Connecticut: When a loved one goes missing, there are no easy answers

When someone goes missing in Connecticut, how hard police work to find the person can depend on which agency gets the case, officials say.

“Some will go all out; some will just take a report. It’s the luck of the draw,” said New Britain State’s Attorney Brian Preleski, who heads up a task force investigating the disappearance and murders of seven people whose remains were found in New Britain in 2007 and a few months ago. “The extent of the investigation depends on who you get.”

In a second interview, Preleski clarified those comments, saying, “To some extent, that’s true of anything in life.” He admitted there was no easy answer, but agreed that creating a less fragmented approach to investigating missing persons is “something we should think about.”

How missing persons cases are handled has come into sharper focus in recent weeks after New Britain police unearthed the remains of four more victims of a presumed serial killer. Those bodies, buried behind a strip mall on Hartford Road, joined three other sets of remains discovered in the same patch of woods in 2007.

All seven people disappeared in 2003, which has raised questions about why it took nearly 12 years to find and identify them all.

During those years, the families of some of the victims sought help from police in finding their loved ones, but say they got few answers.

Sources have named William Devin Howell as the suspected killer. He’s currently in jail, serving a 15-year sentence on a manslaughter conviction handed down in 2005 for what at that time was the presumed death of one of the missing victims, Nilsa Arizmendi.

Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane concedes there’s often no easy way to form a unified unit to investigate missing persons cases, but said police should at least review state policy changes from 2011 that include clearly defined steps departments should take when they get a missing persons case.

“Room for improvement”

“Clearly, there is room for improvement,” Kane said. “But we don’t want to set up a process where we are spending so much time screening cases that we have no time to investigate them. We took a good look at this in 2011 and we made some good progress, but we really haven’t taken a second look at it.”

Howell, a drifter from the South, was in this area in 2003, when the seven people disappeared.

The remains of three of the victims, Mary Jane Menard, Joyvaline Martinez and Diane Cusack, were discovered in 2007. The remains of Arizmendi, Melanie Ruth Camilini, Danny Lee Whistnant and Marilyn Gonzales were found at the same location.

All disappeared in 2003 and it took until just this spring to finally find all of their remains and to identify them because of errors made several years ago at the state crime lab, officials have said.

The lab sought and obtained a federal grant to start a cold case unit in part because of the New Britain serial killer case, said Dr. Guy Vallaro. It also has a missing persons unit which works with police departments and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to identify remains and gather DNA samples from families of missing persons.

The investigation took a new turn last week as members of the serial killer task force went to Hampton, Va., to search a house where Howell once lived. That search included digging up the yard to search for human remains, but nothing was found, officials said.

Until the victims were recently identified, they were among more than 1,000 cold cases in the state, including missing persons, cases that haven’t had a good lead in years.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) lists 168 missing persons in Connecticut. The number may not be accurate since police are not required to use NamUs, which can be viewed by the public, and often instead list missing persons on state and national data banks only available to law enforcement.

The techniques used to investigate vary from agency to agency. New Britain police will use “cold case cards” distributed to prison inmates in the hope they may have gleaned some information during their prison stints. They are the only playing cards inmates are allowed to use and each features a different cold case.

“Good police work must be applied to every missing persons case,” New Britain Police Chief James Wardwell said. “Any good detective will not just look within the confines of their municipality.”

There are several specialized units within the state that deal with missing persons and cold cases, but their participation in a case often depends entirely on whether the local police department in charge of the case asks for help.

Ultimately, Wardwell said, good training and good information from families are some of the best investigative tools officers need when investigating a missing person. “Law enforcement must review every missing persons case as if the missing person is in danger,” he said. “The vast majority are not. Some are runaway juveniles who are endangered because they are on the streets. In most cases, they turn up.”

“The best thing a family can do is be honest with police,” Wardwell said. “We need to know their habits, where they might get drugs, who they hang out with, where they hang out. It’s not a time to worry about snitching, folks need to be focused on the person’s safety.”

Local police can also call on the state’s Missing Persons Unit for assistance.

“We are more than willing to help any agency,” said Sgt. Matthew Gunsalus, who supervises the unit. “We will help facilitate anything that they need.” Formed in 2012, the unit has three detectives working on 12 missing persons cases and 18 unidentified human remains cases. It works with local agencies and have staff assigned to the New Britain Serial Killer Task Force, Gunsalus said.

As part of its statutory responsibilities created in a 2011 change in state law, the unit sends out Amber Alerts for missing children and Silver Alerts for missing adults over 18 who are considered disabled or have mental health issues or are over the age of 65.

It routinely contacts national clearinghouses, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Both have databases that can be seen by the public as well as law enforcement.

State database

It also enters information on missing persons into the state database, which connects with the National Crime Information Center, which can be accessed only by law enforcement personnel.

Gunsalus said his unit does not handle cases outside the jurisdiction of the state police unless asked. He said he could not say how many missing persons there were in Connecticut without consulting his agency’s legal affairs department.

