The Inside Story of the Advanced Forensic Technology That Helped Solve the Kohberger Case, w/ Othram CEO David Mittelman

Summary

MK True Crime: The Inside Story of the Advanced Forensic Technology That Helped Solve the Kohberger Case

Host: Phil Holloway
Guest: Dr. David Mittelman, CEO of Othram
Date: October 20, 2025

---

Overview

In this special episode of MK True Crime, host Phil Holloway interviews Dr. David Mittelman, CEO of forensic genetics company Othram. The episode explores the groundbreaking forensic technology and genetic genealogy methods used by Othram to solve both contemporary and decades-old crimes. A deep dive is provided into Othram’s pivotal role in the rapid identification of Brian Kohberger as the suspect in the Idaho college murders, the underlying science, issues of privacy and equity, and another remarkable case: the identification of "Little Miss Nobody" after more than 60 years. The conversation highlights both technological advances and their power to deliver long-awaited justice and closure.

---

Othram: Mission & Technology

[02:38–05:20]

• What Is Othram?
  Othram is a forensic genetic genealogy lab and technology company specializing in helping law enforcement agencies identify crime victims and perpetrators—from current cases to 200-year-old cold cases.
  • Quote: “We build technology that can bring certainty to investigations…[and] take cases that could take years or decades to solve and reduce them to very short investigations.” — David Mittelman, 02:38
• Origins & Purpose:
  Dr. Mittelman recounts his early work as a teenager with the Human Genome Project and the drive to leverage DNA advances for criminal justice, an area he saw as underserved compared to medicine and diagnostics.
  • Quote: “There’s this huge backlog—hundreds of thousands of cases…with some form of violence. The victim or the perpetrator or sometimes both are unknown. So, it was really important to us to build technology...in an area that’s also important, but substantially underserved.” — David Mittelman, 05:20

---

Forensic Grade Genome Sequencing Explained

[07:55–13:05]

• How is forensic DNA traditionally used?
  The FBI’s CODIS database uses STR (short tandem repeat) testing—examining only 20 DNA markers, matching suspects already in the system.
• Othram’s Innovation:
  Othram’s “forensic grade genome sequencing” analyzes about half a million markers—enabling linkages to distant relatives, not just individuals already in law enforcement databases.
  • Quote: “With half a million markers, you just have the ability to do a lot more. For example, you can measure very distant relationships.” — David Mittelman, 09:55
• Process Simplified:
  Genealogical profiles uploaded to third-party, opt-in databases (not commercial ones like 23andMe). Law enforcement uses distant familial matches to generate investigative leads—building family trees using software, then confirming leads with traditional tests.

---

Addressing Criticisms: Privacy, Consent, and Equity

[13:58–18:05]

• Equity Discussion:
  Mittelman emphasizes Othram’s mission for equitable outcomes regardless of agency size or resources; technology is scalable and cost-effective.
  • Quote: “Unsolved crime is a choice. We can choose to prioritize these cases...and we can get them solved.” — David Mittelman, 16:00
• Cost:
  Othram is “pennies on the dollar” compared to traditional investigations.
• Consent and Privacy:
  Othram’s databases are entirely opt-in. Only profiles from users who have intentionally given consent are used for forensic searches.
  • Quote: “We certainly wouldn’t advocate pressuring anyone to do something they don’t want to do.” — David Mittelman, 17:52

---

The Kohberger Case: Step-by-Step Breakdown

[19:06–27:14]

How Othram Got the Case

• After Idaho police exhausted CODIS without a match, they contacted Othram for rapid assistance. The urgency: “They literally sent people to hand deliver the DNA evidence to our facility.” — David Mittelman, 20:38
• Within days, Othram generated a usable genetic profile—helping investigators leapfrog 19,000 unproductive tips.

Addressing Public Myths: The Knife Sheath DNA

[22:37–24:18]

• Contrary to reports, there was plenty of DNA; Othram handled far smaller samples in other cases.
  • Quote: “This case had about 500 times more DNA than the typical case Othram has been successful with.” — David Mittelman, 23:49
• The knife sheath DNA was from a single male—no complex mixture.

