Barbara Rae-Venter

Barbara Rae-Venter (born July 17, 1948) is a New Zealand-born American genetic genealogist, biologist, and retired patent attorney best known for her work helping police and investigators identify Joseph James DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer.

After retirement from her law career, Rae-Venter started researching her family history as a hobby in an attempt to help a family member find his biological family. As part of this work, she was asked to help identify a woman who had been abducted as a child. Her efforts in this case eventually identified Terry Peder Rasmussen as the suspect in the Bear Brook murders in New Hampshire. In 2019 she was included in the Time 100 list of most influential people and in 2018 was recognized in Nature's 10, a list of "people who mattered" in science by the journal Nature. Barbara authored the book I Know Who You Are: How an amatueur DNA sleuth unmasked the Golden State Killer and changed crime fighting forever in 2023.

Early career Barbara Rae was born on July 17, 1948, in Auckland, New Zealand, and raised in Auckland's Remuera neighborhood. and has United States citizenship.

She matriculated at the University of Texas at Austin Law School in May 1983 and received her J.D. in August 1985. and was an assistant professor at Stanford University from 1988 to 1990.

Genetic genealogy The field of genetic genealogy was developed largely by volunteer family history hobbyists, and Rae-Venter realized that the techniques used to identify family members in adoption cases could have wider uses in law enforcement and the identification of suspects and victims of crime. Some law enforcement agencies were initially dismissive of the idea.

Rae-Venter's interest in genealogy began when she found a relative through a website for sharing family trees who was looking to identify his biological father.

Rae-Venter has been involved in solving several high-profile criminal cases, including the Bear Brook murders in New Hampshire and the Golden State Killer in California. In 2018, after her role in using genetics and genealogy to solve crimes became well-known, Rae-Venter was named in Nature's list of "10 People who Mattered this Year". She was recognized in the 2019 Time 100 list of most influential people.

Bear Brook murders

Rae-Venter's initial involvement with using publicly-available genetic databases and family trees to contribute to criminal investigations started in 2015, when she was asked to assist investigators in identifying the true identity of a woman who had been kidnapped as an infant. The case evolved to require 20,000 hours of work and a significant number of volunteers who were able to identify the woman's birth name and to put her in contact with one of her grandfathers. The identification of this woman led authorities to link her kidnapper to a series of murders in New Hampshire, known as the Bear Brook murders. In 2019, three of the victims of the Bear Brook murders were identified as 24 year-old Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch, and her daughters, Marie Elizabeth Vaughn (6 years old) and Sarah Lynn McWaters (1 year old).

Golden State Killer

Paul Holes, a forensic investigator, who had been working on the Golden State Killer case for decades, initially contacted Rae-Venter in March 2017 for her assistance in using genealogy to search for new leads in the case. In October 2017, Rae-Venter was contributing to the team attempting to identify the killer. Rae-Venter utilized GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA, and MyHeritage and provided structure to the team's genetic search efforts.

In the immediate aftermath of the arrest, Rae-Venter chose not to be publicly identified, out of fears for her personal safety.

Additional cases As one of the first public faces of genetic genealogy in law enforcement in the United States, Rae-Venter has been asked to consult on additional cases, and also to comment on the ethics of using shared community data for law enforcement purposes. She has also been one of the most sought after voices when ethical questions arise about the use of shared genetic data by law enforcement. At the conclusion of the Golden State Killer case, Rae-Venter discussed future cases that she was working on, including the "Boy in the Box" case in Pennsylvania.

Personal life In the late 1960s, while in Sydney, Australia, Rae-Venter met J. Craig Venter, a US Navy sailor on leave from the Vietnam War. They reunited while she was on a three-month hiking tour of Europe, and they were married in Geneva in 1968. They separated in 1980, and have one child. She married Joseph Elmer Huff III on September 21, 1981, divorcing in April 1983. Later in her career, Rae-Venter became involved in the Human Genome Project, sequencing the first copy of the human genome. In the course of her research into her own family tree, Rae-Venter identified a great uncle who worked as a police officer in London during the time Jack the Ripper was active.

Selected publications

I Know Who You Are. How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever. February 6, 2024