Kristin Sasinouski, technical leader at the state forensic lab DNA unit, said there’s a “discordance” between the number of DNA samples submitted to CODIS and NamUs. Many times, a person is listed as missing on NamUs but family members have not been asked to submit a DNA sample. Sasinouski’s goal is to urge family members who are missing a loved one to submit known samples to the laboratory for DNA testing.

Although Sasinouski heads the state lab’s missing persons unit, she does not have access to the NCIC database and does not know how many Connecticut missing persons are listed in that database.

The collection of DNA from family members is vital to the process, Sasinouski said. “As samples from missing persons and their relatives and/or unidentified remains are processed at the laboratory, they are uploaded into CODIS, where they search at both the State and National level against other missing persons-type cases,” she said. “This allows identifications to be made all across the country as well as within our own state.”

To search NamUs or find out more info on how to supply missing persons info to NamUs, use these links: identifyus.org/en/cases/state/7 or findthemissing.org/en/cases/state/7.

Monday 29 June 2015

http://www.centralctcommunications.com/bristolpress/article_3763008e-1dfa-11e5-b2b7-5799fc2c1141.html

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India: Tracking missing persons made easier

Tracking missing persons and identifying unidentified bodies have become easier for the police with the availability of information online. The police are now taking steps to empower the public in getting access to the same content so that the common man can track missing persons online.

Earlier the respective police station would send the pictures of missing persons or unidentified bodies for publishing in newspapers to identify or trace the persons. It was also manually sent to the nearby districts and the pictures were verified with that of the list of missing persons or unidentified bodies in those districts. But this was a highly cumbersome and time consuming process. Now, the pictures and the details of missing persons and unidentified bodies are uploaded online by the respective police stations soon after they received a complaint.

A senior police officer in the city said that the latest process has been of great help to the department over the last five years. The local police try to match the identity of the unidentified bodies here with the identity of persons who went missing in other places with the data available on the Internet. This has also helped in detecting such cases.

The police said that the recent effort to publicise the websites among the public was done to help them get direct access to information available to the police themselves. While the police have publicised a handful of websites where public could search for missing persons or unidentified bodies, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) system website of the police http://eservices.tnpolice.gov.in has more options using which the search could be made. Some of the search features that the website has are gender, age group, height range, date from which the person was missing, complexion, other visible identification marks and colour of dress of the missing person last seen wearing.

Monday 20 April 2015

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/tracking-missing-persons-made-easier/article7120625.ece

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Brazil: Little help for families of the missing

Searches for missing loved ones, families say, are complicated by Sao Paulo's troubled morgues. In the last 15 years, 3,000 bodies, all identified, were buried in unmarked graves in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

ra Lucia Marchioro recalls a morgue employee clicking through photos on a computer screen until a face appeared that could have been Luiz, her 25-year-old son who had disappeared the day before. She wasn't sure, she said, because of the swelling.

"Does he have any tattoos?" Marchioro asked.

When the employee said no, the grief-stricken mother decided to continue her search at the five other government-run morgues spread across Sao Paulo. Luiz had several tattoos, so the face on the screen that made her heart twinge couldn't be him, she thought.

Little did she know, but the 60-day search ahead of her would eventually lead back to the same morgue and body. More than a year later, however, her travails have yet to end. Morgue employees called her last March to identify the body using a photo of a tattoo on the arm, but the remains had already been buried in an unmarked grave, which authorities have refused to open.

"From what [morgue employees] have told me up until today, I don't know what I should believe," Marchioro said recently.

Government officials say they don't know how many people without identification are buried each year in Sao Paulo. In the last 15 years, the bodies of 3,000 people who had identifying documents were buried in unmarked graves here, according to the state's missing persons program.

Bodies that cannot be identified or have suffered a violent death — with or without ID — are sent to the closest Forensic Institute morgue. But regardless of where the bodies end up, members of several families in Brazil's largest city expressed frustration in interviews over the lack of resources and information they ware afforded during their searches.

Bodies held at a city morgue are usually buried after 72 hours, officials say. At the coroner's office, where there is more space, authorities try to keep corpses for 10 days, according to the agency's vice director, Dr. Carlos Augusto Pasqualucci.

The city's morgues came under fire last July when a news station broadcast images of 15 bodies lying side by side on metal tables at one morgue because all 38 refrigeration units were occupied. The situation has not only taken the dignity of the dead, family members say, but could also cause a public health problem. Hospital das Clinicas, home to the University of Sao Paulo's medical school and the central coroner's office, is less than half a block away, leaving patients there susceptible to disease-carrying flies.

"There are fewer refrigeration units than necessary, there are putrid bodies kept outside these units, there are fly catchers — I don't know how they are authorized by health inspectors — that are just like an electrified wire that zaps them," said Eliana Vendramini, the prosecutor who runs the missing persons program, which is investigating conditions in the city morgues. There's nowhere for doctors [who work overtime] to sleep."

