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A California woman was left “baffled” after homicide detectives claimed they had matched her 23andMe DNA test to a cold case from 1986.
Jacquleine ‘Jackie’ Vadurro, of Palm Springs, found herself ‘living in my own episode of Dateline’ after San Diego cold case homicide detectives called her to inform her that her DNA could be a match to that of a woman who she was brutally murdered in 1986.
“Oh my gosh guys I’ve literally had the weirdest 48 hours of my life,” Vadurro said in a Jan. 20 TikTok. “Forty-eight hours ago, I was sitting down eating lunch, eating my salad, minding my own business, and I got a call with no caller ID on my phone and I was like, ‘That’s weird,’ but I answered anyway. ‘
On the other end of the phone, the detective told him his “DNA could be a possible match” to 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 that she was ‘ground zero’ in the case as her DNA was the closest match to that of the Jane Doe.
“I was so taken aback,” Vadurro told the New York Post.
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Jacquleine ‘Jackie’ Vadurro, of Palm Springs, found herself ‘living in my own episode of Dateline’ after San Diego cold case homicide detectives called her to inform her that her DNA could be a match to a woman who was brutally brutalized. murdered in 1986
Through her and her mother’s DNA, San Diego detectives were able to determine that the Jane Doe was related to Vadurro on her mother’s side.
“Now they think I could be a member of their family because of my DNA that I uploaded to 23andMe,” Vadurro said on TikTok. “At first I thought it was a scam, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re going to like cloning me, you know, who wouldn’t want another one of me. But then I investigated and they sent me his credentials and everything and I called the homicide department.
They were legit. It was something real, super legit.
Police departments do not have access to the 23andMe data, but they connected Vadurro through a long-lost cousin whose DNA was already in the GED Match system. In order for them to potentially link Vadurro to the case, he had to upload his 23andMe results into the system.
Detectives told her that she was ‘ground zero’ in the case as her DNA was the closest match to that of the Jane Doe. “I was so taken aback,” Vadurro said.
What detectives discovered almost immediately was that Vadurro was an almost perfect match, as he was Italian and Mexican and had ties to Jalisco, Mexico, on his mother’s side, where the victim was found.
Detectives later determined that the victim was on her mother’s side after Vadurro’s mother submitted her own DNA sample to police and told Vadurro that the victim was her second or third cousin.
“They called me in about 30 minutes and said, ‘Jackie, thank you very much. This is the biggest break we’ve had on this case in a whole year,'” Vadurro said in a follow-up video.
Vadurro was eating a salad in late January when detectives called to say she might be a match for the victim. Detectives have not yet been able to identify the victim or the killer, as they are still building his mother’s family tree.
San Diego detectives have invited Vadurro to Florida to go over the other “weird and interesting characters” in her family, which the Californian wants to go to.
Vadurro told DailyMail.com on Friday that “there is no real progress yet” and that police have yet to identify the victim as they are still “checking my family tree”.
However, they believe the victim is connected to the family of Vadurro’s mother’s great-grandfather.
The number one match to the victim lives in New York, according to Vadurro, and she said the man wants to buy the victim a tombstone once she is identified.
He also said that police do not believe the victim was a “prostitute or prostitute” as she was “dressed very nicely” in a skirt and sandals when found in 1986. The victim was also described as having “long brown hair, brown eyes ‘, and was said to be ‘very, very pretty’. She was also between 25 and 30 years old.
Despite continuing to investigate Vadurro’s family tree, San Diego detectives have invited Vadurro to Florida to go over the other “weird and interesting characters” in her family that the Californian wants to go to.
So far, police have not identified the woman, nor the killer in the 1986 case.