Who is CeCe Moore? Discover the woman who has helped solve almost 300 cold cases using genetic genealogy. 

People.com

What started out as a hobby, tracing her own family's ancestry, has turned into a full-time rewarding career. And in 2010 when advances of DNA grew, Moore and a few other self-taught peers helped find relatives for people using their own DNA. Until that point, there was no such thing as a professional genetic genealogist. At the same time, she began her successful blog, Your Genetic Genealogist, and traveling around the country to teach genetic genealogy to people. people.com

Moore began working with law enforcement in 2018, and since that time she has helped solve almost 300 cold murder and rape cases. 

CeCe's first solved case happened when a detective from British Columbia had heard about her amazing work in genetic genealogy using DNA and contacted her about a case from 1987. 20-year-old Jay Cook, and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg were on a mission to picl up a furnace for Jay's dad, when they were brutally murdered. Jay was strangled and Tanya was raped and shot. The case went cold for 30 years, until CeCe took over. She said, "We got lucky, I found him in 2 hours." Moore gave the name William Talbot II to the police. They discovered he was a truck driver and began to follow him. While doing so, Talbot threw his coffee cup out the window and they their man by confirming that DNA off the cup with that from the crime scene. unsung science

CeCe is a self-made woman, who taught herself all she needed to know to go on to be one of the most revolutionary scientists of genealogy today. 

"Jane Doe" Identified as Missing Michigan Teenager Tammy Lowe

Tammy Lowe, an 18-year-old woman whose body was found burned behind an auto shop in Toledo, Ohio, June 19, 1987, has been identified using genetic genealogy.


38 years ago, a driver pulled off the interstate to investigate a fire he saw burning. He pulled up to an auto shop. The fire was behind the building and upon closer inspection he noticed it was a human body.


The coroner at the time said her teeth were so bad he couldn't get dental records to identify her. All they had to go on was her jeans, which were Jordache, and the pearl earrings she was wearing, five in each ear.


Because there was so little to go on, "Jane Doe" remained unidentified. They believed her death was homicide, but how she was killed was undetermined, and because they found cocaine in her system, that was what they put down as cause of death.


Over time, the police didn't give up trying to figure out who she was. Law enforcement continued to look at the missing persons reports of young women and even went so far as to create her face using clay reconstruction, to no avail. KBTX


In October, 2024 the Porchlight Project a local non-profit that helps Ohio with cold cases, offered to take on the case by offering to fund genetic genealogy DNA testing through Othram, a Texas-based company that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy. Tammy Lowe


Tammy's body was identified, but her case still remains unsolved. If you know anything about the death of Tammy Lowe, please contact:


Toledo Police Detective Bureau at 419-245-3142.

 

Chewing Gum and a Water Bottle Help Solve the 25-year-old Murder of Christy Mirack

When Christy Mirack didn't show up to teach her sixth grade class at Rohrerstown Elementary School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania December 21, 1992, her co-worker and principal got worried and drove over to her home to investigate. When he got there, he found Christy's body and ran next door to call 911. Mirack Murder 

Christy had been beaten, strangled and raped. Lying next to her body was a bloody cutting board used in her death. Christy's death was ruled a homicide by strangulation. DNA had been collected at the scene and was uploaded into the databases the police had at the time. 

After 24 years, the Lancaster County police took the DNA that had been collected at the scene and submitted it to a company called Parabon Nanolabs. The lab did the phenotype work and genetic genealogy of the DNA. Parabon's genealogist painstakingly pieced together the ancestral and genealogical data. On May 18, 2018, turned that information into the police, that showed a familial connection to the DNA, and that Raymond C. Strong was a strong possibility as the source of the unknown DNA.  https://lancastercountypa.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1185&ARC=1808

After a possible match was found, undercover police went to where Raymond C. Rowe, aka DJ Freez was playing music at a school dance. The police officers collected a water bottle and chewing gum, that were tested in the lab. The results came back as a match, and Raymond C. Rowe was arrested June 25, 2018, at his home. He pled guilty of rape and murder and will serve the rest of his life in prison. 

Christy's brother never gave up hope finding her killer, but the one question he will probably never get an answer to is, "Why?" https://lancastercountypa.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1338&ARC=1978