An American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing her body in a suitcase during a vacation in Bali in 2014 has been sentenced to 26 years in prison after a hearing on Wednesday (Jan 17). The recent sentence comes years after the woman was first convicted in Indonesia.&nbsp;

<h2>About the recent sentencing</h2>

Heather Mack, 28, pleaded guilty to helping boyfriend kill Sheila Wiese-Mack in 2014. She was first convicted in Indonesia in 2015 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, she was released six years later.&nbsp;

The 28-year-old was arrested again and has spent the last two years in custody in Chicago, Illinois awaiting trial since her return to the United States in 2021.&nbsp;

ALSO READ |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-woman-who-assisted-bali-suitcase-murder-released-from-jail-425146">US woman who assisted Bali 'suitcase' murder released from jail</a>

On Wednesday (Jan 17), Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled that Mack will receive credit for the time she has served, bringing her formal sentence down to around 23 years.

Federal prosecutors had recommended a 28-year prison sentence for Mack who pleaded guilty to conspiring with her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer to kill her mother, a wealthy academic, to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund.&nbsp;

The government also wanted her to receive five years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and restitution of $262,708.&nbsp;

Mack – who was 18 at the time of the murder and pregnant – covered her mother’s mouth while Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl in a hotel room, according to the prosecutors.&nbsp;

US agents&nbsp;arrested Mack and her then-six-year-old daughter upon their arrival at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport&nbsp;in 2021.

The 28-year-old pleaded guilty last June to one count of conspiring to kill Wiese-Mack.&nbsp;

<h2>‘If it were up to me…’</h2>

The sentencing hearing began on Wednesday morning with testimonies from Bill Wiese, Wiese-Mack’s brother and Mack’s uncle.&nbsp;Heather was present in the court wearing an orange jumpsuit, orange slip-on shoes and glasses.&nbsp;

ALSO READ |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/i-would-love-it-trump-courts-controversy-in-e-jean-carroll-trial-responds-to-judges-threat-with-defiance-681028">'I would love it': Trump courts controversy in E. Jean Carroll trial, responds to judge's threat with defiance</a>

He asked the judge presiding over the case to impose the maximum sentence possible given that the 28-year-old had never shown remorse. “If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars,” said Bill.

Schaefer was convicted of murder and he is serving an 18-year sentence in a prison in Indonesia.

(With inputs from agencies) 
&nbsp;

An American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing her body in a suitcase during a vacation in Bali in 2014 has been sentenced to 26 years in prison after a hearing on Wednesday (Jan 17).

An American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing her body in a suitcase during a vacation in Bali in 2014 has been sentenced to 26 years in prison after a hearing on Wednesday (Jan 17). The recent sentence comes years after the woman was first convicted in Indonesia. About the recent sentencing Heather Mack, 28, pleaded guilty to helping boyfriend kill Sheila Wiese-Mack in 2014. She was first convicted in Indonesia in 2015 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, she was released six years later. The 28-year-old was arrested again and has spent the last two years in custody in Chicago, Illinois awaiting trial since her return to the United States in 2021. ALSO READ | US woman who assisted Bali 'suitcase' murder released from jail On Wednesday (Jan 17), Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled that Mack will receive credit for the time she has served, bringing her formal sentence down to around 23 years. Federal prosecutors had recommended a 28-year prison sentence for Mack who pleaded guilty to conspiring with her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer to kill her mother, a wealthy academic, to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund. The government also wanted her to receive five years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and restitution of $262,708. Mack – who was 18 at the time of the murder and pregnant – covered her mother’s mouth while Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl in a hotel room, according to the prosecutors. US agents arrested Mack and her then-six-year-old daughter upon their arrival at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in 2021. The 28-year-old pleaded guilty last June to one count of conspiring to kill Wiese-Mack. ‘If it were up to me…’ The sentencing hearing began on Wednesday morning with testimonies from Bill Wiese, Wiese-Mack’s brother and Mack’s uncle. Heather was present in the court wearing an orange jumpsuit, orange slip-on shoes and glasses. ALSO READ | 'I would love it': Trump courts controversy in E. Jean Carroll trial, responds to judge's threat with defiance He asked the judge presiding over the case to impose the maximum sentence possible given that the 28-year-old had never shown remorse. “If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars,” said Bill. Schaefer was convicted of murder and he is serving an 18-year sentence in a prison in Indonesia. (With inputs from agencies)

US woman sentenced to 26 years in prison for role in mother’s ‘suitcase murder’ in Bali

Four high school teenagers from Las Vegas have been charged with second-degree murder after they allegedly beat their classmate to death on November 1.

Jonathan Lewis Jr, a 17-year-old student from Rancho High School, died after his fight with as many as ten students from the same school.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said they have arrested nine individuals in total and all of them are aged between 13 and 17. However, they are being tried as adults under Nevada law.

Dontral Beaver, 16, Damien Hernandez, 17, Treavion Randolph, 16, and Gianni Robinson, 17, appeared in court on Tuesday (Nov 21) where the charges were read.

The other five, also aged 13-17, will remain in juvenile court as they await their transfer to adult court.

The fight erupted after Lewis tried to stand up for a younger friend who had been allegedly robbed by the gang.

Watch:&nbsp;Gravitas: US green card backlog hits 1.8 million | Indians face waiting period of 134 years

<iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-us-green-card-backlog-hits-18-million-indians-face-waiting-period-of-134-years-633084/embed" width="560"></iframe>

The fight was filmed and widely shared on social media, including TikTok.

<h2>Randolph’s family maintains innocence&nbsp;</h2>

Randolph’s family was quoted by Daily Mail as saying that the viral video of the beating doesn’t show him.

“I've seen that video. I've watched it all. You can't see Treavion on there,” Randolph’s uncle said.&nbsp;

“They say they identified him from that video, but we don't know for sure. We haven't been told much. We don't know a lot about the whole thing,” he added.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-india-relations-may-get-worse-us-amb-to-india-warns-state-department-report-642846">Also read:&nbsp;‘US-India relations may get worse’ over Canada, US envoy to India warned State Department: Report</a>

Except for Damien Hernandez, none of the eight accused has any past criminal record. In 2021, Hernandez received a citation for smoking marijuana in public.

Lt. Jason Johansson of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said all the people involved — believed to be 10 — were students of Rancho High School.

