Murder In Moscow: Leah Larkin And the Affidavit Filed On Behalf Of Bryan Kohberger

Genetic genealogist Leah Larkin filed an affidavit on behalf of Bryan Kohberger’s defense in August 2023 to support the defense’s third motion to compel additional information about the investigative genetic genealogy, or IGG, work that helped lead authorities to Kohberger. Larkin explained how genetic genealogy works, distinguishing the SNP-based profiles used by consumer genealogy companies from traditional forensic STR testing, and stressed that genealogical matching is not a perfect or infallible science. She noted that relationship estimates can vary, poor-quality profiles can produce weak or misleading matches, and the process depends heavily on the quality of the underlying DNA data and the judgment of the genealogist constructing family trees. Her larger point was that the defense needed access to the underlying IGG records, searches, matches and methodology in order to independently evaluate how investigators moved from DNA recovered from the knife sheath to Kohberger as a suspect.

Larkin also focused heavily on privacy rules and the restrictions imposed by genealogy databases themselves. She explained that major services such as Ancestry, 23andMe and MyHeritage prohibited law-enforcement investigative genealogy searches, while only a limited number of databases permitted forensic genetic genealogy under specified conditions. She argued that, because investigators and genealogists largely operated on an “honor system” when complying with database terms of service and Department of Justice policy, the defense could not simply assume that every search conducted in Kohberger’s case had been authorized or properly performed. That concern later became especially significant as the defense challenged how the FBI conducted its IGG work and whether searches may have extended beyond databases or procedures permitted by company policies and DOJ guidelines. Larkin’s affidavit therefore was not an assertion that the sheath DNA itself did not belong to Kohberger; it was an argument that the investigative path used to identify him through genealogy deserved full disclosure and scrutiny before the defense could meaningfully test its legality and reliability.


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