Project Justice, a Las Vegas-based nonprofit, collaborates with the DNA lab Othram to solve cold cases.
They sponsored the 1989 unsolved murder of 14-year-old Stephanie Isaacson and identified the suspect, leading to the expansion of the Las Vegas Police cold case unit.
The organization has funded about 100 cold case investigations, with 22 cases solved.
“In 2020, we were doing a lot of things for the community of Las Vegas, and we found this company called Othram, which is in Houston, Texas,” Justin Woo stated.
“And we were talking with them about the amazing things they were doing with DNA and forensic genealogy to solve crimes, and we gave them a condition: If you find a case for us in Las Vegas, we’ll fully sponsor that.”
“Justin got all excited about it, and he’s like, ‘Well, let’s do more cases.’ And so he asked a couple of his friends, me included,” Lydia Ansel said.
“And we also fully sponsored one case, and he called it the Vegas Justice League. … And then, from there, we just saw the more we were doing, the more we were inspired to do. And we basically branched off, Justin and I, into something we call Project Justice, which is nationwide.”
Project Justice aims to assist police departments by financing DNA testing and has received donations ranging from $10 to $494,000.
Advances in DNA testing have been instrumental in solving cold cases nationwide, such as the Long Island serial killer case.
“As technology rapidly evolves, local law enforcement are challenged to access these emerging resources, and Project Justice is committed to supporting their efforts,” a Project Justice spokesperson said.
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