Confirming the Suspect

• After genealogical research pointed to the Kohberger family, police performed a trash pull in Pennsylvania, obtaining a DNA sample from Kohberger’s father.
• CODIS matched a parent-child relationship to the crime scene DNA.
• Final step: direct swab of Brian Kohberger after arrest confirmed the match to the crime scene DNA.
  • Quote: “What’s magical about this process is that you have different methods executed by different labs and different teams, and they all arrive at the same answer.” — David Mittelman, 26:20

Reflections on the Guilty Plea

[27:14–28:45]

• Mittelman felt relief for the families, who had endured years of uncertainty and public speculation. He values court scrutiny of Othram’s methods for broader adoption.
  • Quote: “We love at Othram that we don’t just help law enforcement solve cases, we go defend them in court…so we were relieved and happy for the families because they are, of course, the top priority.” — David Mittelman, 27:27

---

Case Highlight: “Little Miss Nobody” – Oldest Cases, Newest Tools

[28:45–34:00]

• Case Overview:
  In 1960, the remains of a girl found in Arizona could not be identified—dubbed “Little Miss Nobody.” Early suspicions linked her to an abducted girl, Sharon Lee Gallegos, but outdated forensic methods repeatedly gave conflicting answers for decades.
• Othram’s Role:
  Othram came in after all funding and prior methods were exhausted, rapidly raising support through local media and solving the case in weeks with its advanced DNA technology.
  • Quote: “Uncertainty, in my opinion, is a real enemy of criminal justice. And there are few cases that exemplify that more than this.” — David Mittelman, 29:26
• Resolution:
  The girl was in fact Sharon Lee Gallegos, abducted from New Mexico. The case’s closure after over 60 years provided her family—and community—with long-awaited answers and peace.
  • Quote: "It took us literally weeks to do the work...Sharon’s case was very straightforward and with a little bit of correct testing, it took us weeks to confirm the result." – David Mittelman, 32:08

---

Key Themes & Takeaways

• Scientific Certainty Changes Justice:
  Othram’s advanced DNA techniques break through both decades-old cold cases and high-profile contemporary crimes—transforming the pace and accuracy of criminal investigations.
• Justice Should Be Equitable:
  The technology’s cost-effectiveness and scalability mean that large and small agencies alike can solve cases, provided investment and leadership.
• Consent, Privacy, Defense:
  Othram’s methods use only fully consented data and are designed to stand up to legal scrutiny and public trust tests.

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “With half a million markers, you just have the ability to do a lot more.” — David Mittelman, on Othram’s genome sequencing (09:55)
• “Unsolved crime is a choice. We can choose to prioritize these cases...” — David Mittelman, on justice as a collective decision (16:00)
• “This case had about 500 times more DNA than the typical case Othram has been successful with.” — David Mittelman, dispelling myths about the Kohberger case evidence (23:49)
• “We sure as heck would never advocate pressuring anyone to do something they don’t want to do.” — David Mittelman, on privacy and consent (17:52)
• “What’s magical about this process is...all arrive at the same answer.” — David Mittelman, on cross-validation of forensic methods (26:20)
• “Uncertainty...is a real enemy of criminal justice.” — David Mittelman, on the “Little Miss Nobody” case (29:26)

---

Final Thoughts

This episode reveals the transformative potential of modern forensic genetics in delivering swift, accurate, and equitable justice. From headline-grabbing contemporary cases to victims long forgotten by official systems, Othram’s work is driven by technology, compassion, and a quest to replace uncertainty with answers—changing lives and communities in the process.

---

For further listening, check out Othram’s own “America’s Crime Lab” podcast.

Transcript

[Alec Murdoch]

Are you a parent looking for an independent, flexible and tuition free school in Oregon? Evergreen Virtual Academy offers a dynamic and tuition free public education with Oregon certified teachers for PK through 12th grade students. Your student gets a laptop, live class sessions and the ability to chart their own unique path. Plus in person events and social activities all year. When school has no walls, learning has no limits. Learn more and enroll now. Evergreen Virtual Academy evergreenvirtual.org this is Alec Murdoch.

[David Mittleman]

I need police and an ambulance immediately.

[Podcast Narrator]

Murdoch Death in the Family Official Podcast is here. I'm joining Patricia Arquette, Jason Clark and the cast to uncover all things Murdoch family first. To unravel the story piece by piece was really surprising because you don't want to believe it. Murdoch Death in the Family Official Podcast Wednesdays and stream Murdoch Death in the Family on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

[Commercial Announcer]

Foreign.

