DNA and ancestry data used to solve the murder case of a 50-year-old Harvard student

The new DNA and pedigree techniques have solved a case of rape and murder after nearly 50 years, the Massachusetts authorities said Tuesday.

Investigators were able to associate a serial rapist with the murder of Jane Britton, a student at Harvard University in 1969, by linking old DNA evidence to a parent on Ancestry.com, Middlesex County District Attorney said Tuesday. , Marian Ryan, Marian.

"I am confident today about the murder of Jane Britton," Ryan told reporters.

Michael Sumpter, who was 54 when he died of cancer in 2001, was made aware of Britton's murder by the FBI's combined DNA index system and confirmed by a brother. discovered by a genealogical website. Sumpter's brother was cooperative and offered to give a needed DNA sample to a decisive match, Ryan said.

There is no indication that Sumpter and Britton had any ties to each other, apart from the fact that Sumpter was working about one and a half kilometers from Britton's apartment, One of the many stumbling blocks in the business. Another problem was that the investigators had only partial evidence of DNA, Ryan said.

"It's important to remember that DNA has not been used extensively in Massachusetts until about 27 years ago," Ryan told reporters.

Britton, a 23-year-old graduate student at the time of her death, was found by her boyfriend in her Cambridge apartment after missing an exam. Forensic scientists determined that Britton had been repeatedly raped and beaten by a blunt object after a party with her boyfriend and friends.

Investigators are now certain that Sumpter has snuck out the window and attacked Britton shortly after returning home. Sumpter died about a year after completing his jail term for a 1975 rape. Since his death, authorities have linked Sumpter to four more rapes, two of which also resulted in death.

The assassination of Britton is the oldest unresolved case that the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office has resolved to date, according to Ryan.