30 years later, Carrie Kirchick
still remembers his eyes.
I never knew what he looked like,
other than I knew the color of his eyes.
In 1985, a man crawled through
her apartment door in North
Dallas and attacked her.
He came immediately to my
bedside and had me turn over,
and he wrapped what felt like a
leather strap around my wrist. She
says he sexually assaulted her
and then threatened to kill her.
Yeah, I was. Crying so bad and and
sobbing that it really bothered him.
And he had a gun to my head
and he said he would kill.
He would kill me if I wouldn't stop sobbing.
Eventually he left Kerry called
police and went to a hospital.
Medical professionals used a
rape kit to collect evidence,
including possible DNA.
Decades went by without
any idea who raped her. I
just knew that I would.
Until I took my last breath that
I would be searching for him.
At the time of her rape,
DNA testing wasn't around.
It wasn't until technology advanced
that law enforcement came up with
a national database called CODIS.
CODIS is where DNA profiles
are stored from crime scenes,
convicted offenders and missing persons.
So when police get DNA from a crime scene,
they run it through CODIS
looking for a match.
Dallas police ran the DNA
from Kerry's rape kit in
2003. There was
nothing in codes to match my perpetrator,
but what police did find was whoever
raped Kerry had raped three other
women in Dallas and two in Shreveport.
Still, years went by until forensic
genetic genealogy came along.
Michael Coble runs the DNA lab for UN
T's Health Science Center in Fort Worth.
When we use the genealogy, we're searching
databases to find individuals that share
a high proportion of their DNA with you.
In other words, genealogists use family
tree DNA connections and can match a
relative to a suspects DNA profile,
helping law enforcement identify
a potential lead. Randy White is
a Special Agent with the FBI we
take. That information.
And then we start doing coming through
publicly available records like we
would on another investigation and
trying to find connections where that
person could possibly have been at
the time or location of this offense.
To be clear, law enforcement
does not have access to databases
like 23 Andme or ancestry.com.
So if you've submitted saliva for
testing to one of those public sites,
your DNA profile will not be shared
with law enforcement unless you agree
it can be shared and uploaded to a
separate site used by law enforcement
we don't have access to.
Every database. That's.
That's not how it works.
It's only databases that
work with law enforcement.
Still, law enforcement has been
successful in matching some suspects
using the limited genealogy
databases available to them.
The technology has been a real
game changer for law enforcement.
In 2021, Kerry heard about forensic
genealogy and contacted DPD and the District
Attorney's office to try it on her case.
Layton Dantoni is the Dallas County
prosecutor that looks at cold cases. I
got an e-mail from a woman.
And she just kind of was telling
me this incredible case about
unsolved serial ****** in Dallas. So
he took the case to the FBI to run
a forensic genealogy profile which
is also called a snip profile. We
identified our suspect within 24 hours.
DNA pointed to this man,
David Thomas Hawkins.
But the match was just a lead.
They were able to put the
suspect under surveillance,
get some discarded trash.
The DNA profile from that
discarded trash was an exact
match to the six cases We knew
we had DNA on the four in Dallas,
the two in Shreveport and the
crime lab said it was a one in 10
trillion chance that it wasn't him.
Carrie took pictures on
the day she got the news.
This is the day
that David Thomas Hawkins was captured. This
was the morning.
Law enforcement police forensic genealogy
will help them solve not only cold cases,
but current cases where the suspects
DNA isn't in the CODIS database.
I think it's unquestionably
the biggest breakthrough and
investigative technique in my career,
and I think we're just at
the tip of the iceberg. But
the forensic genealogy is expensive and
most departments don't have the funds.
But soon, you and T's DNA lab will be
fully accredited to do forensic genealogy,
and law enforcement agencies will be
able to get the test done for free.
35 years. Yes,
Carrie Kirchick says she would never
have been able to confront her ******
in court without the technology.
I asked him to take off his mask.
I wanted to see his face. Then
she read a statement.
David Thomas Hawkins. My wish for
you is that you take your last
breath in prison and that
you burn in hell. Hawkins
was sentenced to life.
This is the most recent photo.
Carrie wanted to see it.
Same eyes, same monster.
That's what I see. I see a monster.
I didn't deserve that.
In Dallas, I'm Rebecca Lopez.