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DNA: ID

Rachael Johnson Part 2 of 2

DNA: ID

AbJack Entertainment

Society & Culture, True Crime

4.8871 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode 94 Rachael Johnson Part 2 of 2 

This is part 2 of the Rachael Johnson case. If you have not listened to part 1 yet, go back and listen to that part first. 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

In the summer of 2018, Caitlin received a Facebook message from a local web sleuth named Leslie, who had a loose connection to Rachel.

0:09.0

Her cousin attended middle and high school with Rachel and his ex-girlfriend was one of Rachel's friends.

0:15.0

Leslie encouraged Caitlin to start looking into her mother's case.

0:18.0

The two of them started reviewing the case file, sharing theories,

0:21.4

trying to drum up leads on the internet, and even did a podcast. Although they discussed the

0:26.7

concept that Rachel could have been the victim of a serial killer, or that Daniel Wilson,

0:31.5

cleared by DNA, had worked with an accomplice. Caitlin remained convinced that her mother's killer

0:37.0

was someone Rachel had known.

0:39.6

She contacted the Akron Police Department and requested a status update on the case and

0:44.2

was told that they had a complete male DNA profile.

0:48.1

Her inquiries helped prompt a familial DNA search of CODIS using the unknown suspect's DNA. Rachel's was one of just three Ohio

0:56.2

cases selected by the BCI for familial DNA testing in 2018. Unfortunately, a BCI lab report in March of

1:04.2

2019 stated that no male relatives were located in the database. It was time for forensic genealogy. Detective Pyshylich knew that he

1:15.1

had ample DNA to work with, so he pushed for funding to hire Parabon Nanolabs to do the genealogy.

1:21.2

Once he obtained approval to spend a limited number of funds, a SNIP profile was prepared by

1:26.1

Ocegen using sperm fraction sample from

1:29.0

Rachel's vaginal swabs.

1:31.2

It was provided to Parabon in March of 2019, and Parabon uploaded the sample and unfortunately

1:36.8

found only a small number of low-level matches.

1:40.8

Their report to the Akron PD indicated that the case did not meet their threshold for proceeding with the genealogy analysis.

1:48.2

In other words, based on the matches they were seeing, it wasn't a promising case and would cost the Akron Police Department a lot for the analysis to be done without guaranteed results.

1:59.2

So in July of 2019, Detective Fashilich decided to go forward with advanced DNA, an Ohio-based

...

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