After nearly 26 years, “Chelsea Jane Doe” was finally identified by her name this summer: Tiffany Bradley. The breakthrough closed a decades long search, bringing a long-awaited resolution to a mystery that had languished unsolved. The case was cracked using investigative genetic genealogy, a combination of DNA analysis and paper trail research that has been used over the past decade to reverse engineer a person’s identity. While the technique has typically been used to search for suspects, the same method is providing a voice to the hundreds of unnamed Jane and John Does nationwide like Bradley. “The fact that we are here today is a miracle,” Bradley’s niece Shakirah Wiggins said. “It is totally amazing that after 26 years, people care enough to give her a name and return her to her family.” Bradley, 16, was a joyful child with a radiant smile, her family said. She vanished in November 2000, the FBI said. Meanwhile, for decades in Chelsea, Massachusetts, roughly 300 miles away, investigators had only grim fragments of a case — the mutilated remains of a teenage girl discovered in a parking lot, just across the river from Boston, and a killer who admitted to strangling and dismembering her. The culprit was behind bars, but the victim’s identity remained out of reach, according to Chelsea police. The first clue in the case came decades later. Three years ago, a private forensic science company called Othram built a DNA profile for the murdered girl, but because of the condition her body parts were discovered in, the DNA was in “horrible condition,” David Mittelman, Othram founder and CEO, said. In a missing persons case, the first step is to identify viable DNA. Without that vital information, the case can’t be worked. Investigators combed through the DNA and paper trail genealogy research to fill gaps in Bradley’s family tree, from newspaper and social media records to genetic analysis. The FBI used the profile to put together a family tree. They matched Bradley with her brother, confirming the identity of the athletic, girly girl and giving her back her real name. ‘That really changed everything’ The mystery of “Chelsea Jane Doe” couldn’t have been solved until recently, thanks to advancements in technology and the growing number of people who are uploading DNA into public databases. For centuries, genealogists have used paper records to build family trees. A couple decades ago, genealogists began using DNA analysis to knock down “genealogical brick walls,” where paper trails stop, said CeCe Moore, co-founder of DNA Justice, a nonprofit organization that allows anyone to upload their genetic profile to their DNA database, serving as resource for law enforcement genetic genealogists. The identification of the Golden State Killer in 2018 was the first time a major public case had been solved through genetic genealogy, according to Moore. “That really changed everything,” Moore said. The FBI subsequently created an investigative genetic genealogy team after realizing they could solve more cases with those techniques, Moore said. This led to Bradley’s identification, along with dozens of others. The remains of a 10-week pregnant young woman were identified last month as 15-year-old Cheryl Lynn Edwards, who went missing about 50 years earlier, according to nonprofit DNA Doe Project. In 1975, her body was found in the Mississippi River near Clinton County, Iowa. She had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head, an autopsy found. Naming her “Jane Clinton Doe,” the Iowa Department of Public Safety took the case to the DNA Doe Project, a group of volunteer genetic genealogists. A team of 16 genealogists put their heads together to work the case over a weekend. Within hours, they identified a couple from Louisiana as the girl’s grandparents, the nonprofit said. They focused their research on the grandparents’ children, soon discovering their eldest son had a daughter who “vanished from the records in the 1970s,” Trish Bird, a volunteer genetic genealogist who worked on the case, told the DNA Doe Project. Iowa DPS made contact with a relative of Edwards and confirmed she had gone missing, according to the nonprofit. As part of the last step to cracking the cold case, direct DNA testing confirmed Edwards’ identity. In both Jane Doe cases, investigators relied on public DNA databases to reveal the true identities of the teenagers. ‘The system is overwhelmed’ When searching DNA samples, the FBI traditionally uses its Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which compares a DNA sample against all known offenders. In missing persons cases though, investigators can often hit a dead end. “Unless you have a suspect in mind, or you got a guess as to who the person is, or you get a lucky match in the database, these cases are unsolvable,” Othram founder Mittelman said. “So look at Tiffany (Bradley). How are you going to solve her case? She was found in 2000. She’s not a criminal, so why would she be in CODIS?” This is where public, open-source DNA databases come in. DNA Justice and GEDmatch allow people to upload their DNA profiles from the providers of DNA tests, like AncestryDNA, 23andMe and MyHeritage, for free. As a matter of policy, the large DNA test providers only release data to law enforcement agencies if they’re required to by court order or subpoena. To access data from GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA, though, law enforcement must pay a fee per case upload. Between lab fees, processing costs and getting DNA profiles, the DNA Doe Project advises agencies to budget up to $10,900 per case. “With reduced funding, agencies prioritize suspect-focused cold cases, leaving John and Jane Doe cases at the bottom of the list,” said Margaret Press, co-founder of the DNA Doe Project, chief operating officer of DNA Justice and a pioneer of investigative genetic genealogy. Funding from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System allowed the ball to roll on Edwards’ and Bradley’s cases, Moore said. There’s been more cross-state and international coordination. Still, over 15,000 active cases are yet to be solved in the NamUs database. Outstanding cases aren’t a failure on the part of investigators, Mittelman said. “There’s an overall infrastructure problem,” Mittelman said. “There’s massive underfunding and resourcing and prioritization of this problem.” “I think there are too many cases. The system is overwhelmed. We’ve got to do something different to just make this technology available more broadly.” A person’s background can also impact the DNA trail. There are fewer Black people in genealogical databases, Moore said. It’s also difficult to trace lineage within the population group. “The African American community is often more hesitant to assist law enforcement, especially by contributing their DNA or information about their families,” Moore said. And police are more likely to classify a missing Black person as a runaway, leaving the case unreported, Moore said. The paper trail also often falls short. If a family tree stretches before 1870, investigators are stopped by the “genealogical brick wall of slavery,” thanks to a lack of documented paper trails. Getting the ‘answers they deserve’ Moore is hopeful the field of investigative genetic genealogy will expand, allowing genealogists to solve more missing persons cases. “Now, families don’t need to wait years or decades to get answers out of their loved ones, because if we’re allowed to use genetic genealogy on that case early, we can provide answers,” she said. On June 3, authorities in Chelsea, including police, FBI and the district attorney’s office, announced “Chelsea Jane Doe” had finally been identified as Bradley, a teenager who loved to draw, dance and cheerlead. “Throughout the years, Tiffany’s family never gave up hope that one day they would learn the truth and have the answers they deserved …” said Chelsea Police Chief Keith Houghton, who was a lieutenant when Bradley’s body was discovered. “While nothing can undo the tragedy they have endured, we are grateful that after nearly 26 years they can finally have the closure they have been seeking.” “Throughout the years, Tiffany’s family never gave up hope that one day they would learn the truth and have the answers they deserved …” said Chelsea Police Chief Keith Houghton, who was a lieutenant when Bradley’s body was discovered. “While nothing can undo the tragedy they have endured, we are grateful that after nearly 26 years they can finally have the closure they have been seeking.” Her family, now with the knowledge of what happened to their girl, attended the news conference and thanked everyone involved for not abandoning Bradley’s memory to languish in a cold case storage room. “I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for not letting my baby be a box on a shelf,” Bradley’s aunt Janet Bradley-Knight said. “Thank you so much for letting us take her safely home.”