<h2>Victim’s family sets up anti-bullying fund</h2>

Meanwhile, Jonathan Lewis’s family has set up an anti-bullying foundation in his memory.&nbsp;

The foundation, Team Jonathan, has reportedly partnered with other anti-bullying campaigns, including Choose Love and Dads in Schools.

(With inputs from agencies)

Four high school teenagers from Las Vegas have been charged with second-degree murder after they allegedly beat their classmate to death on November 1. Jonathan Lewis Jr, a 17-year-old student from Rancho High School, died after his fight with as many as ten students from the same school.

Four high school teenagers from Las Vegas have been charged with second-degree murder after they allegedly beat their classmate to death on November 1. Jonathan Lewis Jr, a 17-year-old student from Rancho High School, died after his fight with as many as ten students from the same school. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said they have arrested nine individuals in total and all of them are aged between 13 and 17. However, they are being tried as adults under Nevada law. Dontral Beaver, 16, Damien Hernandez, 17, Treavion Randolph, 16, and Gianni Robinson, 17, appeared in court on Tuesday (Nov 21) where the charges were read. The other five, also aged 13-17, will remain in juvenile court as they await their transfer to adult court. The fight erupted after Lewis tried to stand up for a younger friend who had been allegedly robbed by the gang. Watch: Gravitas: US green card backlog hits 1.8 million | Indians face waiting period of 134 years The fight was filmed and widely shared on social media, including TikTok. Randolph’s family maintains innocence Randolph’s family was quoted by Daily Mail as saying that the viral video of the beating doesn’t show him. “I've seen that video. I've watched it all. You can't see Treavion on there,” Randolph’s uncle said. “They say they identified him from that video, but we don't know for sure. We haven't been told much. We don't know a lot about the whole thing,” he added. Also read: ‘US-India relations may get worse’ over Canada, US envoy to India warned State Department: Report Except for Damien Hernandez, none of the eight accused has any past criminal record. In 2021, Hernandez received a citation for smoking marijuana in public. Lt. Jason Johansson of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said all the people involved — believed to be 10 — were students of Rancho High School. Victim’s family sets up anti-bullying fund Meanwhile, Jonathan Lewis’s family has set up an anti-bullying foundation in his memory. The foundation, Team Jonathan, has reportedly partnered with other anti-bullying campaigns, including Choose Love and Dads in Schools. (With inputs from agencies)

Jonathan Lewis's bullying case: Four accused charged with second-degree murder

A 79-year-old man from California's San Bernardino was beaten to death while delivering donations to the poor in Mexico's Tijuana, according to authorities and the man's family. Rudy Lazo was killed during an apparent robbery in mid-April. His body was discovered on April 19. According to a report carried by NBC last Saturday (April 29), Lazo's son and daughter said their father would often make trips from his home in San Bernardino to deliver toys and necessities to families in Tijuana.

Rudy's son Juan Carlos said that his father was a very generous person and helped anyone out. Carlos travelled to Mexico to find Rudy's body. He believed that his father was killed during a robbery.

"He didn’t deserve it. Actually no, no human being deserves this," Carlos said.&nbsp;

The NBC report said that Rudy's truck and personal items were never found and his family pointed out that Mexican authorities made no arrests.&nbsp;

His daughter Claudia Hernandez said that the situation in Tijuana is very dangerous. "So dangerous and he probably thought he wasn’t going to have problems because he is a senior citizen," Hernandez added.&nbsp;

Rudy Lazo immigrated to the US from El Salvador in the 1980s and was working as a truck driver. Lazo's family said he had a big heart and a desire to give to those in need. The 79-year-old even had plans to build a community centre in Tijuana.

His killing comes months after the US State Department warned American citizens to avoid travelling to parts of Mexico over fears of kidnapping and other crimes across multiple states.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, US and Mexican officials agreed on new immigration policies meant to deter illegal border crossings while also opening up other pathways ahead of an expected increase in migrants after the end of Covid restrictions next week.&nbsp;

As per the agreement, Mexico would continue to accept migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua who have been turned away at the border, and up to 100,000 individuals from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador who have family in the US would be eligible to live and work there. 
&nbsp;

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" loading="”lazy”" src="https://www.wionews.com/live-tv/embed?autoplay=1&amp;mute=1" width="100%"></iframe>

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us <a href="https://www.wionews.com/content-contribution-registration-form">here</a>.

A 79-year-old man from California's San Bernardino was beaten to death while delivering donations to the poor in Mexico's Tijuana, according to authorities and the man's family.

A 79-year-old man from California's San Bernardino was beaten to death while delivering donations to the poor in Mexico's Tijuana, according to authorities and the man's family. Rudy Lazo was killed during an apparent robbery in mid-April. His body was discovered on April 19. According to a report carried by NBC last Saturday (April 29), Lazo's son and daughter said their father would often make trips from his home in San Bernardino to deliver toys and necessities to families in Tijuana. Rudy's son Juan Carlos said that his father was a very generous person and helped anyone out. Carlos travelled to Mexico to find Rudy's body. He believed that his father was killed during a robbery. "He didn’t deserve it. Actually no, no human being deserves this," Carlos said. The NBC report said that Rudy's truck and personal items were never found and his family pointed out that Mexican authorities made no arrests. His daughter Claudia Hernandez said that the situation in Tijuana is very dangerous. "So dangerous and he probably thought he wasn’t going to have problems because he is a senior citizen," Hernandez added. Rudy Lazo immigrated to the US from El Salvador in the 1980s and was working as a truck driver. Lazo's family said he had a big heart and a desire to give to those in need. The 79-year-old even had plans to build a community centre in Tijuana. His killing comes months after the US State Department warned American citizens to avoid travelling to parts of Mexico over fears of kidnapping and other crimes across multiple states. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, US and Mexican officials agreed on new immigration policies meant to deter illegal border crossings while also opening up other pathways ahead of an expected increase in migrants after the end of Covid restrictions next week. As per the agreement, Mexico would continue to accept migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua who have been turned away at the border, and up to 100,000 individuals from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador who have family in the US would be eligible to live and work there. You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

US man beaten to death in Mexico's Tijuana while delivering donations: Report

US real estate scion&nbsp;Robert&nbsp;Durst&nbsp;was Friday convicted of killing his best friend to prevent her talking to police about his wife's disappearance.

Durst, a multi-millionaire who was the subject of explosive HBO documentary "The Jinx," had always denied that he shot Susan Berman in the back of the head in 2000 at her Beverly Hills home.

But a jury in Los Angeles took a total of just eight hours to find the 78-year-old guilty of the execution-style slaying.

