Swedish investigators have used genetic genealogy to make an arrest in a 16-year-old double-murder case, the Local Sweden reports.
In Linköping, Sweden, in 2004, an eight-year-old boy was stabbed and killed on his way to school and, a little while later, a 56-year-old woman walking to work was also stabbed and killed, it adds. According to the Local, the case confounded investigators as the victims, Mohammad Ammouri and Anna-Lena Svenson, had no known ties to each other, and while the killer left behind the knife along with blood and hair samples, the police had no suspects.
Swedish investigators recently turned to genetic genealogy in the case. "In a pilot project, the police in Linköping hired genealogists and used genealogy databases to track down the perpetrator," Sweden's Prosecution Authority says in a statement, according to the Local. It adds that the 37-year-old man who was arrested confessed.
As the Local notes, the double murder was one of the largest criminal investigations in Swedish history, only eclipsed by the assasination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. Investigators have also closed that case this week, homing in on the now-deceased Stig Engstrom, as the likely culprit through more traditional investigative approaches, as the New York Times reports.