Baby Garnet and Informed Consent Revisited

Trigger warning: This post discusses sexual consent.

Baby Garnet

On June 26th, 1997, a maintenance worker tasked with reopening a remote campground in Michigan’s upper peninsula made a wrenching discovery:  the decaying body of a newborn girl in an outhouse tank.  According to contemporaneous reporting, the initial autopsy indicated she was full term or nearly so but couldn’t determine whether she had been born alive.  Her body had been in the tank for weeks.  No one knew who her parents were.

Without a cause of death, the county prosecutor wasn’t sure what charges could be filed, but authorities were investigating the death as a homicide.  As the case grew cold, the newborn became known locally as Baby Garnet, after the Garnet Lake Campground where she was found.

Detectives reopened the case in 2017 and ultimately contracted with Identifinders International to identify Baby Garnet’s parents using forensic genetic genealogy (FGG).  By May 2022, genealogist Misty Gillis had a lead:  Jenna Gerwatowski, a 21-year-old who wasn’t yet born when Baby Garnet died.  According to CNN, a Michigan state police detective told Jenna “Your DNA was a match” to Baby Garnet and that Gillis would call her.  Gillis asked for Jenna’s FamilyTreeDNA password so she could upload the DNA to another database.  Ultimately, Jenna’s grandmother was charged with murder and could be facing a life sentence.

I have a lot of questions about this case.  There are inconsistencies between the CNN article and what Jenna herself has said on TikTok—for example, did she test at FamilyTreeDNA or AncestryDNA?—and some aspects of this story simply do not make sense.  Misty Gillis declined to comment.  Until the truth comes out, I want to focus on a different issue:  informed consent.

 

Red Flags

I’ve been writing about informed consent since the early days of my blog and advocating for its use for FGG since the Golden State Killer was arrested in 2018.  I’ve even suggested specific text that could be used in an informed consent agreement.  All to little avail.  FGG has been described as “the Wild West” for good reason.

The tide may finally be turning.

The nascent Investigative Genetic Genealogy Accreditation Board’s definition of informed consent reflects the principles I’ve advocated for years.  They define it as “an individual or their legal proxy’s written voluntary permission given with the understanding of the possible consequences and full knowledge of the possible risks and benefits of sharing their Genetic Data File” (IGGAB Professional Standards and Accreditation Requirements, April 2024, p. 9).

There’s one essential component of this definition that deserves attention:  informed consent must be voluntary.  No one should be encouraged, much less pressured, into making one specific choice over another.  This is especially true when there is a conflict of interest, for example, if the person asking for consent will benefit personally or professionally from that choice.

Regardless where Jenna tested, she clearly did not give consent (much less informed consent) to be part of a forensic genetic genealogy investigation.  From the CNN article, “She wondered how [the detective] had even obtained her DNA.”  If she had consented, she wouldn’t have wondered.  In May 2022 when Jenna took the detective’s call, FamilyTreeDNA opted almost everyone in to forensic matching by default, so if she tested there, she was most likely opted in without her knowledge or consent.  AncestryDNA explicitly forbids law enforcement to use their database, so Jenna didn’t consent if she tested there, either.

Strike one.

Jenna apparently had no idea of the risks of participating in the FGG search, like your grandmother could be charged with murder.  She was unaware of the risks even after she agreed to help.  In her TikTok video (around 5:30), she says “We uploaded my DNA into this worldwide database and it comes back as a distant relative.”  Wow.  I can’t imagine a reputable genetic genealogist telling someone a half-niece match is a distant relative, so we can only assume that Jenna clearly did not understand what she was getting into and thus could not give informed consent.

Strike two.

Finally, Jenna did not consent willingly.  She initially refused to participate.  It wasn’t until the police reached out to other family members, who told her it was an “emergency,” that she agreed to help.  Per CNN, “She was terrified police would think she was trying to hide something because of her refusal to speak with Gillis.”  Consent under pressure is not actually consent.

Strike three.

 

The Sex Test

Informed consent is more than just not saying no.  You need to understand exactly what you’re agreeing to, you must agree beforehand, and you can’t be pressured into making one choice over another.  If the implications are hidden from you, you can’t really consent.

If you’re ever unsure about informed consent, there’s a simple way to cut through the fog:  the sex test.  If it wouldn’t be consent for sex, it’s not consent for FGG matching.

• If you weren’t aware that you engaged in sex, did you give consent?
• If someone withheld information about a consequence of sex, did you give informed consent?
• If you were intimidated or pressured into sex, did you consent voluntarily?

For each of those questions, replace “sex” with “FGG matching,” and the ethical path should be clear.  Forensic genetic genealogy is not there yet, but it’s getting closer.

—–

Hey!
I’m trying out Substack as an alternative blogging site.  I may stick with it; I may not.  If you’d like to check me out there, you can find me at thednageek.substack.com.