Meet Olivia McCarter

In February, we learned that the Babes in the Woods, the two little boys who were murdered in Stanley Park 75 years ago—were Derek D’Alton aged seven and his brother David, six. Genetic genealogy—the latest crime fighting tool was able to do what seven decades of police work could not—identify the little boys through familial DNA.

Genetic Genealogy:

And, while the Vancouver Police Department and the BC Coroner’s Service deserve credit for all the work that they’ve done, our thanks should also be going to Olivia McCarter, a 20-year-old university student from South Alabama. Her passion is genealogy and her specialty is identifying the remains of missing children and bringing closure to their families.

Doe Network:

Olivia had just turned 19 in 2020 when she read about the Babes in the Woods case in the Doe Network—the international centre for unidentified and missing persons. As the head (unpaid) intern for Boston-based Redgrave Research, she thought she could help to identify the two boys. She contacted Dr David Sweet at the University of BC who extracted DNA from the boy’s teeth in the late 1990s, and put her in touch with the detective who was handling the case.

“When I contacted the VPD about doing the case, I had no idea how big it was. I’ve never been to Vancouver. I’ve never been out of the southern United States. I just wanted to work on it because who does that to two little boys?” Detective Rodriguez was very receptive to the idea of using genetic genealogy to find their identities, says Olivia. “She knew that they were not going to get a conviction, she just wanted to give these babies their names back.”

This year Olivia took over the cold case unit for the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama. She says while she didn’t get to work on the genetic genealogy for the two boys, she’s proud of the interns who did and for her initial involvement in getting the case for Redgrave.

Giving children their names back:

Now Olivia’s team is working to solve around a hundred open cases. “Working on kids cases is my main priority so having any sort of involvement with Derek and David’s case was just awesome and I absolutely loved it,” she says. “I really like where I am right now. I get about two to three new cases each week from different agencies across the state of Alabama and being able to solve murders and identify missing people in your home is some of the most important work ever. I want to knock out Alabama’s cold cases altogether.”

• The Babes in the Woods was featured in Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders and an updated version is in my new book Cold Case BC which will be published in October.
• Listen to the podcast and Olivia’s involvement

© Eve Lazarus, 2022