The "identified indigents" were found following an inquest by São Paulo State's Public Ministry coordinated by Eliana Vendramini, a Public Prosecutor dedicated to finding the whereabouts of missing people in São Paulo.

It took her some time to believe that the State's own funeral system may have been responsible for the "disappearance" of thousands of people in the State capital.

The State assigns corpses to unmarked graves that are not claimed by relatives after 72 hours, even if the deceased carried identification, according to State regulation created in 1993, in Luiz Antônio Fleury Filho's State administration (PMDB - Brazilian Democratic Movement Party).

The State does this without contacting the relatives, despite having information of the deceased, leaving entire families to search endlessly for their loved ones.

Burials are carried out in partnership with the Municipal Funerary Service in two cemeteries at Vila Formosa, in the east of the city - where bodies are delivered bare, in wooden boxes with cardboard lids.

The corpses used to be buried in the Dom Bosco cemetery in Perus, in the north of the city.

Cases investigated by the Public Ministry are the responsibility of the Death Verification Service (DVS) linked to the University of São Paulo's Faculty of Medicine

The service reviews cases of natural death, where there is no suspicion of violence but that require an investigation into the cause of death.

The Public Ministry wants to find out why the State government did not look for the families of the identified deceased.

Contrary to the Prosecutors, the board of the DVS understands that the law does not require the family to be contacted.

Furthermore, it states it does not have enough staff to carry out this task and that it is willing to cooperate with the Public Ministry investigation.

The Prosecutors and the DVS affirm they did not have enough information to locate the families. "However it is possible to locate the families and this is precisely what we are doing", the prosecutor said.

Vendramini also said that, as well as the Federal Constitution, which goes over "the dignity of the human person" in its first article, the Civil Code demands the service to communicate the death to the relatives, because the body belongs to the family.

"This is obvious. Do we need a law to state the obvious? Do we need a law that says: 'Do not bury an identified body without letting the family know'?", the prosecutor questioned.

Another problem is the fact that the DVS is unknown to most of the population, who look for missing relatives through the Coroner - in charge of dealing exclusively with violent deaths or unidentified bodies.

The Public Ministry wants to end unnecessary searches and put an end to burials without notice.

First of all, the Ministry is trying to find matches for the 3,000 "identified indigents" that have gone through the DSV against the list of missing persons in the State of São Paulo.

The aim is to find out how many families are still looking for relatives to notify them of the death and clear the list of missing persons.

João Rocha was in this list and his family was the first to be contacted by the prosecutor.

In the last few weeks, Folha located four more families. None were contacted by the State services and their relatives were buried in unmarked graves.

Police stations

The Public Ministry has also identified problems with the Civil Police.

According to the legislation, the police are required to register deaths before releasing the bodies to the DVS. The police also register the disappearance of a person when relatives report an occurrence at the police station.

However, in all cases reviewed by Folha, the logs of deaths or disappearances were not cross referenced, which could have put an end to many families endless search for their loved one.

Three out of five families contacted by Folha who reported relatives or friends missing said they were ignorant of the existence of the DVS, stating this reason for not requesting the service. In these cases, relatives were either still looking or had already given up.

In one case the relative had also passed away. In another, a daughter found her father 20 days after his death, buried in an unmarked grave.

She even resorted to the help of a Pai-de-Santo - an Afro-Brazilian priest that evokes deities during rituals - to find her father.

There are still an unknown number of identified people buried in unmarked graves by the Coroner's Office that were victims of violence or accidents.

Database

Vendramini has been working to help the families of missing people since she started the program in November 2013. There were 13,068 open cases that year. The program also assists in identifying bodies that haven't been claimed.

The biggest problem, she says, is the lack of communication among organizations involved in finding missing people. There is no way, for example, to cross-reference information held by different entities, including the six city morgues, the coroner's office, the police department and other organizations. She and her team are working on a database, scheduled to be ready in July, so that the agencies can share information.

For Marchioro, it's too late. Several of her questions are still unanswered, she says: Why didn't the morgue employee show her photos of her son's tattoos? Why was Luiz buried in an unmarked grave in Perus, a cemetery known for mass burials an hour north of the city center, 19 days after he was found when the standard is 72 hours? What happened to his body during those extra 16 days?

The treatment of bodies buried at the Perus cemetery, also known as Dom Bosco, has come into question, with one report of a casket falling open as it was tossed into a shallow grave. The city police's organized-crime unit is also investigating whether organs were illegally taken from unidentified bodies at the coroner's office to sell to medical researchers.

Marchioro says she wonders whether any of indignities could have happened to her son's body, which still lies in an unmarked grave in Perus. Government officials have refused to let Marchioro exhume the body and transfer it to the family plot.

"I'll truly believe that is my son they buried there the day they let me have him back," she said.

Vendramini hopes her work can help prevent future mistakes.

