A genetic expert who helped crack Idaho killer Bryan Kohberger’s case says there’s still hope of building a DNA profile on the glove found near Nancy Guthrie’s Arizona home — even though the FBI came back with zero matches.
David Mittelman, CEO of Texas-based Othram, Inc., told the Daily Mail that investigators probing the 84-year-old’s kidnapping could use a technique called forensic-grade genome sequencing, which essentially builds a detailed profile that can be used in genealogical databases.
“It’s paramount to get answers as soon as possible. The DNA work has to be done as quickly as possible because it could take some time to investigate,” Mittelman warned.
It comes after authorities revealed Tuesday that the mystery DNA found on the glove discovered roughly 2 miles from Guthrie’s home in Tucson had come back with no hits in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, database.
While CODIS often only finds a complete match to a person or direct relative, Mittelman said genetic genealogy can help find matches dating back through generations of family trees.
The DNA sequencing his forensic company uses helped the FBI identify Kohberger as the killer in the Idaho college murders in 2022.
He stressed, though, that the genome sequencing needed to be done soon rather than later.
“In Kohberger’s case, the DNA profile was built in just a few days, but it took a few weeks to track it down, find the person, get the warrant, carry out a trash pull to get DNA for comparison and everything else. You don’t want any delays,” he said.
“When you have an active case like this, you have two investigative options,” Mittelman said of the Guthrie case.
“One is the visual stream from security and doorbell cameras. The other is the identity stream from DNA. So if there’s not anything uniquely identifying in the camera footage, then DNA becomes even more important. It’s your identity feed of all the people who were at that scene at some point in time, and that could include people who were involved in what happened to her and folk who might know something.”
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