Launtras.
Speaker 6: In the area. So if you can eliminate the vast.
Speaker 5: Majority of the i but only focus on ones with
Speaker 5: no front license plate, that's extremely helpful.
Speaker 1: That's that other connection there again to other evidence. Anyway, Eventually,
Speaker 1: once the testing is done, they eventually have a name,
Speaker 1: and it's Brian Coburger, and they call up the police
Speaker 1: and give them the name. And at first the police
Speaker 1: were so shocked they were almost thinking it was almost
Speaker 1: a joke. Because they had kept saying, give us a name,
Speaker 1: give us a name, that they almost thought it was
Speaker 1: like so ridiculous to get one specific name, because again,
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of investigators are used to codis,
Speaker 1: where like, if you don't get a match there, you're
Speaker 1: not going to get a name. So then they really
Speaker 1: let it absorb it and started their investigation and from
Speaker 1: there we're able, you know, to track down Brian Coburger
Speaker 1: and continue it from there.
Speaker 5: And forensic investigative genetic genealogy is just a lead generator.
Speaker 6: It is a means to a lead.
Speaker 5: It does not directly implicate you, which is something the
Speaker 5: prosecution was really trying to hoe in on last winter
Speaker 5: when the defense was trying to get the DNA evans
Speaker 5: thrown out. You know, they were saying it violet at
Speaker 5: privacy laws, that it wasn't effective and in theory, you know,
Speaker 5: I guess it's kind of scary to think that if
Speaker 5: you have a relative that uploads their DNA to a
Speaker 5: heritage site, and let's say your DNA is at a
Speaker 5: crime scene, you know, all of a sudden, your relative
Speaker 5: has implicated you in a crime, and you know, that
Speaker 5: is kind of a scary thing.
Speaker 6: To think about.
Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting how that I think is
Speaker 1: the first thought a lot of people have is it's
Speaker 1: kind of scary, like almost fearing like, well, I be
Speaker 1: caught for something. But I think it's like a comforting
Speaker 1: reminder to note, like that you're not committing these crimes,
Speaker 1: so you know what I mean, Like I almost want
Speaker 1: to say that to listeners sometimes because it's kind of
Speaker 1: like this new technology, it feels kind of scary, like
Speaker 1: anyone can be identified, but it's it's kind of like
Speaker 1: any other piece of evidence. If someone leaves a piece
Speaker 1: of evidence at a crime scene and they've like murdered someone, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would hope that they can use the evidence that's
Speaker 1: there to find out who did it and to stop
Speaker 1: them from continuing. So it's funny how we're so immediately
Speaker 1: protective of our own DNA, which I think is totally
Speaker 1: valid and correct, but I think the way it's being
Speaker 1: used is still fairly private, and we're finding killers here.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent, and for a FIG match to even matter,
Speaker 5: you have to have some other implicated evidence to even
Speaker 5: get a warrant. In the Coburger case, you know he
Speaker 5: had the white HOUNDAI lantra. He matched the physical description
Speaker 5: of the perpetrator that Dylan Morton's had describes scene in
Speaker 5: the night of the murders. You now, there's just a
Speaker 5: lot of different things that are piling up against him.
Speaker 5: And on top of having other evidence that links you
Speaker 5: to the crime, investigators also have to confirm a fig
Speaker 5: match with traditionals STR DNA testing STR is the old
Speaker 5: gold standard trod and true for matches, whereas forendsic investigative
Speaker 5: genetic genealogy, it's newer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, first, Brian Coberger had gone to his family's home
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, so they got some DNA from the garbage,
Speaker 1: which they had also seen Brian Coburger using gloves to
Speaker 1: take out garbage, which to me suggests he was being fair,
Speaker 1: very careful about DNA. He had actually studied criminology. He
Speaker 1: really knew what he was doing. He was really covering
Speaker 1: his tracks. But they were able to test DNA and
Speaker 1: it was his father's DNA because he was at the
Speaker 1: family's house. But then from there they were able to say,
Speaker 1: it's this close of a match, let's get a warrant
Speaker 1: to get Brian's DNA, and they were able to then
Speaker 1: match it up using the traditional str testing.
Speaker 5: Right, which directly matched him to the DNA in the
Speaker 5: knife sheath. Authoram's work is so impressive here because they
Speaker 5: truly helped defind Brian Coberger quickly. Now he wasn't in
Speaker 5: codis So imagine if the sample from the NiFe sheet
Speaker 5: didn't get sent in for forensic investigative genetic genealogy. I
Speaker 5: think about that often, you know, I'm glad that the
Speaker 5: signs is improving so much that we can catch people
Speaker 5: faster and get them off the street.
