The Denver Police Department’s Cold Case Project is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and one of its recent successes happened in 2022, when investigators connected a 2004 burglary and sexual assault to a man in Missouri, Jason Groshart.
Groshart is accused of donning a mask and entering the home of the victim in Northwest Denver. The filing from the Denver District Attorney’s Office alleges that he then sexually assaulted the victim at gunpoint. The next day, the victim submitted to an examination, which collected DNA evidence. At the time, no match was found.
For 18 years, the case went unsolved. But in 2022, a technique called “Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy” was used. FIGG first emerged in 2018, and according to a study published by the National Institutes of Health, the technique applies “advanced sequencing technologies to forensic DNA evidence samples and by performing genetic genealogy methods and genealogical research, to produce possible identities of unknown perpetrators of violent rims and unidentified human remains.”
DPD used a federal grant, awarded specifically for the use of FIGG, to solve and prosecute violent crime cold cases.
In the Groshart case, the Denver Crime Lab worked with a genetic genealogy investigator to produce an investigative lead, and Groshart was identified as a possible suspect. According to a court filing, law enforcement agents collected his DNA “by collecting a straw and eating utensils used by the defendant while dining out at a restaurant.”
Based on the DNA at the crime scene and the collected DNA from Groshart, the court filing stated that “the probability is greater than 99.9% that the male DNA obtained from these items can be attributed to the same source, the defendant Jason Groshart.”
Nine days after the police collected the utensils, an at-large arrest warrant was issued. A day later, on Oct. 4, 2022, Groshart was arrested in Sedalia, Missouri. Later that month, he was transported to Denver.
Groshart is currently being held by the Denver Sheriff Department. He entered a not guilty plea in the case on June 30, 2023.
Groshart also filed a motion to dismiss the case due to “Outrageous Government Conduct,” related to the collection of his DNA, which he states was collected without the use of a search warrant. Prosecutors argue that “Because these items were abandoned and therefore not protected by the Fourth Amendment, the collection of the utensils was not a search and no search warrant was required.”
The Denver DA also proposed a stipulation in March 2024 to bar the question of how Groshart got identified as a suspect at trial.
Following multiple continuances in the case, there is now an official jury trial date set, August 11, which is preceded by a pretrial conference on July 31, according to the Denver District Court docket.