"Everyone wants to work together. But when it comes to the past, no one wants to take responsibility," Vendramini said. "We have to care. We should care. One day it could be any one of us."

Monday 6 April 2015

http://www.latimes.com/world/brazil/la-fg-ff-brazil-indigents-20150405-story.html

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/saopaulo/2014/04/1443680-3000-people-have-been-buried-in-unmarked-graves-in-the-state-of-sao-paulo-even-though-they-were-identified.shtml

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DNA testing could help address humanitarian crisis at the border

Recently, the remains of yet another migrant were reported in Brooks County, Texas, a county bordering Mexico. That's the 17th dead body in that county in the first two months of 2015. Sadly, that's not really news. Hundreds of undocumented migrants are found dead along the southern U.S. border each year, and many are buried without identification. What is surprising is that most are from Central America -- not Mexico.

Last year, more than 50,000 unaccompanied children from Central America crossed into the United States. According to a recent nonpartisan congressional Government Accountability Office report, the children migrate north because of violence and economic concerns in their home countries, and to reunify with family members already in the States.

But the journey is treacherous, and some migrants don't make it -- hence the 400 dead bodies along our border each year. When a migrant doesn't survive, tracing his or her identity is not simple. Back home, the disappearance is a nightmare for their families who have no idea if their loved one is alive or dead. The Colibrí Center for Human Rights reports that relatives of missing migrants contact dozens of agencies in hopes of finding family members, often at great cost.

On the U.S. side, authorities struggle to identify the body, with DNA being one of the last considerations. While DNA testing seems routine on TV crime shows, in reality, it's expensive to run DNA tests and, even if you can, you need to compare results with people in a database. It is challenging enough to collect DNA from relatives of missing Americans, much less to track down relatives in distant villages in Central America. Without an international DNA database, processing DNA from unidentified migrants is not cost-effective, especially for forensic agencies and nongovernmental organizations already strapped for funds.

Just because it's hard, however, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Every human being has a right to an identity, even after death. Knowing where our loved ones are and whether they are safe are key values of a civil society.

An infrastructure exists to conduct this kind of DNA testing, and there is proven technology for developing secure international DNA databanks. Moreover, scores of well-intentioned nongovernmental organizations already are working with migrant families to reunify families. What we don't have is a coordinated effort to bring advocate groups together on behalf of victims and families. Too many groups are expending resources to track individuals case by case, rather than working together, and with forensic agencies, to develop a better system that respects the privacy rights of victims and families.

Another reason to develop a humanitarian DNA system for migrant families is the large numbers of unaccompanied children who enter the United States each year and whose safety we are obliged to protect. As we saw this past year, authorities have been struggling to house, screen, process and repatriate thousands of children from Central America. The sheer volume means we risk sending some of them back to situations where they will be exploited or harmed. DNA testing could prevent them from being handed over to a trafficker pretending to be their parent or uncle. A DNA system also would increase the odds of connecting detained migrant children with families in the United States -- or indeed, of identifying them if they turn up dead in a desert.

Definitions of "family" vary among cultures, so no decision to repatriate should be based solely on biological relations. The best interests of a child should supersede all other factors. Importantly, DNA and personal information collected for humanitarian purposes should be protected from secondary use by law enforcement. It is possible to protect individuals at risk of exploitation without compromising legitimate legal processes.

Working together, nongovernmental organizations, government and law enforcement can bring more families together and provide answers to more families wondering what has happened to their sons and daughters. So let's catalog DNA from relatives of the missing, here and across the border. Let's catalog DNA from human remains before they are buried. Let's develop humanitarian-rooted processes to confirm claimed relationships before we place children with traffickers.

Every three days, we discover another body in Brooks County, Texas. Every day, 137 children from Central America turn themselves in to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. These numbers add up to a human rights crisis that requires a humanitarian response. DNA is just one biometric tool, but it is a powerful one. We should be using it for humanitarian purposes to identify the dead and protect thousands of children in our trust.

Sara Huston Katsanis, a former DNA analyst in a forensic laboratory, is an instructor and genetics policy researcher in the Science & Society initiative at Duke University.

Friday 13 March 2015

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/03/dna_testing_could_help_address.html

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Genetic bank operated by families of missing Mexicans

The lack of response by the Mexican government on the issue of missing people in the country has pushed many of the victims' families into becoming genuine experts on research and forensic science so much so that they are now operating a genetic bank without government intervention.

Involved in the project are researchers Ernesto Schwartz and Arely Cruz, as well as family members such as Julia Alonso, whose son went missing in New Leon state in 2008.

"Unfortunately, we have become experts, but not because we wanted but due to the misfortune of having a government like the one we have," Alonso told reporters at a press briefing Thursday.

It was held to announce the positive identification of Brenda Damaris Gonzalez, the first body to be identified through the project which has funding from Durham University in Britain.

Without a genetic test to prove it, Juana Solis, the mother of the young girl who went missing in 2011 also in New Leon, would not have believed that the bag of remains handed to her was her daughter.

