Last month, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced it had identified a suspect in the murders and sexual assaults of two local women. The bodies of 31-year-old Lori Ann Perera and 35-year-old Pearl Wilson Ingram were found between 1992 and 1994 along a two-mile stretch of East Charleston Boulevard, but at that time, the tools weren’t yet available to link the two crimes, much less identify possible suspects.
During a press conference at Metro headquarters, police credited a local group of philanthropists with helping to solve the crimes.
“Utilizing funds from the Vegas Justice League, the suspect’s DNA was ultimately sent to Othram [a forensic lab in The Woodlands, Texas] to assist us in identifying who that suspect was,” Lt. Jason Johansson said. “And they were ultimately able to preliminarily identify our suspect as Eddie George Snowden Jr.”
Ingram’s sister, Teresa Board, thanked police. “It’s been a long, long 28 years. But we thank you,” she said.
Perera’s eldest daughter, Desiree Copping, thanked cold case detectives, the Vegas Justice League and forensic genealogy for “bringing our family resolution after 30 long years. After so many years, our family never thought that we would have any sense of closure,” Copping said in a statement.
The Perera and Ingram cases marked the fifth and sixth cold cases solved by Metro with the assistance of the nonprofit Vegas Justice League, which funded special forensic tests and services from Othram. The league’s six members represent a diverse swath of the Vegas community, united by a drive to see cold cases resolved.
The league’s origin story stretches back to 2020, when Justin Woo, entrepreneur and founder of nonprofit crowdfunding charity Vegas Helps and a self-described “tech lover,” heard about a laboratory near Houston that was solving cases with new DNA technology.
“I approached Othram, offering to fully fund a case in Las Vegas,” he says. “They reached out to LVMPD and were given the Stephanie Isaacson case [by LVMPD]. Once that [was] solved, we funded seven additional cases to create the League.”
Lydia Ansel, a local musician and entertainer who shared Woo’s interest in community service and emerging technology, was convinced to “jump on board” in 2021, she says.
“Justin decided, instead of funding each case himself, ‘Why don’t I reach out to a few friends who might be interested in this kind of thing?’”
The league soon expanded to include Penny Chutima, restaurateur and managing partner of Lotus of Siam; Hezy Shaked, founder of Irvine-based clothing store Tillys, which has multiple locations in Southern Nevada; Craig Tann, owner of real estate agency Huntington & Ellis; and Greg Woods, president of Cirrus Aviation.
Through the group’s relationship with Othram, each case costs $5,000 to run forensic tests and services. “We started with them early on [and] they’ve committed to keeping that price for us. … They appreciate the charitable side of it,” Woo says.
Ansel says she has been amazed at some of the findings the league’s funding has enabled. “We’ve been having cases that are on a whole different level and incredibly scary—you know, people who’ve been serial killers,” she says, referencing three separate cases in which police identified a suspect connected to an additional cold case.
Since the league’s work began, Metro has uncovered suspects in a total of seven homicide cases spanning from 1979 to 1994.
Chutima says it “means a lot” to her, to help families get answers.
“I’m the type of person who needs to have an answer to everything … It never happened in my family, but to put myself in others’ shoes, it’s one of those things that you can never replace,” she says. “Especially if you don’t know how that person passed away … There’s so many questions, and these families are left with no answers. At least to know who did it, there’s more of an explanation.”
Genetic Genealogy
At last month’s Metro press conference, Johansson noted that Snowden’s criminal history indicated he lived in the Fresno area and several surrounding cities in California from the 1950s to the ‘70s. “[I] encourage the previous jurisdictions where he lived to review their cold cases for similar fact patterns,” Johansson added.
To identify Snowden as the suspect in the early ’90s murders of Perera and Ingram, detectives used genealogical investigation, a method that only recently has broken ground in forensics, and has “exploded over the last couple of years,” Metro Sgt. Matt Downing says.
The method utilizes DNA databases from platforms like Othram’s DNASolves, which allows people to voluntarily submit a sample of their DNA (via cheek swab) or upload their DNA profile from private ancestry sites like 23andMe. Those DNA profiles are then added to the DNASolves registry, which is “used exclusively to aid human identification investigations to help solve cases that otherwise would not be solved,” according to an FAQ page on DNASolves’ website.
Those profiles can then provide investigative leads when connected to law enforcement’s DNA profiles of unidentified suspects, stored primarily in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database.
Genetic genealogy gained heightened attention after its use led to the identification and 2018 arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, known as the Golden State Killer and believed to have committed at least 13 murders, dozens of rapes and more than a hundred burglaries in California between 1974 and 1986.
Downing, who oversees Metro’s cold case team, explains how the emergence of the method linked up with evidence homicide detectives had collected decades ago through autopsies and the scenes in which Perera and Ingram’s bodies were found.
“In 1992 [and] ’94, DNA was still really in its infancy,” Downing explains, “but we had always collected things, like sexual assault kits [and] serology [blood evidence] for different reasons. Those types of evidence collection translated well into later DNA technology.”
Fast forward to 2012. “As DNA became more robust, our agencies [went] through some of those cases [and] submitted [Perera and Ingram’s] cases for further DNA analysis, not knowing that they were even related,” Downing says. “They were able to develop a suspect profile on both of them; the profile was uploaded into CODIS; and those profiles hit on each other.”
The suspect’s DNA profile had been established, but with no identity, the cases sat for another decade before they could be solved using genealogical investigation.
