Hundreds more mysterious cases like that of the Somerton Man — along with murders and rapes — could be solved if Australian police forces more commonly combined forensic DNA results with ancestry databases, an expert says.
University of Newcastle forensic anthropologist and criminologist Xanthe Mallett says Australian police forces have been slow to embrace genetic genealogy technology, unlike in the United States, where the case of the Golden State Killer highlighted its potential back in 2018.
In the Somerton Man case, University of Adelaide professor Derek Abbott and American genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick compared DNA from hair without a root stuck in a plaster bust of the unnamed man's head with samples uploaded by millions of people around the world in online databases used to create family trees.
On Tuesday, they announced that they had identified the body of the man found on an Adelaide beach in 1948 as Carl "Charles" Webb, although the match still has to be formally confirmed by South Australia's coroner.
The pair connected DNA from the hair sample with a distant cousin in Victoria and then built out a family tree to find Mr Webb, whose date of death had never been identified.
This case had baffled police and online sleuths and was extra intriguing because of details like a slip of paper with the words "Tamam Shud" that was found on him, and a code later found in a book the paper had been torn from.
It is still not known how the Somerton Man died nor if anyone else was involved.
Call to follow US lead in comparing DNA
Police generally compare DNA they find at crime scenes with samples from parents, children or siblings — if victims or perpetrators have them — to solve crimes and identify bodies.
The Australian Federal Police said earlier this year that it would go ahead with using genetic genealogy techniques to identify bodies but not yet to solve crimes.
It can use information from the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database that is made of samples from convicted criminals, suspects, volunteers, missing people and unidentified bodies.
While some states have programs to use genetic genealogy DNA to identify bodies, the technique is rarely used to solve crimes.
Associate Professor Mallett said "possibly hundreds of cases" could be solved and bodies identified if the database was compared with online genetic databases.
Dr Mallett said the uptake of genetic genealogy in criminal cases "has been quite slow in Australia", in comparison to the US.
"Certainly, in the US, every week they're getting a cold case solved from investigative genetic genealogy," Dr Mallett said.
"If they don't get a cold case that's 30, 40, 50 years old every week they're a bit disappointed, so it's certainly something we could encourage the use of in Australia because I think, for cold cases, there's a fantastic utility."
Some cases that have been solved by police using genetic genealogy technology include the rape of two women in North Adelaide by Patrick Perkins and a murder in Queensland.
However, some ancestry websites never share DNA information with police, while others only do if users opt in to share their genetic information.
Dr Mallett said everyone she had spoken to would want their relatives to go to jail if they turned out to be a serial killer or rapist, even if it was through their DNA shared for a different purpose.
"Everybody — literally every body — deserves a name," she said.
"They have either been killed or died and their name has been lost and they deserve to get that back.
"If they have a family waiting for them, or not, that's not all that matters — every person needs to be treated with the equal respect and given their name back and their case solved if possible.
"And, certainly, if it's a murder then, if possible, somebody brought to justice so each one as important as the others and they might not have the interesting poetry or the codes and everything else that Somerton Man has that makes the case intriguing, but each one is a person and each one is as relevant as every other."
Breakthrough also in using poor samples
As well as the potential of using DNA of distant relatives to solve crimes and identify bodies, Professor Abbott said it was a "breakthrough in the world of forensics" by showing that a poor DNA sample like the one taken from the Somerton Man's cast could be combined with online databases and genealogy research to make a more-powerful tool for forensic investigators.
Professor Abbott said it had "enormous implications" around the world.
It had taken 11 years for enough DNA to be extracted from the hair.
"Basically, for any crime that goes on, no stone can ever be unturned now because the slightest fleck of skin or slightest piece of hair we can identify that person without anyone to match them to and, even if it's as old as 70 years," Professor Abbott said.
"So, for modern crimes that are done now, potentially this technology will be able to find out who they are very quickly."
SA Police said it was "cautiously optimistic" about the Somerton Man's identification.
"We look forward to the outcome of further DNA work to confirm the identification, which will ultimately be determined by [the] coroner," a spokesperson said.
