GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado cold case has been revived and a homicide suspect pinpointed with the use of a relatively new DNA technique that gathers information from ancestry databases, officials said.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office used genealogy databases to identify a suspect in the case of Margaret “Peggy” Beck, KMGH-TV reports.
Beck was sexually assaulted and strangled at a Girl Scout camp near Deckers in August 1963.
An arrest warrant was issued for James Raymond Taylor, who was in his 20s and living in Colorado at the time of Beck’s killing, officials announced Thursday.
Authorities do not know Taylor’s location or whether he is alive. He was last seen in Las Vegas in 1976 and would now be 80.
The genealogy method of tracing DNA came into use in recent years. The most notable case has been the April 2018 arrest of Joseph DeAngelo, the alleged “Golden State Killer” accused of killing and raping dozens of California residents decades ago.
Investigators in the Beck case developed a DNA profile that could be submitted to two ancestry databases, FamilyTreeDNA and GED Match.
The sheriff’s office also partnered with United Data Connect, a company specializing in genealogy testing founded by former Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey.
Taylor had a child in Colorado in the early 1960s and investigators were able to trace him to the Las Vegas area in 1976.
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