Fox News’s Judge Jeanine Pirro, who previously served as a district attorney in New York, said Friday that sources revealed to her one of the pieces of evidence that were used to lead law enforcement officials to arrest a 28-year-old suspected of killing four college students in Idaho last month.
It had been more than a month since Kaylee GonCalves, 21; Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21, were murdered in their home on November 13. A SWAT team made the arrest some 2,400 miles from the crime scene in the Pocono Mountains in Monroe County, Pennsylvania.
“[M]y sources are telling me that there is genealogical DNA that was established in this case that led the police to this particular suspect,” Pirro said on the network. “So although that was, according to my sources who are very credible and reliable … if you try murder cases and especially murder cases that involve several victims, you understand that really the investigation begins now.”
“The issue is, what did he say? Who did he hang out with? When he was in school, did he talk about doing this kind of thing as a criminal justice major? He was interested in what the criminal was thinking when a criminal committed a violent crime,” she continued. “So there are all kinds of additional evidence that will be gathered at this point going forward.”
Pirro said that in a case like this, prosecutors will be investigating everything up until their closing statement during the trial. “And I’ve done it many times now as it relates to genealogical evidence — they literally can get evidence back to the 1800s,” she said.
“And so, they find out who were the relatives. Once they figure out who the suspect is, they then start to continue to investigate, spread out from Idaho to the car to Pennsylvania. And they populate with historical data,” she concluded. “So CODIS can give us that 30% solving of cases. But this genealogical DNA can give us a 90% chance of solving these cases. So in addition to what will be unequivocal evidence, they’re going to have all kinds of circumstantial evidence in addition to that evidence, which we will see when the affidavit is unsealed.”
Heavy.com reported that the suspect, who The Daily Wire is not naming in keeping with a policy to deprive mass killers of the notoriety they often crave, “once worked in part-time security for the Pleasant Valley School District in Pennsylvania.”
“These murders have shaken our community, and no arrest will ever bring back these young students,” Moscow Police Chief James Fry said at a press conference on Friday. “However, we do believe justice will be found through the criminal process.”