[Phil Holloway]

Welcome to a very special bonus episode of MK True Crime. I'm Phil Holloway. I'm a criminal lawyer, I'm a former prosecutor and I'm an ex cop. I have been in and around the justice system for the better part of 40 years and over that 40 years, if I have seen anything that has made a tremendous change in the justice system, it is the advancement of DNA technology. Today we bring you a fascinating interview with one of the people crucial in identifying Brian Kohberger as the suspect in the horrific murders of four innocent college students in 2022, Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Ethan Chapin, and Zana Kernodle. When Idaho police hit a wall identifying the DNA left at the scene, they turned to David Mittleman, the CEO of Forensic Lab Othram. Othram is a forensic genetic genealogy lab based in the Woodlands, Texas that specializes in solving cold cases for law enforcement agencies. Welcome to the program, David. I appreciate you sharing part of your day and coming in here to explain all this to us. I'm a little jealous because I went to law school out in Texas and I got to tell you, that's where you're, you're close to Houston where I went to school. And I'm jealous because of all the barbecue that you get that I don't get. But anyway, thank you so much for coming here. I wanted to start with telling us about Othram, what it is that you and your team do and what about the science behind what you do.

[David Mittleman]

So Othram, we're a lab. We also build technology and software that can help advance investigations through digital forensics. So we're interested in the DNA forensics side through the lab and digital forensics. And we're interested in building technology that can bring certainty to investigations. So one of the biggest challenges in criminal justice is trying to figure out what happened at a crime scene, who was involved, and anything we can do to provide scientific certainty and to provide, you know, facts. These go a long way in helping investigators take cases that could take years or decades to solve and reduce them to very short investigations.

[Phil Holloway]

Well, yeah, I mean, in the, in the Coburger case, which we're going to dive into more. That was really, really quick. I mean, a lot of your cases, I was in my show prep, I was reading about a lot of cold cases that you guys have been involved in and we'll talk about that more later. But this was not exactly a cold case. This was something that was hot and it needed to be solved quickly. Am I getting that right?

[David Mittleman]

That's right. We work a lot of contemporary cases, this case being one of them. We've worked others as well. And then we've worked cases that are very old, some as old as 200 years.

[Phil Holloway]

Oh, man. Well, let's start at the beginning. I understand that the name Othram, which is the name of your company in your lab, there's a special meaning behind that name. What? What is it?

[David Mittleman]

Oh, Othram, in the Lord of the Rings kind of folklore, is the wall that lines the city and it protects the city from outside threats. And so there's a bit of an analogy. There's figuratively speaking in that we build technology that's designed to help improve public safety.

[Phil Holloway]

Well, it's certainly a great tool. I was reading that you at the age of, I think, was it 15 that you became that you were part of the Human Genome Project. Is that right?

[David Mittleman]

Yeah, I got an early start in the Human Genome Project. I was in high school and reading about this massive effort from the government to figure out through public and private partnerships where all the DNA markers are in our genomes. And it was a fascinating project. It was like imagine Google Maps, but instead of locations, it's information within your DNA. And so that caught my attention at an early age and I was very excited to contribute to that project and have pretty much spent my life since working on ways to use information from the DNA to make the world a better place.

[Phil Holloway]

Well, that's fascinating. At the age of 15, truly remarkable. Fast forward to, I guess, more recent history and tell us why you decided to create Othram.

[David Mittleman]

Well, you know, there are a lot of well known applications of DNA testing in Other areas like biomedicine and in diagnostics and those applications have taken off and done wonderful things for people. But there's an equally important area for the world which is criminal justice. And there's this growing number of cases that have been unsolved. If you look a few months ago, the New York Times wrote a story on this, it was in early July and they basically say there's a coin flips toss that, you know, if you murder someone you'll be identified, which sounds terrible. And if you don't murder them, you just physically assault them or sexually assault them, then there's like I think a 70% chance that you won't be identified. And on top of that there are these accumulating numbers of human remains, people that die usually at the hand of someone else and they remain unidentified. So there's this huge backlog, hundreds of thousands of cases in this country alone that involve some form of violence. And the victim or the perpetrator or sometimes both, are unknown. And so with the low solve rate and the continuing accumulation of these cases, it's just a growing disaster. And so it was really important to us to build technology leveraging from what others have been able to do in other industries adjacent like medicine and healthcare, to leverage this technology in an area that's also important, but in my opinion, substantially underserved. There just wasn't really anyone working and there still aren't a lot of folks working on the technology improvements in criminal justice. So there's an entire team of us, my wife and I, you know, we started this, this, this movement and then have recruited since lots of other folks. Our company is now just over 90 individuals, all from different walks of life, all with different skill sets, from computer science to, you know, research. Some of them are really great in the lab. And this team has all come together with their own unique skill sets and capabilities, all united on the common mission of being able to bring value in an investigation. A lot of the folks that are at OTHRAM have had a personal experience with crime or someone in their family has and they really understand the deficit right now that exists in being able to provide answers to victims, to their families, to their friends and to the community at large. So lots of different skill sets, but all united on this common mission to make the world a better place again by bringing this kind of technology into criminal justice.

