Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey (Image credit: Instagram)

Woody Harrelson finally responds to McConaughey’s claim that they could be brothers. The True Detective co-stars have been close friends for years, but a recent discovery may have revealed another connection between the two accomplished actors. Now actor Woody Harrelson has announced that he wants to take a DNA test to determine if he and Matthew McConaughey are half brothers.

When Harrelson appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the actor acknowledged the possibility that the two actors could be brothers, saying, “There’s some truth to that thought.” He also said, “We want to go and ( do a DNA test, but for him it’s a much bigger deal.” “I mean, he feels like he’s losing a father. But I think no, you’ll get another father and another brother.”

In an interview with Kelly Ripa last week, McConaughey revealed, “It’s a little bit harder for me because he’s asking me to take a chance and go, ‘Wait a minute, you’re telling me my dad might not be my dad of 53 years’ and believe in it? I’ve got a little more skin in it.”

The two will be reunited in the upcoming comedy Brother From Another Mother on Apple TV. Justin Theroux, who will star alongside Harrelson in the HBO series White House Plumbers, said in an interview that he wouldn’t be surprised if McConaughey and Harrelson turned out to be half brothers.

How did Harrelson and McConaughey meet?

Harrelson and McConaughey first met in 1997 while filming Ron Howard’s EDtv, although the exact time is unknown. He recalls first meeting Harrelson at a wardrobe fitting for EDtv in San Francisco, where the actor was “wearing cycling shorts and a professional cycling jersey and still has his professional cycling shoes on, in which he walks the streets of San Francisco .” McConaughey and Harrelson have since collaborated on the critically acclaimed police thriller series True Detective and the film Surfer, Dude.

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HOUSTON — Authorities say newly tested DNA evidence helped them make an arrest in the killings more than eight years ago of a family, including two boys, who were shot in their suburban Houston home.

Feng Lu, 58, who had long been considered a suspect in the case, was arrested on Sunday by police in San Francisco after his arrival from China, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

Lu has been charged with capital murder in the deaths of Maoye Sun and his wife Mei Xie and the couple’s two sons, 7-year-old Titus and 9-year-old Timothy, the sheriff said in a tweet on Tuesday.

Lu was being held Wednesday at a jail in San Mateo County, California, pending extradition to Texas. Court records did not list an attorney for Lu who could speak on his behalf.

The bodies of all four family members were found on Jan. 30, 2014, in their home in the Houston suburb of Cypress. All had been shot in the head. Investigators said Sun was last seen alive leaving work on Jan. 24.

Lu was linked to the killings after new forensic testing done in January on samples that previously were not able to be identified showed that Lu’s DNA was found on a purse that belonged to Xie, according to a probable cause affidavit.

The DNA testing contradicted statements Lu had made previously to investigators in which he had said he did not know Xie or her children and didn’t know where the family lived, according to the affidavit.

Authorities have not disclosed a motive for the killings, but according to the affidavit, Lu had unsuccessfully tried to get Sun’s help with a promotion at work. Both had worked at Cameron International, which provides products and services to oil and gas companies.

Lu “stated he believed that (Sun) made derogatory comments about him to fellow co-workers … which may have been the reason he did not get the promotion,” according to the affidavit.

Investigators say Lu had bought a handgun a week before the killings and then returned it five days after the killings without the weapon’s barrel. Authorities allege Lu gave inconsistent stories about what happened to the gun’s barrel. Investigators also allege that bullets Lu had bought with the gun had likely been manufactured on the same machine as the bullet that killed one of the boys, Titus.

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San Francisco Dist. atty Chesa Boudin, shown before his 2020 swearing-in ceremony, said Monday that San Francisco police have misused rape victims’ DNA evidence. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

San Francisco’s district attorney said police used a database with DNA collected from victims of rape and sexual assault to connect some of them to crimes.

Dist. atty Chesa Boudin said Monday that the San Francisco Police Department crime lab had been using the database to “attempt to subsequently incriminate” victims of rape and sexual assault in connection with unrelated cases, a practice he called “legally and ethically wrong.”

The district attorney called for an immediate end to the alleged practice, committed to working with police to address the allegations and urged changes to local and state laws, his office said in a statement.