Speaker 4: Many have wondered what would have happened in the Brian
Speaker 4: Coburger case if the single source male DNA found on
Speaker 4: the knife sheath was never identified, especially since Coburger the
Speaker 4: CODA system. We ask legal analyst and former homicide prosecutor
Speaker 4: Jarrett Farentino for his thoughts on how this case could
Speaker 4: have played out without Authorm's assistance. He's joined by KAT
Speaker 4: Studio's producer Alison Bankston.
Speaker 3: I mean, what can you say the technology that Authrum utilized,
Speaker 3: the IgG technology in this case took it to a
Speaker 3: whole other level. We don't know that Brian Colberger would
Speaker 3: have ever been ultimately charged, or that investigators would have
Speaker 3: gotten sufficient probable cause to discover all of the evidence
Speaker 3: that eventually was found against him. We do know that
Speaker 3: IgG technology expedited identifying Brian Coolberger as the likely killer here.
Speaker 3: It expedited the probable cause determinations and took him into
Speaker 3: custody before he can hurt someone else. And it's him
Speaker 3: one in quintillion chance. This guy with his DNA is
Speaker 3: also driving a white HONDAEI Landra, his cell phone's hitting
Speaker 3: on those towers, he matches the physical description. All of
Speaker 3: those things just came to pass tremendously as the case
Speaker 3: was put together. If you don't have the DNA, can
Speaker 3: you get there? Remember they weren't just challenging the DNA.
Speaker 3: They were saying, number one, it was touched DNA. There's
Speaker 3: an issue with that, but really it was IgG DNA.
Speaker 3: It was a process employed. It's a novel process. It's
Speaker 3: not enough to get to probable cause. And if it isn't,
Speaker 3: what do you got. You have a largely circumstantial case
Speaker 3: against Brian Colberger.
Speaker 5: Without the DNA, is there more of a chance for
Speaker 5: reasonable doubts? Like let's say you're on the jury or
Speaker 5: going through trial. I feel like it probably would have
Speaker 5: been less of a slam dunk, But how much less
Speaker 5: of a slam dunk could have done if the DNA
Speaker 5: wasn't here.
Speaker 3: If it all got in front of a jury, your
Speaker 3: job at that point is to explain the circumstance away,
Speaker 3: and it's much easier if there's not a one and
Speaker 3: quintillion chance it's not your guy. You know, you could say, hey,
Speaker 3: a lot of phones were in that tower, hundreds of phones,
Speaker 3: if not thousands, over those days, and a lot of
Speaker 3: people drive a white Hondai Lauantra. You don't have DNA.
Speaker 3: Brian never confessed there's no blood in his car. I've
Speaker 3: prosecuted a lot of solely circumstantial cases. I've secured convictions
Speaker 3: on those cases. They're tougher, don't get me wrong, But
Speaker 3: I think you could have still prosecuted Brian Colberger for
Speaker 3: this crime, but it would have been a very different process.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like as a juror, and this is
Speaker 5: solely my opinion. I am definitely not an expert, but
Speaker 5: those points about the Launtra being such a popular car,
Speaker 5: that a cell phone was in the area, that he
Speaker 5: matches the description for me with the right experts up
Speaker 5: on the stand. All of that could have pretty easily
Speaker 5: been explained away, Like it's possible that without the DNA evidence,
Speaker 5: he would have gotten off or maybe never even gotten caught.
Speaker 3: And ultimately, remember it was the DNA that decision, the
Speaker 3: decision that it was coming in that led to the plague.
Speaker 3: So you cannot overstate the significance of Authorum's findings in
Speaker 3: this case. There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 5: This was authram's first live case, you know, active case
Speaker 5: for the used forensic investigative genealogy. Do you think courtrooms
Speaker 5: will start seeing more of this since you know there
Speaker 5: was success in the Coburger case.
Speaker 3: Absolutely so. When you have a case of this magnitude
Speaker 3: covered worldwide and a technology stands the rigors of the
Speaker 3: challenges that it was met with in Idaho by Coburger's
Speaker 3: defense team, it is a green light to prosecutors across
Speaker 3: the country. The law is based on other cases and
Speaker 3: the ability to argue it. Once that first impression is
Speaker 3: made and the decision is made, that case will be
Speaker 3: utilized across the country, maybe the world to argue IgG
Speaker 3: technology is sound and it stands the tests that are
Speaker 3: applied in corporate so yes, I think it will have
Speaker 3: a very, very big impact on convictions solving investigations. But
Speaker 3: at the same time, I think it's worth noting this
Speaker 3: type of technology has also led to the solving of
Speaker 3: cold cases. It's also led to the exoneration of people
Speaker 3: that have been wrongfully convicted. So it is a powerful
Speaker 3: tool to getting to the truth, whatever that is.
