A California woman was “stunned” after homicide detectives claimed they matched her 23andMe DNA test to a 1986 murder.
Palm Springs’ Jacquleine “Jackie” Vadurro found herself “in my own Dateline episode” after San Diego homicide detectives called her to inform her that her DNA could match a woman who was brutally murdered in 1986.
“Oh my god guys, I literally had the weirdest 48 hours of my life,” Vadurro said in a Jan. 20 TikTok. “Forty-eight hours ago I was sitting at lunch eating my salad and 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 anyway. ‘
On the other end of the phone, the detective told her that her “DNA may match 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” on the case because her DNA was the closest match to Jane Doe’s.
“I was just so amazed,” Vadurro told the New York Post.
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Palm Springs’ Jacquleine “Jackie” Vadurro found herself “in my own Dateline episode” after San Diego homicide detectives called her to inform her that her DNA could match a woman who was brutally murdered in 1986
Through DNA from her and her mother, San Diego detectives were able to determine that Jane Doe was related to Vadurro on her mother’s side
“Now they think I might be their family member because of my DNA that I uploaded to 23andMe,” Vadurro said on TikTok. “At first I thought it was cheating, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, they’re going to clone me, you know, who wouldn’t want another one of mine.’ But then I looked at it and they sent me their IDs and everything and I called Homicide.
“They were real. It was a real thing, super real.’
Police departments don’t have access to 23andMe data, but had linked Vadurro through a long-lost cousin whose DNA was already in the GED Match system. In order for them to possibly match Vadurro to the case, she had to upload her 23andMe results to the system.
Detectives told her she was “Ground Zero” on the case because her DNA was the closest match to Jane Doe’s. “I was just amazed,” said Vadurro
What detectives found almost immediately was that Vadurro was a near-perfect match, as she was both Italian and Mexican and had ties to Jalisco, Mexico, on her mother’s side, where the victim was found.
Detectives later determined the victim was from her mother’s side after Vadurro’s mother sent her own DNA sample to the police and told Vadurro that the victim was her second or third cousin.
“They called me back within 30 minutes and said, ‘Jackie, thank you very 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 for the victim. Investigators have not yet been able to identify the victim or the killer as they are still working on her mother’s family tree
San Diego detectives have invited Vadurro to Florida to investigate the other “weird, interesting characters” in her family, which the Californian wants to go see
Vadurro told on Friday that there was “no real progress yet” and that police have yet to identify the victim as they are still “combing through my family tree”.
However, they believe the victim is connected to the family of Vadurro’s mother’s great-grandfather.
Victim number one lives in New York, according to Vadurro, and she said the man wants to buy the victim a headstone once she is identified.
She also said police didn’t think the victim was a “hooker or prostitute” as she was “dressed really nicely” in a skirt and sandals in 1986 when she was found. The victim was also described as having “long brown hair, brown eyes” and was said to have been “very, very pretty”. She was also between 25 and 30 years old.
Though San Diego detectives are still digging into Vadurro’s family tree, they invited Vadurro to Florida to investigate the other “weird, interesting characters” in her family, which the Californian wants to go to.
At the moment, police have not identified the woman or the killer in the 1986 case.