Not an investigator nor a lawyer but as I understand to be incriminated it needs to be proven you did the crime and it depending on the type of the crime it needs to be proven you did it intentionally.
Unless she has anything else to do with the crime a hair follicle isn’t enough to be incriminating, because it alone doesn’t really prove anything. Worst case it just sets her at the scene of the crime and best case the hair is used to narrow down the actual list of suspects.
proven you did the crime
None of that matters if the jury decides you are guilty, regardless of what they’re supposed to do. The same mechanism that allow for jury nullification also works the opposite.
Just look at Texas… At an otherwise peaceful sound protest where one person shot a cop. Everyone wearing black was rounded up and charged as “antifa terrorists”. As if simply wearing black was enough to prove they conspired. Oh and the terrorist “zine” they had that the prosecution used as “evidence of ideologically driven intent”, was actually a years old movie analysis of feminism’s relationship to horror cinema. And it wasn’t even written by anyone there. In fact the author didn’t even have anything to do with the protest, and was never even contacted by law enforcement about it.
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/13/movie-review-antifa-prairieland-trial/
As someone who has watched Forensic Files and rewatched almost every episode multiple times, I would slightly disagree. It’s true that hair without the root usually doesn’t contain nuclear DNA that can be used to directly match a person. However, hair shafts can still contain mitochondrial DNA.
Mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the maternal line and can sometimes be recovered even when the root is missing. While it’s not as specific as nuclear DNA and usually can’t identify a single individual, it can still help investigators narrow things down to a maternal lineage.
Not an investigator nor a lawyer but as I understand to be incriminated it needs to be proven you did the crime and it depending on the type of the crime it needs to be proven you did it intentionally.
Unless she has anything else to do with the crime a hair follicle isn’t enough to be incriminating, because it alone doesn’t really prove anything. Worst case it just sets her at the scene of the crime and best case the hair is used to narrow down the actual list of suspects.
I think the implied meaning is that it’s a very clever question and it’s unexpected for someone so young to think of it. So it’s kind of a humblebrag that their daughter is smart.
She could definitely be smart and likely isn’t dumb, but I don’t think this level of thinking is out of the ordinary for a 12 year old.
don’t think this level of thinking is out of the ordinary for a 12 year old.
Agreed, that’s why I find it weird to be bragging about the age. It could be insulting for the person, and specifically their intelligence.
In addition to the donated hair lacking DNA, they can only do DNA matchrd against samples they already have or could legally acquire (generally with a warrant).
So if she’s not otherwise in their system or already a suspect, she should be in the clear!
Yeah this is exactly the thing.
You can narrow down suspects from millions to hundreds because your cousin needed to see that they are 34 percent German or whatever.