Sex crime detectives used emerging DNA technology to arrest an elderly man in a string of sexual assaults spanning more than 30 years. New South Wales the police
Robert Wayne Kwan, 77, was arrested after detectives executed a search warrant in South Kempsey on the NSW north coast on Wednesday.
Quan faced court on Thursday on nine counts of sexual assault and several kidnapping charges.
Police allege Kwan was responsible for three attacks over an 11-year period involving an 11-year-old girl in Sydney West in 1991, a 16-year-old girl in the Illawarra in 1996 and a 26-year-old girl in Dubbo in 2002.
NSW Police used Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (Figg) to match DNA profiles from multiple crimes with genetic profiles – the same technique used in 2018 to identify the Golden State Killer in the United States.
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Unlike traditional forensic profiling, which looks at 21 genetic markers, Fig’s process examines hundreds of thousands of genetic markers to identify family ties as distant as fourth cousins.
DNA markers were compared to two publicly available genealogy databases, GEDmatch PRO and FamilyTreeDNA, which allow law enforcement to match profiles for use in solving serious crimes.
NSW detectives began using the technology to review unsolved sex crimes in 2022 and were able to link three cases to the same male profile.
In the first case, an 11-year-old girl was allegedly approached by an unknown man in the Sydney suburb of Glendenning in March 1991, who gave her a lift and took her into his car. The man allegedly sexually assaulted her and then dumped her at Mount Druitt railway station.
In February 1996, a 16-year-old girl accepted a lift from an unknown man in Kanahoka, Wollongong. He sexually assaulted her and dumped her in Warrawong.
In December 2002, a 26-year-old woman received a lift from an unidentified man near the Commercial Hotel in Dubbo who allegedly sexually assaulted her.
Each of the three alleged assaults was reported and DNA samples collected.
After DNA analysis confirmed that it matched the same male DNA profile, police uploaded it to public genealogy databases and identified a close relative of the attacker, eventually narrowing their search to Quan.
This is the first arrest in NSW prompted by the technology.
Sex Crimes Squad commander, Det Supt Jane Doherty, urged people to consider “opting in” on genealogy websites to allow law enforcement to compare profiles.
Such access would only be used for the most serious victim-based crimes, such as murder, sexual assault or the identification of human remains, she said.
According to Doherty, other Australian states are using the technique and there have been previous arrests using the method in Western Australia.
“As time passes, our detectives continue to pursue every avenue available to identify those responsible for such sexual assaults.”
Kwan did not apply for bail and will return to Kempsey Local Court on April 22.
