♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ . >> juju: this is "nightline". tonight, dna detectives, a new york city corporate attorney who police say is also a serial rapist. >> this is a person who wouldn't normally show up as a suspect in this type of violent crime. >> juju: appearing in a boston court with his new pleading guilty to attacks a decade ago. >> there was a fear in the city with these attacks that were not solved. >> juju: inside the investigation and how genetic genealogy could help solve other unsolved sexual assault cases >> plus elliott paige one of the most visual trans men in

hollywood now living in his authentic self. >> i'm feeling that joy every day. what it has allowed me is what it feels like truly be alive for the first time. >> opening up about his childhood pain. >> the experiences i had in regards to bullying, it certainly only encourages the shame that literally makes you sick. >> and sharing his story at a moment when trans rights are under attack. >> and hero's salute tworld war ii veterans returning to normandy 79 years after d-day. ♪ >> "nightline" will be right back. ♪ an spf-icionando if you will. my bottle of choice? neutrogena ultra sheer. a lightweight blend that protects 6 layers deep with a smooth dry-touch finish. this round is on me. neutrogena ultra sheer. i used to pre-rinse dishes cause my old detergent didn't actually get 'em clean. but new cascade platinum plus has me doing dishes... differently.

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♪ ♪ >> juju: thanks for joining us. we begin tonight with the shocking arrest of a new york city corporate attorney accused in a string of violent sexual assaults that rattled boston more than a decade ago. appearing in court with his new fiancee. authorities say the suspect, who pleaded not guilty, was tracked down with the help of dna detective work. could it help crack other unsolved cases? here's abc's ariel with the latest in our ongoing series body of sneezed a shocking arrest more than a decade in the making. 35-year-old new york city attorney matthew nelo in court,

200 miles from his new jersey home, pleading not guilty to raping three different women and attempting to rape a fourth boston 15 years ago. >> aggravated rape and kidnapping in 2011. acc vated rape and kidnapping on november 22nd have 2007, aggravated in august 28th. assault to rape and assault and indecent battery in the early morning hours of december 23, 2008. >> why do you believe there's so much interest in this case. >> i think it really is concerning to people to realize that there are violent criminals that walk among us, that live what appear to be normal lives. >> i've worked a lot of serial rain cases. they tend to be smarter. sometimes they're attractive. it's interesting sometimes they don't fit the stereo type. they come from all walks of life. >> reporter: each of his alleged victims reportedly reported the

assault but the dna collected went unmatched for years. >> at the time police put out an alert to warn people about this and there was a lot of concern. there was a climate of fear in the city. >> reporter: but in 2022 boston police used dna from rape kits and checked it against publicly accessible genealogy web sites with the hope of finding a match. the result, a federal investigation. agents following nelo to a corporate event earlier this year. >> he was placed under surveillance in early 2023 while living in new jersey and working at a new york city law firm. fbi agents were able to obtain various utensils and drinking glasses they watched the defendant use at a corporate event. >> this arrest consume late the investigation that imemployed the use of forensic genealogy. all four case resist dna connected. >> at the time of the crimes nelo would have been 19-21 years

old, his attorney arguing bail should be lowered due to his accomplishments over the years. his new fiancee in the hearing clutching rosary beads. >> in law school, intended to be married, to my knowledge has any history of default or prior convictions in this stated or any other state. >> he went to the boston latin school, one of the premier schools in the state. he had a lot of friends growing up then went on to college in wisconsin and then went on to law school in san francisco. >> if this started around when he was 20 years old, i would definitely follow to every location where he has spent any time to see if there are any unsolved sexual assaults in those general locations. >> reporter: his alleged victims were between 23 and 44 years old at the time of their assaults. police say three of the women were picked up downtown and driven to an area called terminal street where they were raped.

