Barbara Rae-Venter (born July 17, 1948) is a New Zealand-born American genetic genealogist, biologist, and retired patent attorney best known for her work helping police and investigators identify Joseph James DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer. Born in New Zealand, she earned a doctorate at the University of California at San Diego and later completed law school at the University of Texas at Austin. After retirement from her law career, Rae-Venter started researching her family history as a hobby in an attempt to help a family member find his biological family. As part of this work, she was asked to help identify a woman who had been abducted as a child. Her efforts in this case eventually identified Terry Peder Rasmussen as the suspect in the Bear Brook Murders in New Hampshire. In 2019