Which is why she turned to the Civil Governance Forensic (GFC) team and her case became the seed for the citizens' project along with the knowledge acquired by the two researchers during their work in Colombia.

In fact, it was in that country that they came up with the idea of a model of civic participation in the field of forensic sciences.

Until now, the project has received funding of $386,000 from the British university to perform independent DNA tests for the families of the missing as well as to set up a genetic bank.

Rodolfo Franco, one of the GFC founders, told Spanish news agency Efe that one of the main objectives of the project was so that "the government sees that citizens can be organised to participate in forensic matters" and got motivated to extend their cooperation.

The project has three steps. The first is "to shape a citizen administration that will manage a database", that has already been fulfilled thanks to a group of victims, all public figures known for fighting for the cases of the missing.

Among them is Tita Radilla, the daughter of Rosendo Radilla who disappeared in 1974 after being arrested by the Mexican army, a case for which Mexico was found guilty by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

According to Radilla, it is clear that "there is no response, no clarification of facts" by the government and there are "bodies that are buried when there are hundreds of families searching for their families, and, even then, those human remains are put in mass graves without identifying them".

The second step of the project, which is still under way, is the collection of data of the families of the people who have disappeared. Until now, it has managed to gather data from more than 600 families, many of them from Iguala in the state of Guerrero.

On Sep 26 last year, 43 students went missing in that state. Since then, dozens of mass graves have been discovered with unidentified bodies, prompting the family members to question the disappearances and search for their loved ones through such initiatives.

The third step has yet to start, explained Franco, and will be the creation of a bio-bank with genetic samples from the families which could be matched with the information from bodies.

Currently, there is enough funding to conduct tests on more than 1,500 people, but the aim is to continue bumping up that number, given that the figure is still falls woefully short of the more than 27,000 people that remain missing in Mexico today, Franco said.

Friday 20 February 2015

http://www.newkerala.com/news/2015/fullnews-21876.html

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Missing Persons: Arizona has more than almost all other states

Stuart Somershoe's work as a Phoenix police detective is among the most painstaking and, often, gruesome, law enforcement work there is.

“I work cold cases for missing and unidentified persons in the Phoenix Police Department,” Somershoe says. Some of Somershoe’s cases date back to the 1940s, and in many of them, it’s unlikely the person is still alive.

In his and other police agencies in Arizona, it's a labor unlike others and unlike in other states. For Arizona has more sets of unidentified remains and, per capita, missing persons cases than almost any other state, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known as NamUs.

The state has more than 1,300 unidentified sets of human remains. Somershoe said two factors are at work in that statistic: proximity to the border means a lot of under-prepared people try to walk across hundreds of miles through dangerous terrain to get to the U.S.; and related to it is the desert environment, which can quickly obliterate evidence.

“We are a desert and that’s very bad for bodies," Somershoe said. "Bodies disintegrate; bodies decompose a lot quicker than in other states, so it’s harder to identify them when they’re just bones or fragments. When you get outside of the metropolitan area of Phoenix you’re basically in open desert. It’s kind of like our version of the Pacific Ocean. It’s very easy to lose things.”

But the problem isn’t only in Arizona. Nationally, a minimum estimated 40,000 sets of human remains are unidentified, NamUs figures show. “They call it the nation’s silent mass disaster," Somershoe said. "And the reason those numbers (are uncertain) ... is because it’s based on self-reporting from medical examiners, coroners across the country, and we know there’s a lot more out there than what are being reported to us." The relatively recent formation of NamUs created a national database of missing persons and is used extensively by many police agencies trying to connect remains in their charge with reports of those missing along with other potential clues.

"NamUs has been around officially since 2007," said Todd Matthews, the database's case management director. "It went online with the unidentified persons database and in 2009 after a beta trial we added the missing persons database.”

While the database isn’t the first to match DNA of unidentified remains to missing persons, it is the first that allows the families of those missing to take part in the search for their loved ones," Matthews said.

“I think we’ve always needed a national database," he said. "You know, you have city, county, state. We needed something that would go beyond those boundaries, because often a person is missing from New York and possibly found in Connecticut and unless those two compare notes," which is what the database allows.

Federal statistics show about 2000 missing persons in Arizona, among an estimated 80,000 nationwide. Somershoe said the NamUs database could be the key to solving these cases.

“Law enforcement is sometimes very poor in communicating with other jurisdictions," he said. "We tend to hoard information. If my missing person ended up dead in a different county, I may not know about that. If they ended up in another state I may not know about that.

"NAMus is great because we’re all invited into the same room and say, 'Hey, I have pieces of the puzzle; you have pieces of the puzzle, let’s try and resolve these'."

Somershoe said he has solved nearly a dozen cases, some decades old, with the help of NamUs. He said the more information is added to the system, the likelier that thousands of families who are missing loved ones will finally have closure.