[Phil Holloway]

Well, speaking of this kind of technology, and you're going to please correct me if I get any of this wrong because I, you know, you know, this stuff, this is not My field, it's yours. So I'm going to do the best I can. But can you explain to our audience what forensic grade genome sequencing is? I understand that's a. Well, it's something that you have trademarked. So what is that all about?

[Commercial Announcer]

Sure.

[David Mittleman]

Just to give you. Just backing up a little bit, just to give you a little context, you know, DNA testing as it pertains to criminal justice. You know, there was this type of testing called STR testing. It stands for short tandem repeats. And it became kind of popularized in the late 80s. And in 1994, a program using this kind of testing was nationalized. It's called CODIS C O D I S. And this CODIS program is the FBI program, again nationalized in 1994, to essentially create a database to associate known people convicted of a crime with crime scenes. Because a lot of these folks that have done terrible things and have been caught have contributed to more than one crime scene. And that's, that's really where DNA testing has been for the last 30 years. And for the first time ever, we can do something a little bit different than what's done with CODIS. CODIS relies on 20 data points in the DNA and it works essentially by associating someone that's already known with a crime scene. But if you're not already known, if you haven't already been convicted of a crime, if you haven't even been caught yet and it's your first go, or you've just been lucky to avoid law enforcement, then CODIS can't find you. And so, so the system's kind of passive in the sense that it only works after you've already been identified at another crime. And so we wanted to do something different. And what we've done, it's a, it's a system that, as you said, is called forensic grade genome sequencing. It relies on doing a different kind of DNA test that instead of 20 DNA markers, captures about a half a million markers.

[Phil Holloway]

Wow.

[David Mittleman]

And with half a million markers, you just have the ability to do a lot more. For example, you can measure very distant relationships. And if you can measure very distant genetic relationships, then you can, you know, work through the public records and build family trees and rederive someone's identity even if they're not in the database themselves. And that's really the foundation for what was done in this case and so many others.

[Phil Holloway]

Now, as I understand it now, you, you guys don't access commercial databases like Ancestry or 23andMe. You go to other third party databases that May be some combination of the data from all of those places. Am I getting that right?

[David Mittleman]

Yeah. The major consumer DNA testing companies, they don't allow anyone to search in their database, not even consumers. So basically, if you test with those companies, you'll get your matches, your genetic matches, but there's nothing else you can do. Now there are other systems out there that are databases in which you can bring your data from another vendor to this database and you can use it to compare against people you think you might be related to or just to find additional relatives that you may not have found when you did your original test. And many years ago, as this technology kind of started transitioning into, into forensics, some of these organizations developed a consent program which people sometimes call opt in, where if you choose, you can essentially say, I'd like my profile to be used in a forensic search. And that way, if you're trying to identify, say, human remains or a suspect to a violent crime, then if you are a distant genetic relative, and you may be very distant, you may not even know this person, but if you're a very distant genetic relative, or any genetic relative, and you've opted in, then, then your search results, your, your profile will be included in the search results for one of these investigations. And so that's, that's how the process works.

[Phil Holloway]

All right? So I'm going to try my best to simplify it, okay. In very, very basic terms, and I want you to help me see if I get this right. So you have a genetic profile that you get from whatever source, you upload that, if you will, into this third party database that has all these other DNA profiles in there. And you see if there is a familial, a genealogical match to anyone in that third party database. Is that right?

[David Mittleman]

That's right. And so it's just like CODIS, except for instead of CODIS, which has again, 20 data points and can only measure essentially a very direct relationship, this kind of system that you've just summarized allows you to measure very distant relationships. You could find someone that might be a fifth or a sixth cousin, and.

[Phil Holloway]

Then law enforcement can take that information and you guys can help them build out potential family trees. Right? And then they can cross reference that information with other things that they may know about their suspect or their perpetrator, even if they don't know the name, and they can use that as like an arrow to kind of point them in the right direction. Is that the case?