Prosecutors had said he murdered crime writer Berman in December 2000 to prevent her from being questioned by New York police over the disappearance of his wife Kathleen two decades earlier.

Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, had acted as a spokeswoman for&nbsp;Durst&nbsp;after he became a suspect in Kathleen's disappearance.

Durst, an estranged member of one of New York's wealthiest and most powerful real estate dynasties, was never charged in his wife's case.

He was arrested in March 2015 in a New Orleans hotel room in connection with Berman's murder, hours before the final episode of the HBO documentary "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of&nbsp;Robert&nbsp;Durst" aired.

In the documentary's stunning finale,&nbsp;Durst&nbsp;is heard muttering to himself, "There it is, you're caught" and "Killed them all, of course" -- apparently unaware that a microphone remained switched on while he used the restroom.

The series also delved into the 2001 death of&nbsp;Durst's neighbor in Texas, Morris Black, who was found dismembered.&nbsp;

Durst&nbsp;admitted the dismemberment, but claimed the killing was self-defense. He was acquitted.

Durst&nbsp;testified for 14 days in a trial that gripped local media.

He repeatedly denied any involvement in Berman's death, but acknowledged he had written an anonymous letter to police telling them that her body lay in her Beverly Hills home.

Prosecutor John Lewin told the jury there was a "mountain of evidence" that&nbsp;Durst&nbsp;had killed all three people with whose deaths he had been connected.

He said a friend of&nbsp;Durst&nbsp;had testified that the real estate magnate had told him of Berman: "It was her or me. I had no choice."

"He has never been held accountable for his domestic abuse of (wife) Kathie. He was never held accountable for her death. The last 20 years he's gotten away with murdering Susan," Lewin told the jury.&nbsp;

"For the last 20 years, he's avoided responsibility for Morris Black.&nbsp;Durst&nbsp;is not jinxed. He's a three-time killer who has managed to escape accountability until this very moment."

Durst&nbsp;was not in court when the verdict was read because he was isolating following an exposure to someone with Covid-19.

He will be sentenced on October 18, and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

US real estate scion Robert Durst was Friday convicted of killing his best friend to prevent her talking to police about his wife's disappearance. Durst, a multi-millionaire who was the subject of explosive HBO documentary "The Jinx," had always denied that he shot Susan Berman in the back of the head in 2000 at her Beverly Hills home.

US real estate scion Robert Durst was Friday convicted of killing his best friend to prevent her talking to police about his wife's disappearance. Durst, a multi-millionaire who was the subject of explosive HBO documentary "The Jinx," had always denied that he shot Susan Berman in the back of the head in 2000 at her Beverly Hills home. But a jury in Los Angeles took a total of just eight hours to find the 78-year-old guilty of the execution-style slaying. Prosecutors had said he murdered crime writer Berman in December 2000 to prevent her from being questioned by New York police over the disappearance of his wife Kathleen two decades earlier. Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, had acted as a spokeswoman for Durst after he became a suspect in Kathleen's disappearance. Durst, an estranged member of one of New York's wealthiest and most powerful real estate dynasties, was never charged in his wife's case. He was arrested in March 2015 in a New Orleans hotel room in connection with Berman's murder, hours before the final episode of the HBO documentary "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst" aired. In the documentary's stunning finale, Durst is heard muttering to himself, "There it is, you're caught" and "Killed them all, of course" -- apparently unaware that a microphone remained switched on while he used the restroom. The series also delved into the 2001 death of Durst's neighbor in Texas, Morris Black, who was found dismembered. Durst admitted the dismemberment, but claimed the killing was self-defense. He was acquitted. Durst testified for 14 days in a trial that gripped local media. He repeatedly denied any involvement in Berman's death, but acknowledged he had written an anonymous letter to police telling them that her body lay in her Beverly Hills home. Prosecutor John Lewin told the jury there was a "mountain of evidence" that Durst had killed all three people with whose deaths he had been connected. He said a friend of Durst had testified that the real estate magnate had told him of Berman: "It was her or me. I had no choice." "He has never been held accountable for his domestic abuse of (wife) Kathie. He was never held accountable for her death. The last 20 years he's gotten away with murdering Susan," Lewin told the jury. "For the last 20 years, he's avoided responsibility for Morris Black. Durst is not jinxed. He's a three-time killer who has managed to escape accountability until this very moment." Durst was not in court when the verdict was read because he was isolating following an exposure to someone with Covid-19. He will be sentenced on October 18, and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

US tycoon Robert Durst guilty of Beverly Hills murder of best friend

In October 2016, the remains of three murder victims, dead for three decades, were laid to rest in Newton County, a rural corner of Indiana.

Two were young men, likely teenagers, the victims of a serial killer in 1983. The third was a woman found dead in 1988 on the bank of a creek. She had been shot in the head, covered with car tires and lit on fire.

Their bones, stored in tattered cardboard boxes and black trash bags, had been passed down from one county coroner to the next. When Scott McCord took the job in 2009, he gave the remains names: Adam, Brad and Charlene. He ordered anthropological and dental analyses, facial sketches and DNA tests in an effort to find their true identities.

Nothing panned out. So McCord gave Newton County, a community of about 14,000, a chance to mourn their “kids,” as he called them. He paid for three small coffins, and a local florist donated flowers. Nineteen high school students volunteered to be pallbearers. After a ceremony at a county building, the teens piled into a yellow school bus and McCord, a part-time bus driver, followed three hearses, each donated from a different funeral home, to the cemetery.

“I didn’t think we’d ever see resolution to any of the cases,” McCord said.

As it turned out, he was wrong.

In late 2019, McCord, his deputy and a county prosecutor decided to try a complicated forensic technique that had nabbed the infamous Golden State Killer a year earlier. The effort turned into a yearlong crash course in a niche area of science: using genetic markers to build multigenerational family trees. It would require a million-dollar DNA sequencing machine, a custom-built computer in Texas and the utmost patience of volunteer genealogy buffs.

McCord and his team are among a growing number of investigators that have joined the scientific vanguard to revive cold cases. Likely hundreds of cases, of both victims and perpetrators, have been solved. Some have involved extracting DNA from decades-old bones, hair or minute traces of skin cells. Others have benefited from the most comprehensive and expensive type of DNA testing, known as whole-genome sequencing. In turn, a cottage industry has emerged to help.