Wednesday 18 February 2015

https://www.azpm.org/p/home-featured/2015/2/18/56984-missing-persons-arizona-has-more-than-almost-all-other-states/

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NamUs: How to Use the National System to Find Missing and Unidentified Persons

When a family member or loved one goes missing, people file a police report, or hire private investigators. In addition to these resources, there is also the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

NamUs, a site run by the Department of Justice, is a database of missing and unidentified persons. The site can be used for online searches, adding up-to-date facts and information to a case, and even volunteering to help with investigations.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) is a powerful, free tool to assist law enforcement officers, medical examiners, coroners, allied criminal justice professionals, and the family members of missing persons in resolving these cold cases. NamUs combines online database technology with forensic and analytical resources to solve long-term missing and unidentified person cases.

NamUs resources also include a team of expert Regional System Administrators (RSAs) who assist users with case management and biometric support services. The online databases contain detailed case information that allows for searching using a wide variety of identifiers, such as physical features, dental records and tattoos, while protecting sensitive case data which is restricted and only viewable by medical examiners, coroners, law enforcement, clearinghouse personnel, and other allied forensic specialists.

NamUs also offers free forensics services like DNA tests, which can be used to help investigators identify missing or unidentified people.

The missing persons database

This system provides quick and advanced search options just by inputting basic information such as first and last name, gender, and the state in which the missing person was last seen.

To create a missing person file, youmust register and enter the information requested by the system. Once access is given, you can create a file, modify the information, and share any new details with authorities handling the case.

The unidentified and unclaimed persons database

Sometimes police officers recover a body of someone who died and could not be identified, or they may be able to identify a body, but it remains unclaimed. In both cases, the coroners are the ones responsible for opening a file in the NamUs system and modifying any new information.

To do a quick or advanced search for an unidentified person, you must enter the person's information in the corresponding boxes.

If you are searching for an unclaimed person, you can write the person's name and birth date in the search area. Depending on the search results, you can contact the person in charge of the case to claim the body.

Contacting NamUs

Every missing person fact sheet has contact information for the person or agency handling the case.

Users with general questions about the system can email NamUs at questions@findthemissing.org

Thursday 5 February 2015

http://www.itbusinessnet.com/article/How-to-Use-the-National-System-to-Find-Missing-and-Unidentified-Persons-3732852

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NamUs helps give a name to the nameless dead and missing

Since its inception in 2007, NamUs has given peace of mind to hundreds of families searching for missing loved ones and closure to law enforcement officials trying to identify bodies.

The number of missing and unidentified people is “really staggering,” said Arthur Eisenberg, director of the UNT Center for Human Identification. NamUs, which is funded by the National Institute of Justice, has been housed at the UNT Health Science Center since 2011 after moving from Florida.

About 90,000 missing person cases are active in the U.S. every day; there are an estimated 40,000 unidentified remains nationwide.

NamUs staffers, who work with heartbreaking report after heartbreaking report of the missing and the dead, call it a “silent mass disaster.”

They address that disaster by operating several public databases - of unidentified bodies, missing people and “unclaimed persons,” those whose bodies have been identified but next of kin is unknown.

Though the task is huge, the NamUs staff is small - about 20 people scattered across the country. But they’re a dedicated group, including fingerprint analysts, DNA analysts and forensic dentists.

“We eat and live and breathe to try to make these identifications,” Eisenberg said, citing the pain of bewildered families. He said that if any of his family members “disappeared for more than a minute, I’d be a basket case.”

“You have to believe in it,” Eisenberg said. “You have to have the passion. And I think most of us here have the passion.”

Whether staffers find what happened to the missing or identify an anonymous body, “there’s not a day that one of us doesn’t have a tear in his eye.”

Part of what makes NamUs unique is that most of the voluminous data collected from coroners, medical examiners, police agencies and families - ranging from photos of clothing to descriptions of tattoos - is not restricted to law enforcement personnel. Anyone can go on the website and search the information.

Stephanie Clack of Missouri did - and found her sister’s body in 2009.

She’d been searching for Paula Davis since she disappeared 22 years earlier. “Within 20-30 minutes, I found her,” Clack said.

Clack was 14 years old and Paula was 21 the last time they saw each other over a pizza in 1987.

They talked about buying tickets for an upcoming concert, but Paula never returned to her apartment that night.

Though she had struggled with drugs, Paula had a job and a child, and “she never took off without calling,” Clack said.

Her relatives filed a missing persons report with police. Then they waited.

Through the years they checked to see if her Social Security number or driver’s license had been used.

“Back then’ there really wasn’t other ways to look,” Clack said.

When Clack heard about NamUs in 2009, she immediately searched the website.

A couple of general searches didn’t turn up a match, so Clack looked for tattoos. When she found a body in Ohio, marked with tattoos of a rose and a unicorn, she knew it was Paula.

Paula had been strangled shortly after she disappeared, Clack learned.