“I am disturbed that victims who have the courage to undergo an invasive examination to help identify their perpetrators are being treated like criminals rather than supported as crime victims,” ​​Boudin said. “We should encourage survivors to come forward — not collect evidence to use against them in the future. This practice treats victims like evidence, not human beings.”

Boudin alleged DNA evidence collected from a rape victim was later used to identify and arrest her as a suspect in an unrelated crime, according to a police statement Monday.

A source with knowledge of the case told The Times on Tuesday that Boudin dismissed it due to a possible violation of the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The case involved a recent property crime, according to the district attorney’s office.

Police officials and Boudin’s office have largely kept mum about the specifics.

Neither police nor prosecutors would provide further details about the alleged property crime, including what specific kind of crime is suspected to have occurred and when it occurred.

Police spokespeople provided a statement issued Monday by Chief Bill Scott but declined to answer questions.

The chief said that if DNA collected from a victim of rape or sexual assault was used to identify and arrest a person as a suspect in another crime, he was “committed to ending the practice.”

Story continues

Existing DNA collection policies have been legally vetted and are in line with state and national forensic standards, Scott said.

“However, there are many important principles for which the San Francisco Police Department stands that go beyond state and national standards,” he said. “We have long embraced sanctuary for our undocumented immigrant communities, for example, and we years ago ended the practice of using condoms as evidence in prostitution cases.”

The chief said the department will immediately start reviewing DNA collection practices and policies and that he has consulted with San Francisco City Atty. David Chiu.

There is a possibility the suspect was identified through a DNA match to evidence in a “nonvictim DNA database,” Scott said.

But Boudin’s questions were “sufficiently concerning” that the chief said he asked his assistant chief of operations to conduct a thorough review.

“Whatever disagreements Dist. Atty. Boudin and I may have, we agree that this issue needs to be addressed,” Scott said. “At the end of the day, our respective departments exist to do justice for victims of crime. The last thing we should ever do is discourage their cooperation with us to accomplish that.”

State officials and organizations that work with victims of rape and sexual assault also spoke out Monday.

Pamela Tate, co-executive director of Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence, said the database cannot be considered a “blanket waiver” of victims’ rights to not self-incriminate.

“This type of misrepresentation will have a chilling effect on Black women and women of color in reporting crimes of sexual assault,” Tate said.

The legal system isn’t designed to support survivors of sexual violence, said KellyLou Densmore, director of the San Francisco Office of Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention.

“Many survivors already choose not to share their experiences, particularly transgender people and cisgender women of color, LGBT people and other marginalized groups who may distrust police and face other significant barriers to receiving support after sexual assault,” Densmore said.

Michael Risher, a civil rights attorney who works with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said the alleged practice violates victims’ privacy.

Federal law prohibits law enforcement from uploading sexual assault victims’ DNA samples into the national Combined DNA Index System, which is used to match DNA from crime scenes with samples taken from people convicted of or arrested for crimes, Risher said.

“Local agencies that maintain separate databases should follow this sensitive rule to ensure that victims’ DNA is not retained and used for unrelated purposes,” he said. “This is especially important for California law enforcement agencies like SFPD because, unlike the federal Constitution, the California Constitution expressly protects privacy rights and victims’ rights.”

After a sexual assault is reported, victims are asked to undergo an examination in which evidence is collected from bodily fluids, fingernail scrapings, and any bite or scratch marks, Boudin’s office said.

“The victim submits their own DNA sample in order to exclude DNA that comes from the victim, as opposed to the suspect,” according to the statement.

But research shows only a small percentage of victims go through sexual assault testing, an invasive and traumatic process for many survivors, prosecutors said.

“Victims of sexual assault consent to their DNA collection for this purpose, not so that their DNA will be retained in a local law enforcement database permanently to be searched years later,” prosecutors said. “Using victims’ DNA in order to potentially incriminate them in the future further dissuade sexual assault survivors from undergoing what is already a very difficult and emotional process.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen also condemned the alleged practice.

Wiener said he was working with Boudin’s office to address the issue with state legislation “if needed.”

Ronen said she asked Chiu to draft legislation to prevent any kind of evidence from a victim’s rape kit, including DNA, from being used for anything other than investigating that case.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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The post San Francisco DA criticizes use of sufferer DNA to search out suspects – PIX11 appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

From Libby Copeland

Home DNA testing has become a cultural phenomenon – with at least 37 million test kits sold in America – and the San Francisco Bay Area is central to its development, impact, and potential. Bay Area residents will have an unobstructed view as this industry evolves and raises profound questions about privacy, criminal justice, and the future of healthcare.