Critics worry that the widening use of this investigational method could lead to what is essentially a national DNA database for law enforcement, giving police access to highly personal information from a wide swath of the public without their explicit consent. The only significant limit is the cost — typically several thousand dollars per case — and that is dropping rapidly, as demand surges.

“My county was more than happy to pay,” McCord said.

Everyone and their grandmother

Genetic genealogy debuted more than 20 years ago as a pastime for ancestry enthusiasts. The customer sent a saliva sample to a company like FamilyTreeDNA and could then log in to a website showing how closely their genetic markers matched with those of other people — long-lost relatives — in the company’s databases.

Margaret Press, a software developer and mystery writer, had used the method for years to help adoptees find their biological parents. In 2017, while reading a novel based on an unsolved murder, she realized that her skills might be equally useful to law enforcement. “It just hit me,” she said. “The same technique that we were using for adoptee searches and finding unknown parents was adaptable to bones and unidentified remains.”

She co-founded a nonprofit, called the DNA Doe Project, to try to match unidentified remains with genetic profiles that had been uploaded to an open-source genealogy database called GEDMatch. A set of unknown remains might match to a distant, known cousin, for example. An investigator could then build out a large family tree, first identifying the ancestors the two cousins have in common, such as great- or great-great-grandparents, and then investigating individual branches from those ancestors. Only some of those people would have lived in the right place and time as the unknown victim. More research, and the process of elimination, could ultimately reveal the Doe’s identity.

The Golden State Killer and many other cases relied upon a DNA test called a microarray, which generates a subset of key markers from a person’s DNA code, like an abridged version of a book. But increasingly, investigators are turning to private companies for whole-genome sequencing, which reconstructs a person’s entire DNA code. This more sensitive test is often best for old and degraded DNA, such as from skeletal remains heavily contaminated with bacteria. HudsonAlpha Discovery, a lab in Alabama, has worked on about 1,100 forensic cases. Astrea Forensics, in California, began as part of an academic paleogenetics lab, and Othram, in Texas, has worked on hundreds of cases and raised more than $10 million in venture capital.

“It really has exploded,” Press said. “Everyone and their grandmother is now setting up shop.”

As a result, many cold cases have become quicker and cheaper to resolve. In the Golden State Killer case, six investigators worked full time for four months to narrow in on the culprit. Now cases are often solved in weeks or days.

The DNA Doe Project, run by Press and dozens of volunteers, has taken on about 120 cases since 2017, and has fielded inquiries from another 200 or so. Many were from small sheriff’s or coroner’s offices with few resources, Press said. They are often just as skeptical of the technique, she said, as they are of the psychics who frequently call with tips on open cases: “For many of them it’s in the same category — do I call the psychic back or the genealogist back?”

Testing Charlene

McCord and his team in Newton County had not considered genetic genealogy until Rebecca Goddard, the county’s chief deputy prosecutor, heard about the DNA Doe Project on a podcast called “Crime Junkie.” “I understood very little,” Goddard said. “I just sort of understood the concept of using ancestry to create a family tree.”

McCord reached out to the DNA Doe Project for help, and a collaboration began. Initially, his team divided up the three open cases. As a prosecutor, Goddard took the only one that was still an open homicide: Charlene Doe, whose charred remains were found by a fisherman in 1988. McCord took Adam Doe, and his deputy (and girlfriend), Heidi Cobleigh, took Brad Doe. A serial killer, Larry Eyler, had confessed to both boys’ murders years earlier but had not known their names.

Back in 2010, McCord had commissioned a Texas lab to run a DNA test from one of Charlene’s teeth. That test resulted in just a couple of dozen genetic markers — too sparse to be compatible with genealogy databases. Luckily the lab, which runs the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, had kept the remaining DNA sample in storage.

So now, a decade later, the DNA could be retested with the far more sophisticated whole-genome technology. There was just one problem: The sample contained only 0.3 nanograms, or 300 trillionths of a gram, of genetic material.

“When we heard how much it was, we were definitely like, well, not sure if this will work but we’ll give it a shot,” said Kevin Lord, a bioinformatician and private investigator in Belton, Texas, and the lab liaison for the DNA Doe Project.

Charlene’s sample, in a tiny plastic tube, was wrapped in foam and cold packs, and shipped overnight to HudsonAlpha’s lab in Huntsville, Alabama. There, the DNA went into a NovaSeq 6000, a million-dollar machine resembling a photocopier.

Human DNA is made of 3 billion “base pairs,” a unique set of molecular letters that creates a book of instructions for our cells. At HudsonAlpha, Charlene’s DNA was split into tiny fragments, then placed in the sequencing machine to decode the precise sequence of letters in each. The machine then created a file containing all of these tiny sequences and uploaded it to a server.

Lord downloaded that file — 71 gigabytes of raw data — onto a custom-built computer and began piecing all of those fragments back together in the right order, producing Charlene’s full genetic code. From there, he focused on a subset of roughly 1.5 million key markers, known as SNPs, that make up the genetic “profiles” used by genealogy companies. He then sent Charlene’s profile to the two genealogy databases, GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA, that make themselves available to law enforcement for such cases.

Then came the hard part.

Database hunting

Goddard was determined to hone her new sleuthing skills on Charlene’s case. Last May, she began training with L. Elias Chan, a volunteer at the DNA Doe Project who runs a genealogy research business in Seattle.

Success in such cases often depends on the size of the database: The larger it is, the more likely it will produce a match. The GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA databases are enormous, including millions of people who have voluntarily uploaded their own genetic information. (Ancestry.com and 23andMe also have huge databases but have opted not to make them accessible to law enforcement.)

GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA have not always been transparent with users that the DNA profiles might be scrutinized by the police. In 2019, under public pressure, GEDMatch abruptly changed its access policy, requiring users to explicitly “opt in” to law enforcement searches. Overnight, investigators lost a raft of promising leads.

Goddard caught a break in January, when GEDMatch changed its terms of service again, allowing its entire database to be used for forensic searches related to unidentified remains.

Chan called Goddard with some good news: Charlene now had multiple close matches at the top of her list.

True names

It didn’t take long to deduce Charlene’s real name: Jenifer Noreen Denton. In 1988, when Denton was 24, she suddenly went missing from her Illinois home, leaving behind her belongings and a 1-year-old daughter.

In February, Goddard talked to Denton’s daughter, now grown, for the first time. “I just felt extremely emotional about it,” Goddard recalled. Over her months of research, she had often imagined what it must have been like for Charlene’s family. “There were people out there who surely loved her and were missing her and were probably desperate for answers.” (Denton’s family declined, through an intermediary, to be interviewed.)

