Illustrations: Anson Chan

DNA Is Now Solving Decades-Old Newborn Killings

Genealogy databases are leading police to mothers who killed their babies

Emily Mullin
Future Human
Published in
13 min readDec 16, 2020

On May 15, 1988, two children were playing near a creek in Northern California’s sunny Castro Valley when they made a disturbing discovery. At the top of an embankment along the creek, they found a bag containing the body of a newborn baby boy. He was swaddled…

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Emily Mullin
Future Human

Former staff writer at Medium, where I covered biotech, genetics, and Covid-19 for OneZero, Future Human, Elemental, and the Coronavirus Blog.