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A California woman was ‘taken aback’ after homicide detectives claimed they had matched her 23andMe DNA test to a 1986 cold case murder.
Jacquleine ‘Jackie’ Vadurro, of Palm Springs, found herself ‘living in my own Dateline episode’ after San Diego cold case homicide detectives gave her a call to inform her that her DNA might match a woman who was brutally murdered in 1986.
‘Oh my God, guys, I’ve literally had the weirdest 48 hours of my life,’ Vadurro said in a January 20 TikTok. ‘Forty-eight hours ago, I was sitting at lunch, eating my salad, minding my own business, and I got a no-caller ID call on my phone and I was like: “That’s weird,” but I answered it anyways.’
On the other end of the phone, the detective told her that her ‘DNA might be a possible match’ to the woman who was fatally shot in the chest and thrown off a rural San Diego road. The woman had not been reported missing.
Detectives told her she was ‘ground zero’ in the case as her DNA was the closest match to Jane Doe’s.
‘I was just so taken aback,’ Vadurro told the New York Post.
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Jacquleine ‘Jackie’ Vadurro, of Palm Springs, found herself ‘living in my own Dateline episode’ after San Diego cold case homicide detectives gave her a call to inform her that her DNA might match a woman who was brutally murdered in 1986
Through her and her mother’s DNA, San Diego detectives were able to determine the Jane Doe was related to Vadurro on her mother’s side
‘Now they think that I might be her family member because of my DNA that I uploaded to 23andMe,’ Vadurro said in the TikTok. ‘First I thought it was scam, and I was like: “Oh my God, they’re going to like clone me, ya know, who wouldn’t want another one of me.” But then I looked into it and they sent me their credentials and everything and I called the homicide department.
‘They were legit. It was a real thing, super legit.’
Police departments do not have access to 23andMe data, but had connected Vadurro through a long-lost cousin whose DNA had already been in the GED Match system. In order for them to potentially match Vadurro to the case, she had to upload her 23andMe results into the system.
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Detectives told her she was ‘ground zero’ in the case as her DNA was the closest match to Jane Doe’s. ‘I was just so taken aback,’ Vadurro said
What detectives almost immediately found out was that Vadurro was a near-perfect match, being both Italian and Mexican and having ties to Jalisco, Mexico, on her mother’s side, where the victim was found.
Detectives would later determine the victim was from her mother’s side after Vadurro’s mom sent over her own DNA sample to police and told Vadurro that the victim was her second or third cousin.
‘They called me back within like 30 minutes and said: “Jackie, thank you so much. This is the biggest break we’ve gotten in this case in a whole year,”‘ Vadurro said in a follow-up video.
Vadurro was eating a salad in late-January when detectives called her to tell her she might be a match to the victim. Detectives have not yet been able to identify the victim or the murderer as they are still building out her mother’s family tree
San Diego detectives have invited Vadurro to Florida to go over the other ‘weird, interesting characters’ in her family, which the Californian wishes to go to
Vadurro told DailyMail.com on Friday that there is ‘no real progress yet’ and police have yet to identify the victim as they are still ‘combing through my family tree.’
However, they do believe the victim is connected to Vadurro’s mother’s great-grandfather’s family.
The number one match to the victim lives in New York, according to Vadurro, and she said the man wishes to buy the victim a headstone once she is identified.
She also said that police do not believe the victim was a ‘hooker or prostitute’ as she was ‘dressed really nice’ in a skirt and sandals when she was found in 1986. The victim was also described as having ‘long brown hair, brown eyes,’ and was said to be ‘very, very pretty.’ She was also between the ages of 25 and 30.
Despite still digging into Vadurro’s family tree, the San Diego detectives have invited Vadurro to Florida to go over the other ‘weird, interesting characters’ in her family, which the Californian wishes to go to.
At the moment, police have not identified the woman, nor the murderer in the 1986 case.