[David Mittleman]

That's right. You'll generate an investigative lead. And I know the popular Media will describe this as kind of a pen and paper kind of process. But I'm sure you can imagine that a lot of this tree building and genealogical analysis is performed using software now, so semi automated, soon to be quite largely automated to enable you to then generate the insights you would need to get to a lead. And then at the end of the day, it's a lead. And so you'll still, once you've kind of develop that lead, use other information in the investigation to contextualize that lead. And then in the end, what's really great is the system that we're using complements codis. So even though CODIS will not identify the person that is not in that database, in the end CODIS will be utilized to confirm that the person that you've identified as a person of interest is in fact the contributor to the DNA at the crime scene.

[Phil Holloway]

All right, fascinating. All right, so I want to get to Coburger because I've got a lot of questions about that. But before I do, real quickly there, you know, your work, I think it's fabulous. But you do have your share of critics. Some of the criticisms that I have seen is that on the surround familial privacy and the consent issues that you just talked about, some people say it's a genetic dragnet, there's not enough regulation, or that it's not equitable and fair because only high profile cases or people with a lot of money or law enforcement agencies that are willing to spend the money on it, those are the only cases that this is used on, leaving out all the others that might be arguably as deserving. So to those critics on those points, what, what would you say?

[David Mittleman]

Well, you brought up a lot of points, but I'm going to, I'm going to speak to them in reverse because that's how my brain works. So I am very, very conscientious and concerned about equitable outcomes for all cases. I encourage anyone to [e-mail], which is our advocacy site in which we've listed out, I think there's about 600 cases that have been publicly associated with Othram. And what I love about DNAsolves.com is if you look at those 600 or so cases that are there, and there's more added every day. There are agencies from all over the us the smallest agencies in rural America, the FBI with their high profile and, you know, high capability lab, everyone is getting the same outcomes. They're all getting cases solved. It doesn't matter where the case happened. It doesn't matter when it happened and it doesn't matter if the agency had a full forensic lab. We work with agencies don't, don't even have a scientist on hand, never mind a lab. And what we tell them is that if you can send the evidence in, we'll take care of the rest. So I think one of the core mission components for OTHRAM from the beginning was equitable outcome for all cases. Now I think that, you know, cost is important. When CODIS was brought to the table in 1994, there was legislative mandates and funding that was provided to allow all the public labs to onboard this new and powerful DNA technology. The same thing's going to have to happen now with this technology. We're doing it at othram. We also provide the technology to distribute it to public labs. We've already started doing it that this year and we're hoping to do that even more next year. But we're going to need federal leadership. And one of the reasons why I like to come on to programs like yours is I want everyone to know this is not an extraordinary outcome. This case or any other, this is an ordinary outcome. This could happen to every case and all it requires is federal leadership and funding for it. So I think we're at the point now where unsolved crime is a choice. We can choose to prioritize these cases, hundreds of thousands that need to be addressed and we can get them solved. And coming to your cost question, you know, the cost of doing what we do is pennies on the dollar to pretty much any other approach, especially if you think about it from the metric of like dollar per solve, right? How much money do you spend on a technology like authorms, let's say in a calendar year. And how many cases do you solve, people identified? And what you find is we're pennies on the dollar to any other approach. You wouldn't be able to pay a detective for two months for the amount of money it takes for OTHRAM to do an end to end investigation. So I think by the very nature of the technology, it is very equitable. And we've demonstrated that most of the cases on DNA solves you've never heard of, some of them were resolved so quickly that you'll never hear about them because they're never going to be on that true crime show. They never went cold. We solve a lot of cases in real time. And then we've also done it in a way that's very fast, cost effective and you know, to your last point about privacy. I think consent's important. So we provide the tools to let folks consent into our database. We even have our own database as part of DNA Solves, where people can join our registry if they want to. But that's something that we want people to do when they thought about it, considered it, and decided it's right for them. We certainly wouldn't advocate pressuring anyone to do something they don't want to do.

[Commercial Announcer]

Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American Dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online, on campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private, Christian, affordable Visit gcu. Edu.

[Phil Holloway]

I want to turn now to the Kohberger case. And you know, this was a case that I'm sure you've talked to a lot of people about. We covered it extensively here at MK True Crime. And we were, in fact, you know, we were going to launch our show back a couple of months ago around the. The Coburger case. And then we were going to do a big thing about the trial and this happened. Let's roll. SOT1. Do you understand the charge in count to murder in the first degree? Yes. Do you understand the maximum penalty?

[David Mittleman]

Yes.

