Friendly, warm, and independent Viola Hagenkord, age 79, had moved to Anaheim, CA two years earlier to spend her golden years in a safe community near her family. Everyone in the apartment complex knew Viola, known as “Grandma” to some of her neighbors. It was a shock to everyone when the elderly lady was found raped and slain in her bed, having asphyxiated from a gag, her body beaten and bloodied. A break in at a nearby apartment led police to a suspect who would endure for decades, and there was a rash of rapes of elderly women in the area that police had to contend with. But it took forensic genealogy to point to Viola’s killer. And at his trial, the jury had to decide whether to believe his story, or what the evidence told them.

When a dismembered body was found in 3 suitcases along the Lehigh River in Carbon County in December, 1976, it began a decades long mystery. When investigators combed the area where the body had been found, they also discovered the body of a fetus; that of an almost full term baby girl.

An ME concluded that the body belonged to a young woman who was in her teens or early 20s, and that the baby found nearby was hers. The woman who was dubbed 'Beth Doe' had been shot and strangled prior to being dismembered, and according to the ME, it had happened just prior to the remains being discovered. With no ID to go on, police searched for missing women and girls who fit Beth Doe's description in PA and neighboring states, and despite clues to work with including very speicifc dental history, they came up empty.

In June 1981, the upscale town of Livermore, CA was shocked by the double murder of Thomas “Whitey” Green and his wife Alice in their posh home. Police had lots of avenues to investigate, since Whitey ran a very lucrative and very illegal sports betting business with real connections to organized crime, and there were rumors that he had piles of money buried in the back yard. Police even met with a self-professed hit man turned informant who was murdered that same day. In theory, there were innumerable suspects – but there was no prime suspect. Eventually forensic genealogy would uncover what police had missed – thanks to a preserved sexual assault kit and a block of moldy cheese.