The crime was never solved. But Paula’s family was at least able to bring her remains home.

NamUs “gave me back what I need,” Clack said, “which was my sister.”

Before she was identified, Paula was buried as an unknown Jane Doe. In 1987, authorities usually wrote down a description of an unidentified body, took fingerprints if possible, and filed the report in a drawer where it was often forgotten.

If the body was found in a county or state different from where the missing person was reported, the two reports were unlikely to be matched.

But as computer technology evolved, and unidentified bodies stacked up in morgues and graveyards, coroners and medical examiners pushed for a system to spread the word about unidentified remains, said B.J. Spamer, director of the training and analysis division at NamUs.

“These are the agencies that are tasked with identifying remains,” she said. “Up until the unidentified NamUs database went live, they didn’t have any tools to help them resolve their case.”

The unidentified bodies data was posted in 2007; the next year, the missing persons database was added. In 2009, programming made it possible to search the databases against each other, Spamer said.

Since the program was launched, about 8,000 missing person cases reported to NamUs and about 1,500 unidentified remains have been resolved.

Those are just a fraction of the missing and unidentified cases nationwide because many old cases have not been submitted. Law enforcement agencies are not required to report cases to NamUs.

“But the benefits of NamUs are such that it’s really not a hard sell,” Spamer said. NamUs offers free resources such as DNA, dental and fingerprint analysis.

Gay Johnson, investigator with the Hood County sheriff, regularly submits information to NamUs. She’s currently working with the agency to identify a missing person who may have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge in California.

Johnson shipped the fingerprints from the missing person to NamUs and arranged for DNA samples from a relative in another state to be sent to the agency. If the body is found, she hopes a match will be made.

Law enforcement personnel are not the only source of information for NamUs. The public also can submit a report over the phone or online.

Information from the public is verified with local law enforcement before it is posted.

“They go through that verification process primarily to protect the privacy of the people being reported,” Spamer said.

For instance, some “missing” people, such as a spouse fleeing an abuser, may not want to be located.

NamUs is not a missing persons locator service, Spamer said. Some callers wanting to file a report have simply lost contact with their relative. “‘I haven’t seen my brother in 30 years - I’d like to get in touch with him again’ is not the purpose of NamUs.”

Most of the time, “we’re looking for missing person cases where we think there’s foul play,” Spamer said.

Fingerprint specialist Bill Bailey, who recently helped identify a body unknown since 1992, said NamUs allows families to put questions about their loved ones to rest.

“You never put closure to death, never,” said Bailey who worked in the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office before joining NamUs. “You might be able to move on, but it’s never closed.”

“But at least,” he said, “there’s answers.”

Monday 2 February 2015

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/2/namus-helps-give-a-name-to-the-nameless-dead-and-m/

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'That’s not just a bone, it’s a person, we don’t lose track of that': British Columbia's Coroners team excels at giving names back to unidentified bodies

Last Thursday, Brian Howe got a phone call that he said “put to rest 40 years of uncertainty.”

In 1975, his younger brother Roy Lynn Howe disappeared from his Vancouver home at the age of 26.

As years turned into decades and Roy was still missing, the Howe family came to accept, Brian said, “probably that Roy had died or something happened — but we just didn’t know.”

But then last week, through the diligent work of a dedicated team with the B.C. Coroners Service, Roy Howe’s death was confirmed, his missing person investigation closed, and his next of kin notified.

Even after all those years, the notification was important to the family, said Howe, who called it “a sort of closure.”

In recent years, B.C.’s Identification and Disaster Response Unit (IDRU) has attracted attention from agencies outside the province looking to emulate its recent success with missing persons cases and unidentified bodies.

Cases like Howe’s inspire the IDRU to toil away in the lab and in the field, working to close those files, both old and new.

The unit’s manager, Bill Inkster, leads a team of investigators who examine and catalogue unidentified human remains in B.C., often matching them up with missing person files, such as Howe’s.

When a coroner is crouched in the woods brushing dirt off a human femur, Inkster says: “That’s not just a bone, it’s a person, we don’t lose track of that.

“They had brothers, sisters, they had a life. That’s a person, and there’s no name attached to it. So we never give up trying to identify those.”

Recently B.C. investigators have been closing more cases quickly — and closing more old, cold cases, too — says Inkster, who’s quick to credit that success to the innovative and award-winning IDRU program set up by his predecessor, Stephen Fonseca.

Described as the only unit of its kind in Canada, the IDRU was formed within the B.C. Coroners Service in 2006 under the direction of Fonseca, who Inkster calls “the most brilliant guy I’ve ever met.”

A key element of their success has been effectively “closing the gap” between coroners and cops, according to sources on both sides.

Cpl. Kelly Risling of the RCMP’s Unidentified Human Remains Unit said that before the IDRU’s formation in 2006, “the coroner’s office (and) the RCMP had somewhat struggled with missing person and unidentified body investigations.