[Phil Holloway]

Do you understand the charge and count three? Murder in the first three? Yes. Do you understand the maximum penalty? Yes. All right, so there was Brian Coburger as part of his guilty plea, which ended the trial and. Or start it ended it before it even started, of course. And a lot of us were just left with a lot of questions. And I'm talking to someone right now, I presume, who might have been a witness had that case gone forward. Certainly folks who work maybe with you or for you. So turning to that case, can you take us back to the day when you got the call enlisting your assistance with the Coburger case?

[David Mittleman]

Yeah. And you know, I'll answer all the questions you have about this case, but I just Want to point out we also recorded a, a couple episode story arc on this case on our podcast, America's Crime Lab. So anyone that doesn't get all their questions answered in this interview can also check out. You know, these, these podcast episodes are told from the story of the investigators and the families. So there's definitely a good amount of information there as well. But to jump into your question, we got a call from the Idaho State Police Forensic Services. This is, you know, days after this crime has occurred. And we've had a contract at this point for a while with the Idaho State Police Forensic Services. We've worked other cases together successfully. And they call us and they say, look, we have something that's unfold just now and, and we really don't have any leads. And we've already submitted the DNA profile in this case to codis. So they did all that CODIS work at their state lab without Othram's involvement, but CODIS did not return an identity. And they wanted to know if we could get involved. And because the case was real time, as you noticed, it was a current case, they wanted to know how fast we could do it. And we had spent years developing technology that can do really great quality work. But then just around that time, we started working on ways to make it really fast. So we told them, not only can we assist, we can do it in days. And so they were eager to get started. So eager, in fact, that they didn't take the risk of delay by mailing or sending through a courier the items. They literally sent people to hand deliver the DNA evidence to our facility. My wife and I met them at the facility, onboarded the evidence, established the chain of custody, and then got started. And, and, you know, true to our word, within days we had a profile and some initial information that started the investigation, as I'm sure you know. You know, by the end of December, there was an arrest, an identification and an arrest. And I just want to contrast that because in the time that this was happening, there were 19,000 other leads that, in tips that had poured in and, and, and these were not productive in identifying the person of interest. And he was identified very straightforwardly and very easily with his DNA technology. Which.

[Phil Holloway]

Let me, let me hang on a second. I want to break that down because there's a lot to process there. You're talking about the trace evidence. It was widely reported that there was very little trace evidence found on that knife sheath. But that's really not the case, is it?

[David Mittleman]

No. I'm sure now that all the public records are out and hopefully folks have looked through them all. You can see there was plenty of DNA. I will tell you the biggest problem with this case because we've worked 600 of these cases, including contemporary cases. You know, this case was unique in that when the case was originally brought to the judge, there was a gag order that was placed on, on everyone involved in the case. And so for almost two and a half years, the only people that could speak to the media were the people that weren't involved in the case. And so it's not surprising that there was a lot of misunderstood information confusion. So I think one of those earlier things were that people assumed that because it came to offer them, it must be a small amount of DNA. We specialize in cases that have small amounts of DNA. But, but this case had plenty of DNA. The case came.

[Phil Holloway]

When you say plenty, what, what do you mean by plenty? Because I have no idea.

[David Mittleman]

Just to give you an idea, you know, this case had about 500 times more DNA than the typical case Othram has been successful with. Wow. So hopefully that gives you a perspective. Now, relatively speaking, every forensic case, including this one, is going to have a small amount of DNA compared to, let's say, going to the doctor and you know, spitting in a tube or drawing blood. Right. All forensic cases have small amounts of DNA, but the amount of DNA was not even remotely limiting. And there was plenty for us to perform the work.

[Phil Holloway]

This wasn't a mixed source. Like sometimes you see mixed sources mixed. That's correct. Whether it be in blood or some other type of bodily substance or whatever. But this was off the snap off of a knife sheath. Right. And so that I can see where you could easily get that touch DNA from the thumb. But tell me, what did the Idaho police do to help corroborate your profile? Now I understand that eventually this led to Pennsylvania and then there was a trash pull, meaning that the police literally took trash from Coburger's parents house. And then there was a profile that was obtained that turned out to be that of Coburger's father. What were you guys able to do with that father's profile?

[David Mittleman]

Well, well, that wasn't processed at Othram. So here's, here's kind of the set of events. So the original DNA at the crime scene was processed by the Idaho State Police forensic services. There they generate a profile, as you said, single source for an unknown male contributor that goes to codis. Then after that they take the remaining DNA that they have and send that to OTHRAM Othram builds another profile. This is the one that has half a million markers for the unidentified male. Now Othram's work is done. Now there's genealogical work being done that begins to point eventually into the direction of the person that they ended up arresting. And to confirm whether that was a, you know, not just a lead, but an actual identity, they then did a trash pull and compared the DNA of the father to the crime scene. This was done, again, not by Othram. This was done using the standard CODIS kind of testing. And when that confirmation came in establishing that the person in the trash was a parent, child relationship to the crime scene, this led them to believe that they had identified the father. Even then they're not done. Then they have to actually directly swab the mouth of the person that they arrested and show there was a one to one relationship.

