Man maintains innocence in 1999 slayings

This combination of images from a 1999 flyer released by the Ozark (Ala.) Police Department, shows J.B. Beasley, left, and Tracie Hawlett, who were both murdered in July 1999. Alabama authorities say a DNA match found through a genealogy website has led to an arrest in the killings of the two teen girls nearly 20 years ago. Coley McCraney, of Dothan, was arrested Saturday, March 16, 2019, on rape and capital murder charges in the deaths of Hawlett and Beasley, according to Dale County jail records. (Ozark Police Department via AP)

OZARK, Ala. – The type of DNA analysis that led to the arrest of an Alabama truck driver and part-time preacher in two slayings nearly 20 years has become the latest trend in police work in many parts of the country, despite concerns over privacy and fairness.

Ozark Police last week arrested Coley McCraney, 45, in the 1999 killings of two teenage girls after developing him as a suspect by running crime scene DNA through an online genealogy database. Police said McCraney later voluntarily gave his DNA to investigators and the state crime lab matched it to the 1999 crime scene.

David Harrison, an attorney for McCraney, said Tuesday that McCraney "absolutely maintains his innocence" in the killings.

"And I expect him to testify in any trial, even if it's in a Walmart parking lot," Harrison said.

Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, both 17, disappeared after setting off for a party in southeastern Alabama on July 31, 1999. Their bodies were found the next day in the trunk of Beasley's black Mazda along a road in Ozark, a city of 19,000 people about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Montgomery. Each had been shot in the head.

The case sat without an arrest for years until the use of genetic genealogy.

Law enforcement interest in using genetic genealogy to crack cold cases took off after the highly publicized arrest of a suspect in the so-called Golden State serial killings in California last year.

A suspect in those cases was found by running crime-scene DNA through a genealogy database to find people, said CeCe Moore, chief genetic genealogist with Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs, which did the initial searches that eventually led to McCraney's arrest in Alabama after police heard of the technique. Parabon's work enabled police to charge McCraney with multiple counts of capital murder, including one accusing him of killing Beasley during a sexual assault. It's unclear what other evidence, if any, police might have against McCraney.

She said genetic genealogy can help provide answers for families in cold cases that have gone unsolved for years.

"The fact that we can finally provide those is just incredibly important," Moore said.

While investigators seeking new leads in cold cases are intrigued, others see red flags.

"There are huge privacy concerns," said Jennifer Friedman, a public defender in Los Angeles who has been involved in cases involving DNA since the late 1980s.

She said there are multiple problems with tying people to crimes using family genetic information, including the fact that most people probably wouldn't want a relative arrested based on their DNA sample.

Amy McGuire, a professor of biomedical ethics at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told The Associated Press last fall that police searches using DNA and genealogy websites have sometimes pointed to an incorrect person.

And directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers passed a resolution in 2013 opposing the use of familial DNA searches during criminal investigations. The board cited multiple concerns, including the possibility of incorrect matches caused by inadequate procedures.

To make matches, Moore said her company only uses a database to which people have uploaded their information voluntarily after being told it was subject to use in investigations.

She said only about a million people — out of an estimated 23 million who have taken a consumer DNA ancestry test — are in GEDMatch, the database used in the Alabama investigation. GEDMatch is a public genetic database repository to which people have uploaded profiles from at-home ancestry kits.

Moore said the same technique once was used to help adopted individuals search for birth families.

"Many of us that were working with adoptees and others of unknown parentage knew that the methodologies that we had created for that were applicable for law enforcement," she said. The California case helped "open the door" to work with law enforcement, she said.

The arrest was met with bittersweet relief by Hawlett's family who had doubted if an arrest would ever be made.

"We've been through pure hell the last 20 years," said Mike Roberts, Hawlett's stepfather.

"DNA don't lie. Let the DNA speak for itself," Roberts said.

But on the street where McCraney grew up in south Alabama, neighbors including 67-year-old Mattie Beaty expressed disbelief at his arrest.

"I tell you, that's a good child. A lot of stuff don't add up. I know they are holding back a lot ... but 20 years, and they are just now coming up with his DNA," Beaty said.

Moore said the company is now fielding calls for help in decades-old cases as interest grows in this technique. Since May, the company has helped provide law enforcement with identifications in 43 cases, she said.

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Associated Press writer Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed to this report.