In February, Brad Doe’s DNA was sequenced by HudsonAlpha, and on April 2, Lord uploaded it to GEDMatch. At the top of the list of matches were several close relatives. Three weeks later, and nearly 38 years after the boy’s murder, the team announced Brad’s real identity: John Ingram Brandenburg Jr., a 19-year-old from Chicago who went to a friend’s house one day and never returned.

In 1983, after being tipped off by mushroom hunters, police found his remains with those of Adam Doe and two other boys near an abandoned barn off U.S. Route 41 in Newton County. All were victims of Eyler, also known as the Highway Killer, who murdered at least 21 young men and died in prison in 1994.

McCord said that the teenager’s mother was distraught to learn how he had died. “She woke up every morning for the past 37 years wondering, ‘Is Johnny going to come home today?’” he said. “We hit her kind of hard.” (The family declined, through an intermediary, to be interviewed.)

The Newton County team is now focused on solving their last case, of Adam Doe. His long-stored genetic sample was sequenced at HudsonAlpha and uploaded to GEDMatch, but was not robust enough to return any good matches. The team is planning to enlist a lab specialising in ancient organisms to extract a new sample of DNA from the bones.

And although Charlene now has a real name, her 1988 murder case remains open. Her remains had been discovered with those of a man who was identified a year later by police. “There were some leads back in the day,” McCord said. “Now they can go back and hopefully confirm some of those leads, and we can get this resolved fairly quick.”

In October 2016, the remains of three murder victims, dead for three decades, were laid to rest in Newton County, a rural corner of Indiana. Two were young men, likely teenagers, the victims of a serial killer in 1983.

