Morgan Absher

With no physical evidence connecting him to a crime.

It's a crazy concept.

I know.

Game changing.

And we talk a lot about nuclear DNA versus mitochondrial DNA on the show.

Again, nuclear DNA is the kind that can identify a specific individual, but it's more easily degraded by things like heat from a fire, water from a fire department, and time.

Obviously, a lot of years has passed.

Mitochondrial DNA is the kind that tells you if two people are related from their mother's side.

But there's actually a third kind of DNA test, which is what the Austin Police Department used in 2008 while preparing for this new trial.

This is clue number six for us.

This test called Y-STR can isolate Y-DNA, which comes from the Y chromosome.

So only male DNA would have this.

Now, in this case, the amounts of DNA available from the crime scene were

tiny.

And they were mixed with the victim's own DNA.

In one of the press releases I watched with the investigator, he said that there were only a few picograms of DNA, which is literally like he describes it as like just a few cells.

Like, it was nothing.

And that's exactly why the Y DNA was so important here.

Obviously, none of the victims had Y chromosomes.

Like, these were all girls.