[Commercial Announcer]

Yeah.

[Phil Holloway]

So that's the nail in the coffin. Literally.

[David Mittleman]

Yeah, yeah. What's, what's, what's, what's magical about this process is that you have different methods executed by different labs and different teams, and they all arrive at the same answer. So this is, this is really an excellent way to corroborate the information from any one path because each test is independently establishing evidence pointing in the same direction and that that allows you to reach a much more certain conclus than just relying on one or another test.

[Phil Holloway]

Well, David, I could certainly talk to you all day about Coburger and in the time left, I know we want to talk about some of your work and some of the stories from America's crime lab, particularly the one that has been referred to as Little Miss Nobody. But before we do that, can you just tell us what you felt when you learned that Kohberger was going to enter a guilty plea?

[David Mittleman]

Well, I, I was happy for the families. I know the families have been kind of in a state of purgatory, in limbo for years, waiting to see what happens. And you know, even worse, they were subjected to, you know, a couple years of, of speculation in the media online. And so I think there was just, you know, a lot of, a lot of stress and uncertainty. And, and I, you know, I think it would have been fine to go to court. I was prepared to go and I had participated in some of the pre trial events and submitted my information along. You know, one thing, one thing we love at Othram is that we don't just help law enforcement solve cases, we go defend them in court. And we've actually been in court defending this exact method more than any other organization on Earth. And so we're, you know, the first in several states, including Texas, Maine, Idaho. And we go in and present all of our work, and we enjoy having it reviewed and scrutinized by the courts, because when you can do that, then you help support the broader adoption of the technique. Right. It's great to solve a case, but then it also needs to be defendable in court. So we were relieved and happy for the families because they're, of course, the top priority. But I think that the hardest part about this case was just having to wait so many years to be able to speak to some of these issues. And you brought up some of them, but just a lot of speculation and confusion. And I don't think any of that helped, you know, the public or even these families really understand what was going on.

[Phil Holloway]

Well, well, thank you so much for helping us clear at least some of it up here on MK True Crime. Let's switch gears now in the few minutes that we have left. And let's talk about this child who was murdered apparently in 1960, was unknown for a very long time, and became known as Little Miss Nobody. I actually checked out some of the episodes of the America's Crime Lab podcast that you referenced earlier, and I listened to the episode about Little Miss Nobody. Her life deserves more than the time that we have left. But can you briefly tell us what that was about and how you guys helped identify her?

[David Mittleman]

Yeah, of course. So this is, you know, I told you in the beginning of our interview, we like to build technology that can bring certainty to investigations. I would further say that uncertainty, in my opinion, is a real enemy of criminal justice. And there's. There's few cases that really exemplify it more than this case. So in this case, there's this little girl. She's found on. On the side of a highway in Arizona. And. And they don't really know for sure. I mean, this is. This is, of course, in 1960. So technology was not the same as it is today, but they don't really know exactly how old she was, how long she had been there. But very early in the investigation, the police investigators had noted that while these remains were found in Arizona, there was another girl. And. And this girl, her name was Sharon Lee Gallegos, and she. She was reported missing, abducted from New Mexico. So, so early on, the investigators said, look, there's this girl that was abducted from New Mexico. We found these remains in Arizona. It's possible that this is the same kid. And early on, there were some you know, imperfections and imprecision really, in kind of the older forensic technology and, you know, between mismeasurements of a footprint and a foot size and, you know, anthropological estimates of how old she was. Long story short, they said, you know, I don't think so. I think these are two different people. And that was it. The case was then stalled for quite some time. The second tragedy, though, is that later on when this was revisited, there was DNA testing, as we talked about, that was brought onto the scene in the middle 90s and throughout the 2000s. And so this case was reevaluated, but again, the early DNA testing of the time was never able to with certainty test the hypothesis as to whether this little girl was Sharon or not. And so then fast forward a few more years. We're getting our start in this field, working as many cases as we can work. And they try some of these new methods with this case. They, they choose the wrong partner and the work is sloppy and again, leads to kind of a unclear state. In fact, someone that consulted on the case told them, we've definitively proved this is not Sharon. We don't know who it is, but it's definitely not Sharon. So this case has just been the victim of, you know, shoddy science for, for, for literally decades.

