The Woman Who Invented Cold Case DNA | Dr Colleen Fitzpatrick

She didn't stumble into cold case forensics: she invented it.

Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick is a nuclear physicist, former rocket scientist, and the founder of California-based Identifinders International, and she's the woman who pioneered the technique now known as forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Adam sits down with Colleen to trace her remarkable journey from laser science and space shuttle research to building family trees that catch killers, and hears how she cracked cases that had defeated generations of detectives, including the 20-year-old murder of teenager Sarah Yarborough and Australia's most enduring mystery, the Somerton Man.

Colleen pulls back the curtain on how FIG actually works, the limits of commercial DNA databases, and why the technology is only getting more powerful. And she and Adam share a fascinating conversation about a potential future project - using genetic genealogy to identify and repatriate human remains taken from colonial Zimbabwe, currently sitting nameless in British museums. If you've got a skeleton in your closet, Dr Colleen Fitzpatrick will find it.

Identifinders International Website: https://identifinders.com/

GEDmatch Website: https://www.gedmatch.com/

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