>> in the fourth attempted rape case it was a woman out jogging. the terminal street area of georgetown was an industrial area. it's near the water front but there wouldn't have been many people in the area especially in the early morning hours. >> reporter: melo is the sixth subject arrested by boston police since they created a new initiative to solve cold rape cases last year. wcbb investigative reporter karen anderson has been covering the slew of arrests since 2022 after the city received a $2.5 million federal grant to send a thousand rape kits for enhanced testing. >> they're going through every single case and making sure that it is all given the same respect and attention that it deserves. >> reporter: that grant money is part of a wider push nationwide by the sexual assault kit initiative which has awarded more than $320 million to state and local jurisdictions. and has resolved thousands of cases of sexual assault and

homicides since 2015. >> they were able to find an outside lab who could take a look at what they had for dna profiles and see if they could use databases with family trees to try to identify what could be a fifth cousin, fourth cousin, and then try to narrow down on who the perpetrator could be. >> reporter: investigative genetic genealogy gained rapid attention after it helped lead to the 2018 arrest of the infamous golden state kill consider. as highlightedd in the hbo documentary i'll be gone in the dark. >> he's called the golden state killer. >> this case is huge. >> michelle would go to the crime scene and walk the case. >> gee graphic connections, dna profiles, genealogy web sites. >> hundreds of cases where if it wasn't for ja netted i can genealogy they would have likely never been identifiedd. >> reporter: see see more is an investigative genealogist whose work has been featured on shows

like abc'ss the genetic detective. >> i'm a new kind of detective. >> reporter: these rape cases happened 15 years ago and they've been so far unsolved. can you explain the evolution of forensic genetic genealogy? >> when these assaults allegedly happened, it was at the very inception of genetic genealogy. and then around the year 2010, just a little bit after these crimes happened, we started helping people solve more recent identity mysteries, such as adoption or donor conception. and that is really what laid the ground work for investigative genetic genealogy, and for being able to work with law enforcement to identify these violent criminals. >> reporter: moore says she and her team have helped law enforcement solve more than 270 cases using investigative genetic genealogy in the last five years. and studies found that genetic genealogy has been used to help solve more than 500 crimes

around the country. it was also used in the investigation of the recent university of idaho quadruple murder. the suspect pleading not guilty on all charges. >> law enforcement sources telling abc news the identified suspect bryan kohberger by linking dna evidence from the crime scene to a public genealogy database. >> reporter: but the methodology has legal limitations. >> investigative genetic genealogy can only create a theory about the potential identity of that person of interest, and then the rest is up to law enforcement to take that tip and determine what it means and whether this is someone that they should then put under investigation and collect their dna to compare against that covert admissible profile. >> reporter: is investigative genetic genealogy admissible in court. >> it's not evidence in a court of law it's merely a tip that

points law enforcement in the right direction. >> reporter: while some dna companies provide it to police some of the larger ones do not citing privacy concerns. >> there is a big misconceptions that we can compare profiles to and for dna and 23 and me but we're not they have hall bar access. >> some people believe if you're signing up with a genealogy database you're trying to figure out where you came from and where your family came from. >> his attorney argues his client's privacy was violated when they confiscated the drinking glass he was used at a corporate event. >> they obtained evidence without obtaining a search warrant. if that turns out to be true, that's an issue that will be pursued vigorously. >> melo is scheduled to go on

trial next year, boston vowing to investigate all other cases in the meantime. >> he's high profile but behind all these cases is a person who went to a hospital and undergone a sexual assault examination, behind each rape kit is a victim. >> juju: our thanks to ariel. up next oscar nomination elliot page about coming out and why now is the moment to stand up for trans visibility. esome hemod enters the room. phil: excuse me? hillary: that wasn't me. narrator: said hillary, who's only taken 347 steps today. hillary: i cycled here. narrator: speaking of cycles, mary's period is due to start in three days. mary: how do they know so much about us? narrator: your all sharing health data without realizing it. that's how i know about kevin's rash. who's next? wait... what's that in your hand?