In October 2016, the remains of three murder victims, dead for three decades, were laid to rest in Newton County, a rural corner of Indiana. Two were young men, likely teenagers, the victims of a serial killer in 1983. The third was a woman found dead in 1988 on the bank of a creek. She had been shot in the head, covered with car tires and lit on fire. Their bones, stored in tattered cardboard boxes and black trash bags, had been passed down from one county coroner to the next. When Scott McCord took the job in 2009, he gave the remains names: Adam, Brad and Charlene. He ordered anthropological and dental analyses, facial sketches and DNA tests in an effort to find their true identities. Nothing panned out. So McCord gave Newton County, a community of about 14,000, a chance to mourn their “kids,” as he called them. He paid for three small coffins, and a local florist donated flowers. Nineteen high school students volunteered to be pallbearers. After a ceremony at a county building, the teens piled into a yellow school bus and McCord, a part-time bus driver, followed three hearses, each donated from a different funeral home, to the cemetery. “I didn’t think we’d ever see resolution to any of the cases,” McCord said. As it turned out, he was wrong. In late 2019, McCord, his deputy and a county prosecutor decided to try a complicated forensic technique that had nabbed the infamous Golden State Killer a year earlier. The effort turned into a yearlong crash course in a niche area of science: using genetic markers to build multigenerational family trees. It would require a million-dollar DNA sequencing machine, a custom-built computer in Texas and the utmost patience of volunteer genealogy buffs. McCord and his team are among a growing number of investigators that have joined the scientific vanguard to revive cold cases. Likely hundreds of cases, of both victims and perpetrators, have been solved. Some have involved extracting DNA from decades-old bones, hair or minute traces of skin cells. Others have benefited from the most comprehensive and expensive type of DNA testing, known as whole-genome sequencing. In turn, a cottage industry has emerged to help. Critics worry that the widening use of this investigational method could lead to what is essentially a national DNA database for law enforcement, giving police access to highly personal information from a wide swath of the public without their explicit consent. The only significant limit is the cost — typically several thousand dollars per case — and that is dropping rapidly, as demand surges. “My county was more than happy to pay,” McCord said. Everyone and their grandmother Genetic genealogy debuted more than 20 years ago as a pastime for ancestry enthusiasts. The customer sent a saliva sample to a company like FamilyTreeDNA and could then log in to a website showing how closely their genetic markers matched with those of other people — long-lost relatives — in the company’s databases. Margaret Press, a software developer and mystery writer, had used the method for years to help adoptees find their biological parents. In 2017, while reading a novel based on an unsolved murder, she realized that her skills might be equally useful to law enforcement. “It just hit me,” she said. “The same technique that we were using for adoptee searches and finding unknown parents was adaptable to bones and unidentified remains.” She co-founded a nonprofit, called the DNA Doe Project, to try to match unidentified remains with genetic profiles that had been uploaded to an open-source genealogy database called GEDMatch. A set of unknown remains might match to a distant, known cousin, for example. An investigator could then build out a large family tree, first identifying the ancestors the two cousins have in common, such as great- or great-great-grandparents, and then investigating individual branches from those ancestors. Only some of those people would have lived in the right place and time as the unknown victim. More research, and the process of elimination, could ultimately reveal the Doe’s identity. The Golden State Killer and many other cases relied upon a DNA test called a microarray, which generates a subset of key markers from a person’s DNA code, like an abridged version of a book. But increasingly, investigators are turning to private companies for whole-genome sequencing, which reconstructs a person’s entire DNA code. This more sensitive test is often best for old and degraded DNA, such as from skeletal remains heavily contaminated with bacteria. HudsonAlpha Discovery, a lab in Alabama, has worked on about 1,100 forensic cases. Astrea Forensics, in California, began as part of an academic paleogenetics lab, and Othram, in Texas, has worked on hundreds of cases and raised more than $10 million in venture capital. “It really has exploded,” Press said. “Everyone and their grandmother is now setting up shop.” As a result, many cold cases have become quicker and cheaper to resolve. In the Golden State Killer case, six investigators worked full time for four months to narrow in on the culprit. Now cases are often solved in weeks or days. The DNA Doe Project, run by Press and dozens of volunteers, has taken on about 120 cases since 2017, and has fielded inquiries from another 200 or so. Many were from small sheriff’s or coroner’s offices with few resources, Press said. They are often just as skeptical of the technique, she said, as they are of the psychics who frequently call with tips on open cases: “For many of them it’s in the same category — do I call the psychic back or the genealogist back?” Testing Charlene McCord and his team in Newton County had not considered genetic genealogy until Rebecca Goddard, the county’s chief deputy prosecutor, heard about the DNA Doe Project on a podcast called “Crime Junkie.” “I understood very little,” Goddard said. “I just sort of understood the concept of using ancestry to create a family tree.” McCord reached out to the DNA Doe Project for help, and a collaboration began. Initially, his team divided up the three open cases. As a prosecutor, Goddard took the only one that was still an open homicide: Charlene Doe, whose charred remains were found by a fisherman in 1988. McCord took Adam Doe, and his deputy (and girlfriend), Heidi Cobleigh, took Brad Doe. A serial killer, Larry Eyler, had confessed to both boys’ murders years earlier but had not known their names. Back in 2010, McCord had commissioned a Texas lab to run a DNA test from one of Charlene’s teeth. That test resulted in just a couple of dozen genetic markers — too sparse to be compatible with genealogy databases. Luckily the lab, which runs the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, had kept the remaining DNA sample in storage. So now, a decade later, the DNA could be retested with the far more sophisticated whole-genome technology. There was just one problem: The sample contained only 0.3 nanograms, or 300 trillionths of a gram, of genetic material. “When we heard how much it was, we were definitely like, well, not sure if this will work but we’ll give it a shot,” said Kevin Lord, a bioinformatician and private investigator in Belton, Texas, and the lab liaison for the DNA Doe Project. Charlene’s sample, in a tiny plastic tube, was wrapped in foam and cold packs, and shipped overnight to HudsonAlpha’s lab in Huntsville, Alabama. There, the DNA went into a NovaSeq 6000, a million-dollar machine resembling a photocopier. Human DNA is made of 3 billion “base pairs,” a unique set of molecular letters that creates a book of instructions for our cells. At HudsonAlpha, Charlene’s DNA was split into tiny fragments, then placed in the sequencing machine to decode the precise sequence of letters in each. The machine then created a file containing all of these tiny sequences and uploaded it to a server. Lord downloaded that file — 71 gigabytes of raw data — onto a custom-built computer and began piecing all of those fragments back together in the right order, producing Charlene’s full genetic code. From there, he focused on a subset of roughly 1.5 million key markers, known as SNPs, that make up the genetic “profiles” used by genealogy companies. He then sent Charlene’s profile to the two genealogy databases, GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA, that make themselves available to law enforcement for such cases. Then came the hard part. Database hunting Goddard was determined to hone her new sleuthing skills on Charlene’s case. Last May, she began training with L. Elias Chan, a volunteer at the DNA Doe Project who runs a genealogy research business in Seattle. Success in such cases often depends on the size of the database: The larger it is, the more likely it will produce a match. The GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA databases are enormous, including millions of people who have voluntarily uploaded their own genetic information. (Ancestry.com and 23andMe also have huge databases but have opted not to make them accessible to law enforcement.) GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA have not always been transparent with users that the DNA profiles might be scrutinized by the police. In 2019, under public pressure, GEDMatch abruptly changed its access policy, requiring users to explicitly “opt in” to law enforcement searches. Overnight, investigators lost a raft of promising leads. Goddard caught a break in January, when GEDMatch changed its terms of service again, allowing its entire database to be used for forensic searches related to unidentified remains. Chan called Goddard with some good news: Charlene now had multiple close matches at the top of her list. True names It didn’t take long to deduce Charlene’s real name: Jenifer Noreen Denton. In 1988, when Denton was 24, she suddenly went missing from her Illinois home, leaving behind her belongings and a 1-year-old daughter. In February, Goddard talked to Denton’s daughter, now grown, for the first time. “I just felt extremely emotional about it,” Goddard recalled. Over her months of research, she had often imagined what it must have been like for Charlene’s family. “There were people out there who surely loved her and were missing her and were probably desperate for answers.” (Denton’s family declined, through an intermediary, to be interviewed.) In February, Brad Doe’s DNA was sequenced by HudsonAlpha, and on April 2, Lord uploaded it to GEDMatch. At the top of the list of matches were several close relatives. Three weeks later, and nearly 38 years after the boy’s murder, the team announced Brad’s real identity: John Ingram Brandenburg Jr., a 19-year-old from Chicago who went to a friend’s house one day and never returned. In 1983, after being tipped off by mushroom hunters, police found his remains with those of Adam Doe and two other boys near an abandoned barn off U.S. Route 41 in Newton County. All were victims of Eyler, also known as the Highway Killer, who murdered at least 21 young men and died in prison in 1994. McCord said that the teenager’s mother was distraught to learn how he had died. “She woke up every morning for the past 37 years wondering, ‘Is Johnny going to come home today?’” he said. “We hit her kind of hard.” (The family declined, through an intermediary, to be interviewed.) The Newton County team is now focused on solving their last case, of Adam Doe. His long-stored genetic sample was sequenced at HudsonAlpha and uploaded to GEDMatch, but was not robust enough to return any good matches. The team is planning to enlist a lab specialising in ancient organisms to extract a new sample of DNA from the bones. And although Charlene now has a real name, her 1988 murder case remains open. Her remains had been discovered with those of a man who was identified a year later by police. “There were some leads back in the day,” McCord said. “Now they can go back and hopefully confirm some of those leads, and we can get this resolved fairly quick.”

To solve 3 cold cases, this small US county got a DNA crash course

An Indian man was killed and two others injured in Kansas,&nbsp;Olathe,&nbsp;after&nbsp;an American man shot them after allegedly yelling &quot;get out of my country&quot; in what local police are calling a &quot;possible hate crime&quot;.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed in the shooting. His colleague Alok Madasani was critically injured and is battling for his life at the hospital, DNA reports. Another man identified as Ian Grillot was also injured in the shooting.

The Kansas City Star <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article134508139.html" target="_blank">reports </a>that&nbsp;51-year-old Olathe man, Adam W Purinton was charged Thursday with&nbsp;premeditated first-degree murder in the triple shooting, as well as two counts of attempted first-degree murder.&nbsp;

About five hours after the shooting, Purinton was arrested at an Applebee&#39;s restaurant. Police say that a bartender had called the police after Purinton allegedly said he had killed two Middle Eastern men. 
 
The FBI was investigating whether the incident was a hate crime.

&quot;We are looking at whether the crime was committed via bias motivation. We are really at the preliminary stage at looking at every aspect,&quot; said Eric Jackson, special agent in charge of the FBI&#39;s Kansas City Field Office, during a news conference.

Two officials from the Indian consulate in Houston were going to Kansas to meet the injured men and police to &quot;ascertain more details of the incident and monitor follow-up action,&quot; Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vikas Swarup said in a statement.

