Y-STR proves to be evidential link
A MAN surnamed Gao has been convicted on raping and killing 11 females from 1988 to 2002 in Northwest China's Gansu province and North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, after admitting his guilt in court. He was sentenced to death on Friday. Beijing News comments:
Gao was seized in Gansu in 2016, 14 years after his last murder. Although justice has long arms, it was technology that played the crucial role in bringing him to justice.
The Gansu police had fingerprints and DNA samples from the crime scenes, but these were not enough to identify the culprit. And it was not until Y-STR testing was used - Y-STR refers to a short tandem repeat on the Y-chromosome, key genetic information for male, which can be used to track down familial relationships - that the police linked the murderer to a male criminal involved in a bribery case.