“Further down the road, forensic genetic genealogy became kind of the hot method to use for DNA,” Downing says. “We took that one profile [and] sent that DNA extract over to Othram’s lab. … They developed a genealogical profile that they can use to compare to genealogical databases that they have access to. … From that point, they started obtaining matches and were able to determine how close of a family member that DNA is, to the matches.”
Based on the DNA matches and other public records, Othram produces a narrow list of leads, on which Las Vegas detectives can follow up.
“In this case, our suspect was deceased,” Downing says of Snowden. “So then, the next best opportunity for us was to get a hold of close family relatives … and we obtain a DNA sample from them and send that back for analysis. The labs are able to take that sample and tell us with relative certainty that this person is a relative of the suspect whose DNA we have.”
Investigators were able to obtain DNA from Snowden’s biological family with the assistance of the Fresno Police Department, Downing says. The sample ultimately identified Snowden as the suspect, after 30 years of uncertainty.
“When a suspect [is] deceased, we’re not exactly going to be able to exact justice,” Downing says. “There’s no arrests, no prosecution or anything like that. But, at the very least, the family gets a little closure from knowing that we’ve identified the person who did this to their loved one,” Downing says.
“They can have some closure knowing that it’s not just sitting, or the [suspect] is out there floating around.”
It is vital work, and it has not only drawn law enforcement and the local community into closer collaboration, but also created some wholly unexpected bonds. After a year of working together, Vegas Justice League members Ansel and Woo married in 2022.
“For two people who are very much into technology and helping the community … it’s been incredibly amazing to share that and to be part of that,” Ansel says. “For me … I fell into this, just seeing how much impact [this work] can bring to people.”
Community Support
The Perera and Ingram cases weren’t the first “double solve” in which the Vegas Justice League had a hand.
In the 1989 unsolved murder of 14-year-old Stephanie Isaacson—the league’s first-ever case—Othram used genome sequencing and genealogical investigation to help police identify a suspect, who had been arrested in connection with the murder of 24-year-old Nanette Vanderburg three years before Isaacson’s death, police say.
That time, Othram says, it set a record for solving a cold case with the least amount of DNA—the equivalent of about 15 human cells. “In a typical consumer DNA test, the collection kit will collect 750 to 1000 nanograms of DNA. The suspect in Stephanie Isaacson’s murder was identified using only 0.12 nanograms—a quantity that other labs and lab methods are not set up to handle,” Othram explains.
Ansel says that case gave the Vegas Justice League confidence it was on the right track. “By basically proving that Othram is a lab that can do work better than any other, we all got excited—local law enforcement, Othram, us, everyone,” she says.
Months after Metro announced the update in Isaacson’s case, the police announced that Othram’s services helped detectives identify a suspect in the 1979 murder and sexual assault of 16-year-old Kim Bryant. A month after that, police identified the same suspect in the 1983 murder of 22-year-old Diana Hanson.
In the 1980 murder of 25-year-old Sandra DiFelice, Othram’s DNA technology led detectives to identify suspect Paul Nuttall, 64. Nuttall was taken into custody in October 2022 “for arrest warrants issued for open murder with the use of a deadly weapon, sexual assault with the use of a deadly weapon and burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon,” according to Metro. In December, a district judge deemed Nuttall incompetent to stand trial.
Downing deems forensic genetic genealogy a “very effective method,” especially for cold cases in which very little DNA evidence is left over. It also can be used to identify the remains of homicide victims.
As it has emerged, genetic genealogy has raised concerns about consumer rights with regard to DNA databases and potential defamation of misidentified subjects. In 2019, the Department of Justice issued an interim policy to help law enforcement use the new method in a way that protects “privacy and civil liberties.”
Overall, Downing says more advancements in forensic technology will open up possibilities for solving more cases. Metro currently has more than 1,000 cold cases in its files, he adds.
“Even in the last 10 years, it has really leapt ahead,” he says. “[There] may be some cases where we tested what we could in 2012. … When we look at the technology we have in 2023, could it be helpful?”
Those advancements can take time to gain trust, trickle down to law enforcement agencies and become standard. That’s where Woo sees the Vegas Justice League swooping in to provide an assist.
“LVMPD has hundreds, maybe thousands of cold cases. … There’s so much work that’s required for them to get the DNA and get it out to the lab. That’s where we kind of come in and pick that up. We think that it gets the ball rolling a lot faster—being able to provide the leads [by] sponsoring that work,” Woo says.
“I think that what we’ve shown is kind of like a pilot: The program works. If you get your community [and] people together … you can gather the funds to help law enforcement in the local area to do good things.”
Ansel says “momentum is beginning to build” for the Vegas Justice League’s efforts. “Now, we have cases with the LVMPD, with North Las Vegas and two with Henderson. We just started working with the coroner’s office to identify Jane and John Does, and we have six cases with them.”
You don’t have to donate $5,000 to be a superhero, she adds. “Anyone can be a part of it [by giving] $10, $100 [or] whatever you want. Once that combines to $5,000, then we send it to Othram.”
And you can’t put a price on the peace of mind it can provide to Las Vegas families impacted by violent crimes, Woo says.
“I got to meet the parents of Stephanie Isaacson, and they said that they’ve cried every single day for the last 30-something years of their life,” he says. “They were so happy for that little bit of closure that we can provide to them.”
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