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I am shocked at the shooting incident in Kansas in which Srinivas Kuchibhotla has been killed. My heartfelt condolences to bereaved family.
&mdash; Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) <a href="https://twitter.com/SushmaSwaraj/status/834969533630709760">February 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I have spoken to Indian Ambassador in US Mr.Navtej Sarna. He informed me that two Indian Embassy officials have rushed to Kansas.
&mdash; Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) <a href="https://twitter.com/SushmaSwaraj/status/834970752046653440">February 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

Kansara said that the HAF thanks those who put themselves at risk to stop this attack or to bring the perpetrator to justice. &quot;It is these acts of heroism in our communities that make America great,&quot; he said.

A GoFundMe page&nbsp;has also been set up to help raise funds for sending Kuchibhotla&#39;s remains to India. It has raised over $200,000 in only eight hours, the Indian Express <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/kansas-shooting-gofundme-page-raises-over-200000-in-8-hours-for-indian-victim-srinivas-kuchibhotla/" target="_blank">reports</a>. 
 
Kavipriya Muthuramalingam, a friend and former colleague of the shooting victim, has raised more than $250,000 via a crowd-funding website to help his family with funeral and other expenses.

&quot;This came as an incredible shock - as he is one of the most gentle, nicest human beings you would meet,&quot; Muthuramalingam said. &quot;He was non-confrontational, non-controversial, easy-going, always smiling.&quot;

The shooting incident comes at a time when hate crimes and acts of bigotry have risen notably during the recent months in America. A Jewish cemetery was vandalised in St Louis, Missouri last week and the offices of Jewish civil society organisations have received bomb threats.

A man was removed from a Chicago-Houston flight after levelling racist taunts at Pakistani and Indian passengers.

Trump responsible for racist attack: Victim&#39;s family

Srinivas Kuchibhotla&#39;s family has blamed US President Donald Trump for the racist attack. 
&nbsp;

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This is 1st time it happened to family; Trump is only the primary reason as of now: Kansas shooting victim Srinivas Kuchibhotla&#39;s relative <a href="https://t.co/gxlv7Lxfzw">pic.twitter.com/gxlv7Lxfzw</a>
&mdash; ANI (@ANI_news) <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI_news/status/835046384008994816">February 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></center>
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
A racist person said &#39;get out of my country&#39; and targeted my brother and his friend: Kansas shooting victim Srinivas Kuchibhotla&#39;s relative <a href="https://t.co/I6PyqELD7T">pic.twitter.com/I6PyqELD7T</a>
&mdash; ANI (@ANI_news) <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI_news/status/835047253714751491">February 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></center>
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

 
 
&nbsp;

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
Sushma Swaraj, local BJP team &amp; Telangana govt supporting; We want the body to be here at the earliest: Kansas shooting victim&#39;s relative <a href="https://t.co/D87Rumaztj">pic.twitter.com/D87Rumaztj</a>
&mdash; ANI (@ANI_news) <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI_news/status/835047641394245632">February 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></center>
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

Srinivas Kuchibhotla worked&nbsp;at GPS-maker Garmin headquarters in Olathe, died of bullet injuries in hospital while his Indian colleague Alok Madasani&nbsp;was critically injured when the 51-year-old shooter, Adam Purinton, shot him on Wednesday night in the US.

Some cousins of Srinivas, who met and consoled his parents and other family members told PTI&nbsp;that after completing his B Tech from the city, Srinivas left for the US in 2005 for M Tech.

&quot;Four years back he got married. He was highly appreciated by his managers at his workplace. In 2014, he shifted to Garmin company.&nbsp;We have been told the shooting is due to hate crime. Srinivas was a very good person... We miss him,&quot; an inconsolable Krishnamohan (cousin) said.

&quot;This is a hatred kind of murder (hate crime attack). We normally won&#39;t answer when such people shout. I have myself worked in the US and I know it. I think my cousin also might have not answered back to him. Probably, after US President Donald&nbsp;Trump we are seeing this... We feel racist attacks have increased. Previously this was not the scene. There were incidents once in a while, now it has become very frequent. It happened in our house this time. It&#39;s very sad,&quot; Venu Madhav, another cousin, told PTI.

However, they thanked external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj for immediate response in the matter by sending two officials.

&quot;Srinivas&#39;s brother stays in Dallas. I co-ordinated with my friends and asked them to help them out. Till now the body has not been given to us and we are expecting the body to be handed over by tonight,&quot; he said.

Hate crimes dangerous trend in USA: Former Indian Ambassador to US

Former Indian Ambassador to US said the hate crime showed a &quot;dangerous trend among disgruntled people&quot; in the USA. He blamed it on the pre-election rhetoric against immigrants whipped up by Donald Trump.

&quot;Definitely a hate crime, something that&#39;s happened before. This shows a dangerous trend among disgruntled people,&quot; the former Indian Ambassador to US said.

&quot;In the run-up to election, passions have been whipped up against immigrants and foreigners. Now it&#39;s become white vs non-white,&quot; he added. &quot;I&#39;m sure the Trump administration must be watching it carefully and FBI and the local police have taken prompt action. But it&#39;s not enough.&quot;&nbsp;

Naresh Chandra blamed the trend of hate crimes in the country on &quot;Trump-produced role models&quot;.

&quot;Unfortunate part is that some of appointments made by Trump produced role models of very different kind. They&#39;re very illiberal and have been making bad speeches that sort of has enhanced the feeling of victimhood,&quot; he said. 
 
The killing led news bulletins in India and drew strong reactions on social media, where people voiced concern that Trump`s &quot;America First&quot; position on immigration and jobs has fuelled a climate of intolerance.

Popular South Indian actor Siddharth&nbsp;blamed Trump for &quot;spreading hate&quot;.

