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Real-crime followers were shocked when the decades-old Golden State Killer case was cracked by DNA. Joseph James DeAngelo was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder after his DNA was linked to crime scenes through a genealogy database. But this is far from the only example of a cold case being reinvestigated or solved after decades thanks to genetic evidence. Take a look at the cold case murders solved decades later by DNA.

▲The serial killer, rapist, and burgler dubbed the Golden State Killer committed at least 12 murders, more than 50 rapes, and over 100 burglaries in California from 1974 to 1986.

▲After decades as a cold-case, Joseph James DeAngelo was recently charged with eight counts of first-degree murder after his DNA was linked to the crime scenes through a genealogy database.

▲The 72-year-old former police officer was linked to the crimes after law enforcement uploaded the Golden State Killer's DNA profile from a rape kit to a personal genomics website.

▲The website identified a number of distant relatives, from which investigators constructed a family tree. They identified two suspects in the case and ruled one out by a relative's DNA, leaving just DeAngelo.

▲Melanie Road was sexually assaulted and stabbed 26 times after leaving a nightclub in Bath in June 1984.

▲In 2014, Christopher Hampton was arrested for the crime after his daughter gave police her DNA profile after a minor incident.

▲It showed a familial link to evidence from Melanie’s clothing and DNA from Hampton confirmed the match.

▲Hampton pled guilty as his trial was about to begin at Bristol Crown Court and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years.

▲Teenager Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death in a racially motivated attack in London in 1993. The event and subsequent investigation shocked the nation.

▲A letter identifying five suspects was left in a telephone box and David Norris, Luke Knight, Neil and Jamie Acourt, and Gary Dobson were arrested, but charges were dropped.

▲A 1996 trial of Neil Acourt, Dobson, and Knight collapsed and the men were acquitted. An inquiry into the police investigation was launched.

▲In 2005 the government got rid of the legal rule preventing suspects from being tried twice for the same crime and the following year, the case was reviewed with new DNA analysis.

▲A microscopic stain of Lawrence's blood was found in the fibres of Dobson's jacket and other evidence was found on both Dobson and Norris's clothing.

▲After a six-week trial Dobson and Norris were both found guilty of murder and received life sentences.

▲In 1992, Rachel Nickell was sexually assaulted and stabbed 49 times in front of her two-year old-son on Wimbledon Common.

▲Colin Stagg was put on trial for the murder, but acquitted. The case remained cold until 2003, when new analysis revealed male DNA on Nickell's body that was not from her family members.

▲Police apologised to Stagg, who had spent one year on remand in prison for the crime. The DNA was matched to Robert Napper, a man who had been questioned about the killing.

▲Napper was in Broadmoor secure hospital for the rape and killing of Samantha Bissett and her four-year-old daughter in 1993.

▲In 2008, Napper plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was sentenced to indefinite incarceration at Broadmoor.

▲In 1984, 'Crimewatch' first aired and featured the killing of 16-year-old Colette Aram.

▲Aram was a trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped, and strangled to death while walking to her boyfriend’s house in Nottinghamshire in 1983.

▲Despite hundreds of calls to the TV programme and police, noone was arrested. The killer sent a letter to detectives taunting them that they would never catch him.

▲In June 2008, Jean-Paul Hutchinson was arrested on a driving charge. His DNA was taken and it was revealed as a near-match to that taken from Aram's body. But Hutchinson was too young to be the killer.

▲Jean-Paul's father, Paul Stewart Hutchinson, was arrested and his fingerprints were found to match those on the letter sent to police. DNA tests confirmed that he was the killer and he was sentenced to life in prison.

▲In 1979, 22-year-old Teresa de Simone was killed after leaving her part-time bartending job at a pub in Southampton.

▲In 1982, Sean Hodgson was sentenced to life imprisonment after confessing to the killing of de Simone. He later appealed the conviction, saying he was a pathological liar who had made a false confession.

▲A year later, David Lace was arrested for theft and confessed to having killed de Simone but police didn't believe him.

▲In 2009, Hodgson's lawyers asked for the case to be reopened and semen samples from the crime scene were checked against the new DNA database. A familial link was found to Lace’s sister.

▲Lace had killed himself in 1988, but his body was exhumed and body was exhumed and tests showed he was the killer.

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Sean Hodgson was acquitted and freed after 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.