LOS ANGELES, Calif. - After many years on the stand-up comedy stage in Minneapolis and writing comedy in Los Angeles, Browns Valley, Minn. native Mitch Hansen just got a chance at some much different work in the genre of True Crime.
He co-wrote a new audio series available on Audible.com called "Evil Has A Name." It features the cold case investigator who cracked the case of the Golden State Killer, responsible for at least 13 murders and 50 rapes in California in the 1970s and '80s.
Hansen interviewed 20 people including victims and investigators and details how the detective used an an ancestry research website to find the suspect.
"He had the idea of putting the killer's DNA up on GEDmatch, to see if any of the killer's relatives had tried to see what their ancestry was," Hansen said.
Hansen says on the website GEDmatch.com, Detective Paul Holes matched a fourth cousin to the killer's DNA, built a family tree working forward from the 1700s, and eventually found Joseph DeAngelo, who's now charged with murder.
"They can now, these cold cases that have been sitting around for decades, if they have DNA, they can start building trees until they find you. And that's amazing," Hansen said.
Hansen's podcast details the revolutionary police work as well as never-before heard perspective by those haunted by the Golden State Killer.