Comment by yannyu

You don't think that it's easier to identify whether something is bubonic plague than it would be to identify whether two DNA samples are related? Especially when one of them is aged such that it's not even a whole sequence anymore?

Yes, our ability to manipulate and read DNA has increased significantly in the past 40 years. But you can't create data from something that isn't there or has been corrupted beyond recovery.

And as far as the efficacy of police goes, I don't think that a warrant is sufficient to prove that there's confirmed utility in getting these samples.