Aurora Starchild
This is straight out of a TV show. A woman who took a 23andME DNA test got much more than she paid for when her DNA was linked to a 36-year-old murder cold case. Jackie Vadurro was in disbelief when the cops called her from a restricted number.
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Jackie Vadurro Was Contacted by Homicide Detectives in Another State After Uploading Her 23andME DNA Test
“I have literally just had the weirdest 48 hours of my life,” Vadurro said on TikTok. The 31-year-old is a content creator who lives in her RV in Palm Springs.
“I am living in my own Dateline episode,” she continued. “48 hours ago, I was sitting at lunch, eating my salad, minding my own business. And I got a no caller ID call on my phone.” She said she picked it up anyways and was greeted by a homicide detective from San Diego.
Vadurro said the female homicide detective explained that there was a 1986 homicide case for a Jane Doe in San Diego. She thought Vadurro was a possible DNA match.
The Jane Doe was shot and killed before being dumped on the side of a rural road in San Diego. After 36 years, Vadurro was the first person to be linked to the victim. Up until Vadurro uploaded her 23andME DNA test to the website, there hadn’t been any leads about the woman’s identity.
She Thought She Was Being Pranked About the DNA – Murder Case Link
“At first, I thought it was a scam and I was like, ‘Oh my God, no. They’re gonna clone me.” But the detective gave her the department’s credentials and Vadurro called the office up and it was all legit.
Vadurro updated the public in several follow-up videos. Her mother had to go get a DNA test so detectives could determine which side of her family the victim came from. Ultimately, Vadurro was linked to the victim because of a 2nd or 3rd cousin and one other person whose DNA was recorded. Detectives determined that the connecting link was likely Jackie’s mother’s great-grandfather.
“The detective’s like, ‘Jackie, you could be the break in this case and you’re basically ground zero in this case right now,’” she said.
After putting together Vadurro’s family tree, homicide detectives inferred that Jane Doe was related to a “scoundrel.” She explained that the term is used to describe men who have children but abandon them. The homicide victim was thought to have possibly migrated from Jalisco, Mexico to San Diego.
“They said she was shot once in the chest,” Vadurro elaborated. “They don’t think she was a hooker or a prostitute because she was dressed really nice in a nice skirt with nice sandals on… She was a really pretty girl, well kept. She might have moved from Mexico to the United States, and just lost contact with her family … It’s so freaking sad.”
Vadurro Family Wants to Find Out What Jane Doe’s Name Is
Vadurro’s family intends on establishing a headstone to honor Jane Doe after her name is discovered. The hope is that the cops have enough information from her 23andME and mom’s DNA tests at this point to piece the murder mystery together.
“My hope is really to just put this story out there in hopes that more people will be willing to share their DNA and help cops bring people to justice,” she said. “And I’m hoping this will give her her name back.”
