cnn
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Melonie White was a young mother of a baby, a stylish fashionista and on an inspired search for a new career when her body was found strangled and lifeless.

White was 27 when hikers found her body near Lake Mead National Recreation Area, about 10 miles east of Las Vegas, on Aug. 27, 1994. Nearly 30 years to the day she was murdered, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department identified White’s alleged killer as Arthur Joseph Lavery using DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy. He died in 2021, according to police.

After White’s body was found, an autopsy ruled his cause of death homicide with evidence of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head, according to police. Police said they strangled her with a ligature, beat her and dragged her by car into the desert. At the time of the investigation, police tracked down multiple leads, but no suspect was ever identified. The case remained cold.

For decades, his grieving family was left with no answers and a devastating desire to know the truth.

In 2010, cold case detectives recovered additional items. and sent them for DNA testing, which led to the DNA profile of a suspicious man. But a suspect was not identified until 2021 with the help of the Las Vegas-based nonprofit. Justice League Las Vegas. The nonprofit organization paid the costs of sending the case to a laboratory that used DNA testing and genetic genealogy to successfully identify Lavery as the alleged killer.

Founded in 2020 by businessman Justin Woo, the Justice League of Las Vegas (and its national Project Justice initiative) has helped solve 41 cold cases across the country, including nine murders in Las Vegas. The initiative provides funding for forensic genetic genealogy, a law enforcement technique that uses DNA analysis and genealogical research to identify suspects in criminal cases or “Jane Doe” victims whose identities were never determined.

Funding for the cases comes from donations from the six members of the Justice League, including Woo and his wife, Lydia Ansel, as well as donations from the community. Once enough money is raised for a case, the nonprofit alerts authorities, who then send the case to a lab that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy like Othram, a Texas-based lab that works exclusively with law enforcement.

On August 26, 2024, about three years after law enforcement sent the case to Othram, White’s alleged killer was finally identified.

“It’s good to close this,” said Walter White, Melonie’s brother, in a press conference on October 22. “The effect of his death really devastated my mother. That was probably the most important thing for our family. “It was that my mom was absolutely destroyed, it took a long time for that to return to a normal situation.”

White’s other younger brother, Jason White, also spoke during the press conference and recalled the day he found out his sister had been killed. He was a student at Arizona State University and it was the Friday before starting his semester when he received the call that devastated his family.

“I just want to say how grateful we are to the officers of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for never giving up on the search for Melonie’s killer,” Jason White said while fighting back tears.

“We are very, very grateful for the contributions of the Justice League of Las Vegas, whose donation for police DNA testing allowed police to solve the case. “Melonie will always be missed and we believe the resolution of her murder will help bring some peace to her and all of us.”

Las Vegas Homicide Lt. Jason Johansson also thanked the Justice League for their “unwavering support in helping provide our community, friends and family” with assistance in solving the case investigations.

“It is your support that has directly led to the closure of nine cold cases that would never have been solved without your help,” Johansson said.

The Justice League of Las Vegas has also funded ongoing DNA testing for at least 82 other ongoing cases. It costs about $7,500 a box, Woo says, pointing to the million-dollar sequencing machines used for testing and the staff of geneticists and researchers who then help put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

“We firmly believe that every case will be solved, but sometimes it takes a long time, months or even years, with the investigation they are doing,” Ansel told CNN.

Investigators use genetic genealogy to solve cold cases by using suspicious DNA collected from crime scenes, analyzing it, and converting it into a raw data file. The suspect’s DNA file is then uploaded to databases such as GEDMatch, which are used by people who submit their DNA genetic testing kits to discover their ancestry and find relatives.

GEDMatch analyzes the suspect’s DNA data files and locates the people who uploaded their DNA data files to the website and are related to the suspect. A genetic genealogist then builds an extended family tree of the person who uploaded their DNA to try to locate where the suspect is on the family tree.

Investigators then collect DNA from extended family members until a relative’s DNA matches DNA found at the crime scene, leading to an arrest.

The powerful new forensic method has spread widely among law enforcement investigators in recent years. It has been used to solve some of the country’s most frustrating cold cases, most notably the arrest of Golden State Killer in 2018. Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested in 2018 in a suburb of Sacramento, California suspected of being the man who killed 12 people and raped more than 50 women in the 1970s and 1980s.

The idea for Vegas Justice League started when Woo heard about Othram and saw that they were crowdfunding cases. Woo decided to sponsor one, which ended up solving the case of Stephanie Isaacson, a 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped on her way to school, sexually assaulted and beaten to death in 1989.

“It started out just trying to help our local community,” Woo said. “When we did the first one, we didn’t know what was going to happen. It took seven months. But when we saw the results, the amount of impact we could have, we just couldn’t stop and made it our mission.”

The nonprofit’s work has not gone unnoticed. Justice League Las Vegas was presented with a key to the Las Vegas Strip in honor of their efforts to solve unsolved murder cases on October 30 in a ceremony also attended by the LVMPD.

Behind every unsolved murder case is a family that never stopped crying or longing for justice. While settling a case will not heal the deep wounds of your loss, it can provide a sense of closure. Ansel believes that is the goal they strive to achieve.

“It’s a mix of feelings that makes you feel devastated by the loss of your son, who will never come back,” Ansel said. “But then you feel gratitude because they got answers and some kind of closure to this nightmare that sometimes lasts 30 or 40 years.”