08/23/2026
He Was a Cop for 27 Years. Then His DNA Caught Him .
For 27 years, William Baer was one of Jacksonville, Florida's most respected detectives — a fixture of the intelligence division, known for testifying against the very criminals he helped put away.
In 1999, a convenience store owner named Saad Kawaf was stabbed to death — a man Baer's own unit had been investigating. The case went cold. Blood and nail-clipping evidence sat untested for nearly two decades.
Then, in 2018, a cold case detective resubmitted that evidence for genetic genealogy testing. Two years later, the match came back — and it pointed to someone who had worked in that same building for decades.
This is the true story of how DNA evidence, combined with modern genetic genealogy, finally solved the 1999 murder of Saad Kawaf — and exposed a detective who had spent his career on the other side of the interrogation table.