It’s unclear how long that would have taken.

Although police recovered an ample sample from the snap on the sheath, Kohberger’s DNA wasn’t in the government’s Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, because he hadn’t been implicated in any prior crimes.

Confessed killer Bryan Kohberger sports a death stare in new prison mugshot. (The Idaho Department of Correction)

The investigative genetic genealogy helped investigators find him with the sample anyway. And it turned out to be a key part of their case. Jeff Nye, chief of the criminal division at the Idaho Attorney General’s Office who was tasked with arguing in court against Kohberger’s attempt to have the evidence tossed, told Fox News Digital last month that “everything hinged” on his performance in court that day.

He won. After Kohberger’s defense failed to have the DNA evidence tossed, he entered a surprise guilty plea in early July in order to avoid the potential death penalty.

Kristen Mittelman, Othram’s chief development officer, believes that the genealogy techniques should be applied to more cases. 

“We are advocating with the families to change that, to make sure that people have access to this real time so that people like Kohberger are caught before they commit that next crime,” she told Fox News Digital. “I’m certain that there’s someone at Thanksgiving with their family this year, last year, they wouldn’t be if Bryan Kohberger wasn’t caught in real time.”

Kohberger is serving four consecutive life sentences, plus another 10 years. He waived his right to appeal and to seek a future sentence reduction under Idaho law.