[Phil Holloway]

And you guys came in and you were able to finally give, give us a name. And you're, you were coming in and your, your, your lab was able to return her name to her. Who did we learn that she was?

[David Mittleman]

Well, it turns out she was Sharon Legal Lagos. And so what ended up happening is we came in to provide guidance. And at the time that we came in, they had tried so many methods, exhausted so many approaches, they didn't even have funding anymore. So we worked with the local media in Arizona and raised the money to basically do the work. And it took us literally weeks to do the work. It was very quick. And we were able to establish using forensic grade genome sequencing, which is more than just a word, it's a method that we built, designed to do this kind of DNA sequencing and DNA testing specifically for forensics and specifically for these really challenging cases. I told you, we've identified people that were born 200 years ago. So, so Sharon's case was very straightforward and with a little bit of correct testing, it took us weeks to confirm the result. And, and the rest, you know, you can hear about on the podcast. But it was, it was a really important case resolution. This, this uncertainty has plagued the whole community. You know, her, her cousin, he had grown up in the shadow of this case. His family afraid to let him go out and play on the street because of what had happened to Sharon. And he spent much of his adult life trying to figure out what happened to his aunt. And he spoke at the press conference. He and I met there and spoke together at the press conference. And it was just amazing and touching to be able to give him an answer after so many years. And this is really what drives the entire team at Othram in all these cases, is that there are answers available. We just need to prioritize using the technology. And you can see for 600 unrelated cases, the outcome's always the same. If you apply the energy and the resources to work the case, you get a really great outcome at the other end. And again, doesn't matter if it's, you know, a quadruple homicide from a week ago or if it's, you know, a girl that was abducted and later murdered, you know, more than a half a century ago. Everyone can get answers and everyone should get answers.

[Phil Holloway]

Well, thank you very much for returning her name to her. Thank you for the work you did in the Coburger case and for providing at least some of the answers to the questions that so many of us had when that case did not go to trial. We're gonna have to leave it there. But, David, thank you so much for coming on board here at MK True Crime, spending part of your day with us, folks. You can go to othram.com to learn more and check out their podcast, America's Crime Lab, which is all about the cases Othram has solved. Thanks everyone and have a great week.

[Commercial Announcer]

When inflation jumps. When you hear the national Debt is over $37 trillion, do you ever think maybe now would be a good time to buy some gold? Well, you'd be right. Whether as a hedge against inflation, peace of mind during global instability, or just for sensible diversification, Birchgold Group believes every American should own physical gold. And so they created something special until September 30th. If you're a first time gold buyer, Birch Gold is offering a rebate of up to $10,000 in free metals on qualifying purchases. To claim eligibility and start the process, request an info kit right now, just text MK to 989-898 plus. Birchgold can help you roll an existing IRA or 401K into an IRA in gold and you're still eligible for a rebate in free metals of up to ten grand. So make right now your first time to buy gold and take advantage of a rebate up to $10,000 when you buy before September 30th. Text MK to the number 989898 to claim your eligibility and get your free info kit.

[David Mittleman]

He's Kenny Maine, the funny guy from espn.

[Comedy Podcast Hosts]

Formerly, he's Cooper Manning, the more intelligent and handsome of the Manning brothers. And he's Brian Baumgartner.

[David Mittleman]

But to me, he'll always be Kevin from the office. Yeah, you and everybody else together. We're the hosts of the new comedy golf podcast We Need a Fourth from.

[Comedy Podcast Hosts]

Smartless Media and Sirius xm.

[David Mittleman]

It's like a cold beer after a round. You hear the strangest and most bizarre golf stories from our friends, athletes, celebrities and comedians.

[Comedy Podcast Hosts]

It's all about how much we love golf and how much we hate golf. New episodes are out every week. Listen now and subscribe wherever you get your podcast could just be anywhere, just on a couch. Doesn't matter.

[US Cellular Announcer]

When's the last time you got something that was fast, reliable and affordable? Like almost never, right? Well, US Cellular Home Internet is breaking that streak. You get fast speeds, a rock solid connection and a super sweet price, just $39.99 a month when you bundle it with a wireless plan. That means you can stream, scroll, shop and binge without lag or crazy bills. It's not magic, just really good Internet. Check out US Cellular Home Internet today, built for US terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details.