"suspects" in The Unsolved Murder of JonBenet Ramsey

Angela Siebke, 47 of Whitehall, Ohio, has been arrested and charged with First Degree Murder in the 1992 Baby April infant homicide.

On April 11th, 1992, the Moline Police Department was called to 17th Street Park (now Stoney Creek/YMCA Boathouse) in Moline in reference to a citizen who found a deceased infant in a bag along the shoreline. A man walking his dog near 17th Street and River Drive in Moline, spotted a trash bag floating along the banks of the Mississippi River. The man was able to pull the bag ashore and opened it to discover a dead female infant. The investigation revealed a full term, healthy baby girl who was named “Baby April” and later buried in Riverside Cemetery while the investigation continued. An autopsy conducted by the Rock Island County Coroner identified the cause of death as suffocation asphyxiation and hypothermia. No leads were developed at that time and no arrests were made in 1992. At the time, Moline Police conducted DNA blood typing, the first case of its kind in Illinois in 1992.

This case, and several infant deaths in the Quad Cities from the 1990s have seen extensive media coverage over the years. The Dispatch-Argus reported that from the beginning, the case resonated in a community which at that time had suffered far too many cases of child abuse. Reported by The Dispatch, “then-Moline Police Chief Steve Etheridge could have been speaking for us all when he declared, “The children of our community are not waste and should not be dumped anywhere.”

This case has been diligently worked by the Moline Police Department for many years, initially by Det. George Miklas (Ret) and Det. Mike Griffin. Through advancements in DNA technology, Moline Police obtained a DNA profile of the mother and pursued criminal charges against the unknown named mother. On December 15, 2014, then Rock Island County States Attorney John McGehee announced a First Degree Murder charge against “female contributor to human DNA profile P92-001627 Exhibit3B2.”(2014CF0990)

A warrant was issued for the arrest of a female possessing that DNA profile and was entered into a statewide database. If someone with that DNA profile was identified, the charge would be amended with the legal name of the individual. In November 2019, Moline Police Chief Darren Gault submitted a budget request to the City Council for expanded funding for cold case investigations. Spearheaded by Ald. Kevin Schoonmaker, a motion was then made by Ald. Sonia Berg and Ald. Mike Wendt and the council unanimously authorized funding for the 2020 fiscal year. In January 2020, Chief Gault authorized the Criminal Investigation Division to submit a genetic DNA profile to Parabon Nanolabs in Reston, Virginia to conduct DNA analysis on this case. Parabon Nanolabs provides a variety of DNA services to include Snapshot DNA Analysis to advance investigations when traditional DNA methods fail to produce a match. In April 2020, Parabon returned a Snapshot DNA report giving investigators new leads in the case. In June 2020, Moline Police continued pursuing DNA analysis with Parabon and obtained a Genetic Geneology Report with further leads in the case.

Genetic genealogy (GG) is a lead generation tool that can be used to identify human remains by tying DNA to a family or point to the likely identity of an individual whose DNA was found at a crime scene. Genealogists accomplish this through the use of comparative DNA analysis, which measures the amount of DNA that is shared between two people, combined with traditional genealogy research using historical records to infer relationships between individuals. Parabon only uses
publicly available GG databases, such as GEDmatch, with policies that users must agree to that allow law enforcement usage. Given these policies and the amount of press surrounding the Golden State Killer case and its use of genetic genealogy, Parabon believes that participants are now aware that these databases could be used for law enforcement purposes. It is important to note that such databases do not disclose or expose any raw genetic data; only the amount and chromosomal location of shared DNA segments can be seen.

Moline Police obtained a DNA profile of the mother and pursued criminal charges against the unknown named mother. On December 15, 2014, then Rock Island County States Attorney John McGehee announced a First Degree Murder charge against “female contributor to human DNA profile P92-001627 Exhibit3B2.”(2014CF0990)

then Rock Island County States Attorney John McGehee announced a First Degree Murder charge against “female contributor to human DNA profile P92-001627 Exhibit3B2