Unidentified Human Remains: How Many are There in the U.S.? What Happens to Them?
by www.SixWise.com
The United States currently has an extensive, growing backlog
of unidentified human remains, from murder and accident victims,
homeless people and other missing person cases who died of
natural causes.
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Many of the people who go missing in the United States
are murder victims.
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U.S. medical examiner and coroners' offices receive an estimated
4,400 unidentified human bodies every year, according to the
first national census of medical-legal death investigations,
"Medical Examiners and Coroners' Offices, 2004."
Of these, about 1,000 are still unidentified after one year,
and 600 are buried or cremated.
Though the remains represent a "critical component in
the nation's effort to resolve missing persons cases,'' according
to the report, only half of the medical examiners and coroners'
offices surveyed in 2004 had policies for retaining records
on unidentified human remains, such as x-rays, DNA, or fingerprints,
the Bureau of Justice Statistics found.
The report highlights an urgent need for a comprehensive
system to keep track of such remains, as advances in DNA and
other forensic technology have made it increasingly possible
to identify remains and find criminals involved.
"The missing link has been a good inventory of remains,"
said Jeffrey Sedgwick, director of the federal Bureau of Justice
Statistics in a USA Today article.
In all, it's estimated that upwards of 40,000 unidentified
human remains exist in medical examiners and coroners' offices,
or were buried or cremated before they were identified.
An Initiative to Help the Missing
The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a database
that includes criminal
record history information, fugitives,
stolen properties and missing persons and is available to
law enforcement officials 24/7, 365 days a year, is one current
method being used to help solve missing persons and unidentified
human remains cases.
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Cleveland, Ohio has unidentified remains from one of
the "coldest cases" on record; they date back
to 1900.
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However, of the estimated 40,000 unidentified remains out
there, only about 6,000 -- or 15 percent -- have been entered
into the NCIC, largely because the volume of is simply too
great.
Over half of the nation's unidentified remains are held in
large offices in five cities:
Meanwhile, while cases of missing persons 18 and under must
be reported, only a few states require law enforcement agencies
to report missing persons cases for adults -- it's all voluntary.
Since so many missing persons cases have never been entered
into a national database, and only half of coroners' and medical
examiners' offices routinely take DNA or fingerprints from
unidentified remains before disposing of them, a large number
of crimes could be going needlessly unsolved.
In response, the Office of Justice Program's National Institute
of Justice has launched, in July 2007, The National Missing
and Unidentified Persons Initiative (NamUs).
The initiative involves two programs:
The databases are geared not only to law enforcement agencies,
medical examiners and coroners, but also to families and the
general public who are looking for a loved one. They allow
users to search for potential matches between missing persons
and unidentified human remains records, and will hopefully
bring some closure to families who are searching for someone
-- and justice to any criminals involved.
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Does
Organ Harvesting Really Exist?
Sources
National
Institute of Justice
NamUS
-- National Missing and Unidentified Persons System
USAToday.com
June 24, 2007
Bureau
of Justice Statistics, Medical Examiners and Coroners' Offices,
2004