No home DNA tests were started in California. Its American origins began in 2000 when FamilyTreeDNA of Houston sent out its first testing kits for ancestry purposes. However, the field was changed 15 years ago with the formation of 23andMe in Sunnyvale, which from the beginning focused on the effects of home DNA testing on health and inherited traits. 23andMe is truly a Silicon Valley creation, with major early investments from Google, Genentech, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.

The field has been transformed again in the past few months by three major acquisitions: 23andMe announced that it will go public through a merger with a company founded by billionaire Richard Branson, valued at $ 3.5 billion. Blackstone completed the majority acquisition of Ancestry for $ 4.7 billion. And MyHeritage announced that it will be acquired by Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, for a reported value of $ 600 million.

Home DNA testing, which grew early in popularity as a product to assist amateur genealogists, turned into a bargain purchase and a popular Christmas gift for tens of millions of people eager to learn more about their heritage. But 23andMe is betting that the future of the industry lies in initiatives like new drug development on the health side. “We have always seen health as a much bigger opportunity,” said Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of the company, recently. According to Wojcicki, the COVID-19 pandemic reaffirmed 23andMe’s vision to advance health care, which has sparked a greater buzz in both disease prevention and pharmaceutical development.

However, the three recent acquisitions have revived questions about the privacy of sensitive genetic information when companies merge and change hands. Interesting questions also arise about the relationship between the home DNA tester and the information revealed by the test.

Consumers typically pay around $ 99 for parentage testing and more when health and parentage testing are bundled. The research that is based on this genetic data and information, voluntarily provided by consumers, can in turn be used to develop future therapeutics for diseases such as cancer. However, the tester who provided the critical data does not benefit from the lessons learned, leading some industry observers to describe the relationship between industry and consumers as deeply asymmetrical.

Clear ethical issues have arisen with the use of DNA test results at home in another area called the criminal justice system, and again here the numbers in the Bay Area play a prominent role. Paul Holes, at the time a cold investigator with the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, urged the use of consumer genetic information in the infamous Golden State Killer after years law enforcement databases failed to find a match for the killer’s crime scene DNA. The approach resulted in the arrest and conviction of Joseph James DeAngelo.

However, recent reports from the Los Angeles Times revealed that MyHeritage’s DNA database was used to solve the Golden State Killer case without the company’s knowledge or permission, and that FamilyTreeDNA granted database access to the FBI without telling its clients. Such revelations raise questions about the willingness and ability of some companies to protect at least the most sensitive information of their consumers.

Even the sheer number of people tested poses problems. According to Pew Research, more than 15% of American adults have had a mail-in DNA test. This has led to a tipping point – far more of us are potentially affected by this technology than actually tested. Because of the nature of family – our shared genetic segments and life together – people who are not in consumer genetic databases are still often identifiable by genetic relatives searching for them.

This has a myriad of effects. It has challenged promises about the anonymity of sperm donors, given adopters access to knowledge about their birth families, and resolved long-held family secrets, leading to widespread intergenerational billing. Millions of Americans have been affected by these revelations, leading to an increase in mental health professionals offering therapeutic support for a phenomenon that barely existed just 10 years ago – “misrepresented ancestry experiences” resulting from DNA testing of Surrender to consumers. This is a technology that touches our most intimate lives and represents great cultural changes that we will talk about in the decades to come.

Industry experts say privacy concerns, as well as the saturation of home DNA testing, explain why spit kit sales have slowed over the past two years, as so many Americans with genealogical interests have already used one or more services. However, 23andMe’s long-term focus has always been on health – medical research, pharmaceutical development, preventive intelligence – and the databases have already grown large as testing for ancestry purposes continues to grow in popularity.

The era of genetic reckoning is upon us, with all that it implies about the future of privacy, criminal justice, and health care. The Bay Area will no doubt be at the forefront of what’s to come, as it has been for years. To see the future of this extraordinary cultural phenomenon we only need, as they say, “to observe this space”.

Libby Copeland, an award-winning journalist and former media scholar at Stanford University, is the author of “The Lost Family: How DNA Tests Tell Who We Are”. The paperback edition will appear in June.

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