Speaker 4: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 4: a moment. Authroom Laboratories in the Woodlands, Texas, is revolutionizing
Speaker 4: how DNA evidence is used in courtrooms. What once began
Speaker 4: as a tool for genealogists tracing family heritage is now
Speaker 4: helping law enforcement a identify criminals with no prior records
Speaker 4: like never before. Without Authram, Justice for Madison, Mogen Kallie Gonzalvez,
Speaker 4: Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Shapin may have never come. It's
Speaker 4: a groundbreaking company that we're proud to feature. Joining us
Speaker 4: once again is journalist, authoram Insider and host of America's
Speaker 4: Crime Lab, Alan Lance Lesser, along with Katie's Studio's producer
Speaker 4: Alison Bankston.
Speaker 1: What's kind of cool to think about, but someone like
Speaker 1: Brian Coberger, who had again studied criminology, had even surveyed
Speaker 1: criminals about how they committed their crimes, presumably to get
Speaker 1: information for how to commit a crime successfully. For him,
Speaker 1: at least, that's what where my mind goes that why
Speaker 1: he was doing that. And to think he was so careful,
Speaker 1: I mean, he really didn't leave other evidence at the
Speaker 1: crime scene. It really was this knife sheath. And to
Speaker 1: think he was so careful and knowledgeable and yet he
Speaker 1: still did lead DNA. I almost feel like it's a
Speaker 1: psa to anyone considering committing a violent crime like in
Speaker 1: today's world, You're not going to get away with it.
Speaker 6: No, you're not not, even if you don't have a
Speaker 6: criminal record.
Speaker 1: And that's a comforting thing, a good message for people
Speaker 1: to know that even just having society know that it
Speaker 1: might reduce the amount of crimes like this.
Speaker 5: Throughout working on this then this podcast with off from
Speaker 5: you know, you kind of have a really cool in
Speaker 5: here with this most amazing company.
Speaker 6: What have you personally learned working so.
Speaker 5: Closely with them and establishing this relationship with them.
Speaker 1: I've just learned so much more about the technology. And
Speaker 1: also if people listen to our podcast America's Crime Lab,
Speaker 1: they will learn a lot more too, but also in
Speaker 1: an engaging way, learning about these cases and these stories
Speaker 1: and these people, and also being victim centered in that
Speaker 1: we talk to a lot of family members and relatives,
Speaker 1: close friends. And I think it's useful as I consume
Speaker 1: true crime media or you know, learn about cases in
Speaker 1: my environment to understand some of this technology and how
Speaker 1: can be used. And I think I've just been so
Speaker 1: struck by their process and it's kind of almost like
Speaker 1: given me hope in science, and I personally have been
Speaker 1: inspired by also their devotion to the work and how
Speaker 1: so many people at AUTHRAM do have some kind of
Speaker 1: personal connection, maybe they had a family member who experienced
Speaker 1: a violet crime or just have some kind of personal
Speaker 1: stake in these crimes. So I also think authrom is
Speaker 1: just full of people who are very committed to this mission. Really,
Speaker 1: I feel like our podcast focuses on so many dark things,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you're used to as well, But I
Speaker 1: think sometimes in that darkness you see these stories of
Speaker 1: human resilience, of people working for cases of people they
Speaker 1: don't even know, and being so determined, And I think
Speaker 1: that is also very uplifting to me on a personal level.
Speaker 1: Working on this show.
Speaker 5: What else can we expect from America's Crime Lab in
Speaker 5: the future, What can we look forward to as you
Speaker 5: guys continue to make podcast.
Speaker 1: Well, we're still coming out with episodes, so they're coming
Speaker 1: out every week. But we're just excited to be getting
Speaker 1: these stories out there and to be able to have
Speaker 1: this unique relationship with Authorm where we're really getting the
Speaker 1: insider view of like how does the lab work, how
Speaker 1: do they work these cases? And basically it's a look
Speaker 1: into authoram in a way that I think hasn't really
Speaker 1: happened before, and it's really exciting stuff.
Speaker 4: You can find Dalen's podcast, American Crime Lab on the
Speaker 4: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 4: and you can learn more about authorm's impressive work at
Speaker 4: authrum dot com. That's ot h r AM dot com.
Speaker 4: More on that next time. For more information on the
Speaker 4: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kt
Speaker 4: Underscore Studios. The Idaho Massacre is produced by Stephanie Leideger,
Speaker 4: Alison Bankston, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and
Speaker 4: sound design by Jeff Toois, Music by Jared Aston. The
Speaker 4: Idaho Masacre is a production of Katie's Studios and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.