Edmonton man using genetic genealogy for finding birth parents, solving cold cases

Bradley Pierson, founder of Trouvay, helps Canadian police solve cold cases by matching crime scene DNA samples with volunteers’ DNA in databases. He sat down on CTV Morning Live to explain how genetic genealogy works, from finding birth parents to solving crimes.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

 

Kent Morrison: All you true crime lovers at home, listen up. Did you know an Edmonton entrepreneur is helping Canadian police solve cold cases using genetic genealogy? The company is called Trouvay, Bradley Pierson is the founder. He's the one doing the work to solve these cases. Bradley, this is fascinating stuff for a lot of people watching this in those true crime documentaries or on the news. How did you get started in this field?

Bradley Pierson: I started as a genealogist who helped people to find their birth parents. After solving about 100 of these cases, I realized I could solve cold cases using the exact same method.

Kent: Okay, so walk us through how it works. I think people have a rudimentary idea of how this works, but how do you use genealogy to eventually solve crimes and put people behind bars?

Bradley: Basically, people volunteer their DNA into two databases called jet match, or DNA Justice. They're little known, but people contribute their DNA, and then we upload a criminal sample, an unidentified human remain, and we use distant cousins to identify the person, usually third to sixth cousins.

Kent: Interesting. So all these sorts of things to help with family trees have really unlocked a whole map of people that otherwise wouldn't have been able to be found?

Bradley: Absolutely, hundreds of cases across the globe.

Kent: Okay, so you make this move from helping with parents and family trees to solving crimes. How do you get into that? How do you reach out to a police department and say, “Hey, I can help you.”

Bradley: Well, as a young man, it's a little scary, but I reached out. I said, “This is what we can do. It's new, but it works,” and we've helped solve some cases.

Kent: Can you tell us about some of the cases that you've solved so far?

Bradley: One of the cases that we can speak about is exciting, it's called the “Lake Huron John Doe.” In 2016, this man is biking and kayaking out from Alberta to Ontario. A reporter sees him, gets his story, and about a week later, he's found deceased in the Great Lake. So people are able to match him to this body, and he's even given a name, Mitchell Nelson, but when they look into Mitchell Nelson, there's no one, there's no Mitchell Nelson. Basically, we came in about seven years later, last year, and we started using this process, and pretty soon, we found his grandparents, and we noticed the last name Nelson was still there. So we identify him and long story short, his name was Garnet Michael Nelson.

Kent: So he had given the wrong name, which kind of threw everything off the scent.

Bradley: Or… the reporter heard him wrong. So close, but seven years later, his family was finally given closure about what happened.

Kent: That's a lot of what you do, is provide closure to families, because you've also been working with Indigenous communities as well, right?

Bradley: Absolutely. We go into communities that would like support with DNA testing, so that they can take DNA tests, find their biological families and contribute their DNA to help with missing and murdered Indigenous people or even residential school victims down the road.

Kent: Okay, so that's very interesting, because how far can this go back? We're talking about residential schools and grave sites that are maybe hundreds of years old. You can go back that far?

Bradley: They're solving cases in the States right now from similar situations like this, from about 1910. The technology potentially can go further (into the) past. As residential sites get exhumed, as communities decide they want to, we'll be able to help identify these victims.

Kent: That is fascinating work for somebody in his 20s to be taking all this on cutting edge stuff. Bradley, thanks so much for coming in. If you'd like to learn more about the work that Bradley does, you can visit his website at Trouvay.ca.