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Don&#39;t be shocked! Be angry! Trump is spreading hate. This is a hate crime! RIP <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SrinivasKuchibhotla?src=hash">#SrinivasKuchibhotla</a> <a href="https://t.co/BHiSY7SiCH">https://t.co/BHiSY7SiCH</a>
&mdash; Siddharth (@Actor_Siddharth) <a href="https://twitter.com/Actor_Siddharth/status/835015902806609920">February 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></center>
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

&nbsp;

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<center>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Our president &amp; his hateful party target immigrants, Jews, Muslims, &amp; LGBTQ fam. Let&#39;s have each other&#39;s backs. <a href="https://t.co/ntW9l2K82n">https://t.co/ntW9l2K82n</a>
&mdash; Kal Penn (@kalpenn) <a href="https://twitter.com/kalpenn/status/834980936412450817">February 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></center>
</div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">&times;</a></div>

&nbsp;

(WION with agency inputs)

The shooter allegedly yelled 'Get out of my country!' then fired at the three men

An Indian man was killed and two others injured in Kansas, Olathe, after an American man shot them after allegedly yelling "get out of my country" in what local police are calling a "possible hate crime". Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed in the shooting. His colleague Alok Madasani was critically injured and is battling for his life at the hospital, DNA reports. Another man identified as Ian Grillot was also injured in the shooting. The Kansas City Star reports that 51-year-old Olathe man, Adam W Purinton was charged Thursday with premeditated first-degree murder in the triple shooting, as well as two counts of attempted first-degree murder. About five hours after the shooting, Purinton was arrested at an Applebee's restaurant. Police say that a bartender had called the police after Purinton allegedly said he had killed two Middle Eastern men. The FBI was investigating whether the incident was a hate crime. "We are looking at whether the crime was committed via bias motivation. We are really at the preliminary stage at looking at every aspect," said Eric Jackson, special agent in charge of the FBI's Kansas City Field Office, during a news conference. Two officials from the Indian consulate in Houston were going to Kansas to meet the injured men and police to "ascertain more details of the incident and monitor follow-up action," Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vikas Swarup said in a statement. I am shocked at the shooting incident in Kansas in which Srinivas Kuchibhotla has been killed. My heartfelt condolences to bereaved family. — Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 24, 2017 × I have spoken to Indian Ambassador in US Mr.Navtej Sarna. He informed me that two Indian Embassy officials have rushed to Kansas. — Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 24, 2017 × Kansara said that the HAF thanks those who put themselves at risk to stop this attack or to bring the perpetrator to justice. "It is these acts of heroism in our communities that make America great," he said. A GoFundMe page has also been set up to help raise funds for sending Kuchibhotla's remains to India. It has raised over $200,000 in only eight hours, the Indian Express reports. Kavipriya Muthuramalingam, a friend and former colleague of the shooting victim, has raised more than $250,000 via a crowd-funding website to help his family with funeral and other expenses. "This came as an incredible shock - as he is one of the most gentle, nicest human beings you would meet," Muthuramalingam said. "He was non-confrontational, non-controversial, easy-going, always smiling." The shooting incident comes at a time when hate crimes and acts of bigotry have risen notably during the recent months in America. A Jewish cemetery was vandalised in St Louis, Missouri last week and the offices of Jewish civil society organisations have received bomb threats. A man was removed from a Chicago-Houston flight after levelling racist taunts at Pakistani and Indian passengers. Trump responsible for racist attack: Victim's family Srinivas Kuchibhotla's family has blamed US President Donald Trump for the racist attack. This is 1st time it happened to family; Trump is only the primary reason as of now: Kansas shooting victim Srinivas Kuchibhotla's relative pic.twitter.com/gxlv7Lxfzw — ANI (@ANI_news) February 24, 2017 × A racist person said 'get out of my country' and targeted my brother and his friend: Kansas shooting victim Srinivas Kuchibhotla's relative pic.twitter.com/I6PyqELD7T — ANI (@ANI_news) February 24, 2017 × Sushma Swaraj, local BJP team & Telangana govt supporting; We want the body to be here at the earliest: Kansas shooting victim's relative pic.twitter.com/D87Rumaztj — ANI (@ANI_news) February 24, 2017 × Srinivas Kuchibhotla worked at GPS-maker Garmin headquarters in Olathe, died of bullet injuries in hospital while his Indian colleague Alok Madasani was critically injured when the 51-year-old shooter, Adam Purinton, shot him on Wednesday night in the US. Some cousins of Srinivas, who met and consoled his parents and other family members told PTI that after completing his B Tech from the city, Srinivas left for the US in 2005 for M Tech. "Four years back he got married. He was highly appreciated by his managers at his workplace. In 2014, he shifted to Garmin company. We have been told the shooting is due to hate crime. Srinivas was a very good person... We miss him," an inconsolable Krishnamohan (cousin) said. "This is a hatred kind of murder (hate crime attack). We normally won't answer when such people shout. I have myself worked in the US and I know it. I think my cousin also might have not answered back to him. Probably, after US President Donald Trump we are seeing this... We feel racist attacks have increased. Previously this was not the scene. There were incidents once in a while, now it has become very frequent. It happened in our house this time. It's very sad," Venu Madhav, another cousin, told PTI. However, they thanked external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj for immediate response in the matter by sending two officials. "Srinivas's brother stays in Dallas. I co-ordinated with my friends and asked them to help them out. Till now the body has not been given to us and we are expecting the body to be handed over by tonight," he said. Hate crimes dangerous trend in USA: Former Indian Ambassador to US Former Indian Ambassador to US said the hate crime showed a "dangerous trend among disgruntled people" in the USA. He blamed it on the pre-election rhetoric against immigrants whipped up by Donald Trump. "Definitely a hate crime, something that's happened before. This shows a dangerous trend among disgruntled people," the former Indian Ambassador to US said. "In the run-up to election, passions have been whipped up against immigrants and foreigners. Now it's become white vs non-white," he added. "I'm sure the Trump administration must be watching it carefully and FBI and the local police have taken prompt action. But it's not enough." Naresh Chandra blamed the trend of hate crimes in the country on "Trump-produced role models". "Unfortunate part is that some of appointments made by Trump produced role models of very different kind. They're very illiberal and have been making bad speeches that sort of has enhanced the feeling of victimhood," he said. The killing led news bulletins in India and drew strong reactions on social media, where people voiced concern that Trump`s "America First" position on immigration and jobs has fuelled a climate of intolerance. Popular South Indian actor Siddharth blamed Trump for "spreading hate". Don't be shocked! Be angry! Trump is spreading hate. This is a hate crime! RIP #SrinivasKuchibhotla https://t.co/BHiSY7SiCH — Siddharth (@Actor_Siddharth) February 24, 2017 × Our president & his hateful party target immigrants, Jews, Muslims, & LGBTQ fam. Let's have each other's backs. https://t.co/ntW9l2K82n — Kal Penn (@kalpenn) February 24, 2017 × (WION with agency inputs)

Indian man killed in Kansas: Family blames Trump for 'hate crime'

us-murder

Us Murder, News on Us Murder, stories on Us Murder, articles on Us Murder, Us Murder stories at Wion, Us Murder news, Us Murder latest news