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♪ >> juju: pride month is underway and some of this year's celebrations are being met with backlash specifically against the trans community. but it's a debate elliot page is unwilling to accept. >> there's no debate to trans people's existence. full stop. it's not a debate. we're real. to debate our existence continuously over and over again, i think it's >> reporter: actor elliot page is taking a stand for trans visibility just 2.5 years after coming out instantly becoming one of the first trans men in hollywood the first break if 2007 with an oscar nomination

for the oscar nominated comedy juno. >> i think it's best to just tell him. >> i'm pregnant. >> the nominees for best motion picture are, juno. >> what should have been a moment of triumph and joy a tarnished memory because of what page was asked to wear to the premier. >> yeah. yeah, the whole juno time, that was quite the time. i was planning on wearing jeans and a westernish shirt to juno's world premier. they said i should wear a dress and heels. >> now page is sharing his story in a candid new memoir and audio book, >> i used to find it and still find it tricky to talk about because it wasn't like someone was forcing physical clothing on my body but that's what it felt like. so i put on the dresses and makeup and did the photo shoots.

i was shaking to the point of collapse. i was unable to articulate the pain i was in. i think with gender dysphoria it's being assigned a gender at birth based on your genitalia, and that not being the reality of who you are, i think it especially became complicated as an actor because people would just go, like, you're an actor. just like put on the [bleep] clothes, you know? but needless to say it was so much more than that. >> growing up in nova scotia canada page said he questioned his gender from an early age? >> can i be a boy, i asked my mother at six years old. no, hun, you can't. you're a girl my mother responded. it was unfathomable to me that i wasn't a boy. everyone around me saw a different person than i saw. >> i wasn't growing up in a progressive atmosphere by any

means, and the situation my mom was in, minister's daughter, born 1954, she was, you know, doing her best. she didn't, she didn't know what to do. >> at 10 people started addressing me as a boy. having won a year-long battle to cut my hair short, i started to get a, thanks bud, when holding the door for someone at the halifax shopping center. i was lucky to have a mom that even like let me get to that place at 10 to look like how i did, but i could sense her discomfort. i could sense her embarrassment. "as i aged the pressure from my mother to alter my appearance began to increase alongside the bullying at school. i tried. my mom's joy and relief fadeded to disappointment as i began to return to my original state." when my, you know, body started to change and clothes sat on me differently and all of that

just, was the beginning of really sort of, you know, disconnecting from myself and feeling a degree of that was very damaging. the experiences i had in regards to bullying, it certainly only encourages the shame that literally makes you sick. >> reporter: decades later in 2020, 33-year-old page announcing he's transgender. >> i was able to finally make the steps and the decision to be myself, and to do what i wanted to do and knew what i needed to

do to live fully. and i'm feeling that joy every day. what it has allowed me is it feels like truly being alive for the first time. >> reporter: page's art mirroring his his character also coming out as transgender. >> who elected you. >> victor. >> who's victor? >> i am. it's who i've always been. >> the experience with umbrella academy and playing victor has been such a true gift. >> his family's love also evolving. >> i never believed a time would come when i would be able to have these talks with my mother. in the end, it was she who initiated the conversation. she was ready and so was i. we've never been closer. she's become my ally.

she loves her son endlessly. i feel really really grateful. to see her change and her growth that people's minds change and hearts change and that's why we need to be talking about this. >> page harnessing the power of story telling, sharing his truth with the world. >> there is this feed of rise and misinformation that dehumanizes us that our healthcare. we've always been here we'll continue to be here. >> so here i am grateful and terrified writing directly to you. the truth is, in many ways my narrative is still unfolding. it's all just beginning.

let me just exist with you. happier than ever. >> juju: elliot page's memoir pageboy is available now wherever books are sold. and you can stream our full abc special the freedom to exist the soul of a nation presentation on hulu. up next the d-day heroes and their return to normandy 79 years later. ♪ evere plaque psoriasis, my skin was no longer mine. my active psoriatic arthritis joint symptoms held me back. don't let symptoms define you. emerge as you. with tremfya®, most people saw 90% clearer skin at 4 months... ...and the majority stayed clearer, at 5 years. tremfya® is proven to significantly reduce joint pain, stiffness and swelling it's just 6 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms

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>> juju: and finally tonight, the greatest generation who

risked it all. here's abc's david meyer. >> tonight the images of normandy world war ii veterans returning on the anniversary of d-day. their sa lutes, 43 world war ii veterans flying to normandy invited by airlines. the local school children greeting them when they got there waving american flagsment army staff sergeant jake larsen. >> here i am, 100 years old, no