Church of England Approves Exhumation for DNA Purposes

In searching for DNA news, I found several articles about the Church of England approving an exhumation for DNA purposes to determine if the deceased was the person who committed the crimes his son was convicted of committing. Here are some of the articles:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-47172991;

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/eric-mckenna-rape-newcastle-dna-exhume-father-thomas-gateshead-northumbria-police-a8770251.html;

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/07/church-england-orders-remains-alleged-paedophile-exhumed-family/; and

https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/07/dead-mans-body-exhumed-see-committed-rapes-son-jail-8462782/.

From what I read, there isn’t enough information given to indicate if DNA testing of the deceased father will make a difference. In general, the DNA testing used in the U. S. by law enforcement is CODIS markers, 13 (phased out in the U. S. December 31, 2016), 20, or possibly 26 Y-DNA STR markers for rape cases. This is a different set of Y-DNA STR markers used by DNA companies like FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA) when they do Y-DNA STR marker testing (12, 25, 37, 67, or 111 Y-DNA STR markers). In the case of FTDNA Y-DNA testing using 12 – 111 STRs, you would expect an exact, or near exact, match of those markers between a father and son. I included a Wikipedia article below that shows what is used in the United Kingdom.

From the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) website: https://www.fbi.gov/services/laboratory/biometric-analysis/codis/codis-and-ndis-fact-sheet.

From the above link:

19. What are the CODIS core loci?

Effective January 1, 2017, the CODIS Core Loci include the following 20 loci:

• CSF1PO
• FGA
• THO1
• TPOX
• VWA
• D3S1358
• D5S818
• D7S820
• D8S1179
• D13S317
• D16S539
• D18S51
• D21S11
• D1S1656
• D2S441
• D2S1338
• D10S1248
• D12S391
• D19S433
• D22S1045

The Original CODIS Core Loci, required from October 1998 until December 31, 2016, included the following 13 loci:

• CSF1PO
• FGA
• THO1
• TPOX
• VWA
• D3S1358
• D5S818
• D7S820
• D8S1179
• D13S317
• D16S539
• D18S51
• D21S11

I don’t know how many or which DNA markers were used in the two cases since those occurred in the United Kingdom (U. K.).  It also isn’t clear if they used the method below which tests both sets of markers – those inherited from the mother and the father. If they did, then any argument it wasn’t the son is meaningless because the father would have different markers. Wikipedia article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_National_DNA_Database. You can wade through it and see what you think.

Only patterns of short tandem repeats are stored in the NDNAD – not a person’s full genomic sequence. Currently the ten loci of the SGM+ system are analysed, resulting in a string of 20 numbers, being two allele repeats from each of the ten loci. Amelogenin is used for a rapid test of a donor’s sex.

SGM+ designation* from Wikipedia article:

*SGM Plus differs from SGM in that SGM does not use the markers D3S1358, D16S539, D2S1338 and D19S433.

Locus Designation:
FGA
TH01
VWA
D2S1338
D3S1358
D8S1179
D16S539
D18S51
D19S433
D21S11
Amelogenin