Family tree helped ID man accused of sexually assaulting stepdaughter, CT cops say
A Connecticut man was arrested after police say forensic genetic genealogy helped determine that he impregnated his stepdaughter, who has intellectual disabilities.
The 49-year-old man, from New Haven, was booked into jail in connection with second-degree sexual assault, the North Haven Police Department said in an April 17 post on Facebook.
McClatchy News isn’t naming him to protect the identity of his stepdaughter.
The man’s attorney couldn’t immediately be reached April 17 by McClatchy News.
Police were contacted in January 2024 about a 23-year-old woman with intellectual disabilities who’d been sexually assaulted, per the release.
The woman’s mother took her to the hospital because of stomach pains, and “they learned the victim was pregnant,” police said.
When she was about six months along, the woman had a miscarriage, and a fetal tissue sample was taken, police said.
The state forensics lab was “able to isolate the paternal DNA,” but there were no matches in a national database, according to police.
Investigators then turned to forensic genetic genealogy, a practice that uses genealogy research coupled with analysis of DNA.
The Texas firm Othram helped in the work, which involved matching the baby’s father’s DNA “against those who willingly submitted their DNA to genealogy companies,” police said, listing 23andMe and Ancestry as examples. That yielded a partial match, and investigators completed a family tree and identified their suspect, police said.
The stepfather was arrested after DNA obtained through a warrant “was a match for the paternal DNA,” police said.
The police department called it “an extremely complex case,” thanking investigators and others who helped “provide justice for our victim.”
North Haven is about a 10-mile drive northeast of New Haven.
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