“There just wasn’t any sort of collaborative effort in attacking these types of files. Even though we both had different resources, we kind of needed each other to be able to do the job.”

Risling said the increased collaboration between his RCMP unit and the IDRU got results.

“We were the only province in Canada that actually showed a marked decline in the instances of unidentified human remains, because we were actually starting to move forward and identify some of these bodies,” he said.

Risling said he’s been contacted by agencies in other provinces interested in following B.C.’s “cutting edge” missing person investigation model and success.

On a national level, the RCMP launched the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR), a website and database launched in 2013.

Risling said, adding that RCMP headquarters in Ottawa consulted with him, as well as the IDRU’s Inkster and Fonseca, on the NCMPUR’s development, adding “everything that they’re doing on their end is basically modelled after what we’ve accomplished here in B.C.”

“Ottawa did take note of the successes we were having as a collaborative team here,” said Risling.

The IDRU’s work has also aided the police in criminal cases. As a recent example, Vancouver detectives were investigating a missing person who they believed had been murdered.

They had a suspect. But they didn’t have a body, making the prospect of an arrest and criminal charges much more difficult.

The detectives tapped the IDRU, which quickly identified the body of the alleged murder victim, matching it with previously unidentified remains.

VPD homicide Detective Const. Paul Woodcock said: “As soon as we had that body, there was no uncertainty. We were going to lay that charge ... when we had that call from Steve Fonseca, saying ‘Hey guys, I’ve got a match,’ we were doing the happy dance.”

Probably the IDRU’s best known case was the detached feet in sneakers washing up repeatedly on B.C. shorelines in recent years. Inkster, Fonseca and their team identified 10 feet, belonging to six different people.

But one pair — Foot #8 and Foot #10 — belonging to the same man, remain unidentified.

Like Brian Howe, Brenda Dauncey praised the work of the IDRU after she got a phone call that ended years of uncertainty about her brother’s disappearance.

Her brother Brian Carman Law disappeared suddenly in 1989 from his hometown of Prince George, and was missing for more than 20 years, until the IDRU closed the case in 2013.

“Those 23 and three-quarters years, it was hell,” Dauncey said. “So, to find that you have some closure and you know where your loved one is ... We can try and go on and start to heal.”

While it was painful, Dauncey said, to know her brother had died, it was “absolutely” better than the agony of not knowing. That uncertainty, she said, was like “an open wound (that) never gets to heal.”

After the IDRU identified Brian Law’s body, his grave was marked with a stone.

The engraving reads: “Once was lost, now he’s found. Always Loved, Never Forgotten.”

Monday 26 January 2015

http://www.theprovince.com/news/That+just+bone+person+lose+track+that+team+excels+giving+names+back+unidentified+bodies/10759564/story.html

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India: Centre to create DNA bank of unidentified bodies

Every year, about 40,000 unidentified bodies are disposed of even as thousands go missing across the country. Is there a link between unidentified bodies and missing persons?

The Centre on Monday responded positively to a PIL by NGO Lokniti Foundation and said it has drafted a bill for creating DNA data bank of all unidentified bodies to help find possible link between missing persons and unidentified bodies.

The NGO, through advocate Ashok Dhamija, had suggested keeping DNA profile of the bodies before their disposal to help break the news of the death to families waiting for their missing near and dear ones.

Appearing for the Centre, additional solicitor general Neeraj Kishan Kaul said an expert committee appointed by the department of biotechnology had examined privacy-related issues in the draft 'Human DNA Profiling Bill" and suggested several categories of such profiling, which included the category of unidentified bodies.

"By international standards, one DNA examiner can undertake 100 cases per year. Therefore, India would require 400 DNA examiners (for 40,000 bodies) to do the job. It is financially very resource intensive as on an average, at current costs, it requires Rs 20,000 per case. The cost of identifying 40,000 unidentified bodies would require Rs 80 crore per year. In addition, the overhead cost of salaries and other expenses for keeping 400 DNA examiners and support employees would have to be taken into account," the Centre said.

At present, India has 30-40 DNA examiners in forensic laboratories for 1.2 billion population against an estimated requirement of around 800-1,000 such examiners, it conceded.

"Therefore, it is necessary to set up large number of DNA testing units with skilled personnel who are capable of handling forensic DNA testing for keeping data bank of unidentified bodies," the Centre said.

Dhamija had earlier argued that unidentified bodies could be because of serious crimes. "Since the bodies cannot be identified using traditional methods, the perpetrators of the possible crime remain untraced and the families to which the victims belong never come to know about the fate of their relatives," he said.

"DNA profiling of unidentified bodies can help match the missing persons. In addition, DNA profiling of missing persons could help trace them and reunite several who had either been missing or kidnapped as children and forced into prostitution, bonded labour or even those who have turned mentally unstable," he added.

The petitioner said that though the government had been considering a proposal for DNA profiling of unidentified bodies since 2007, no decision was taken yet. As per data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau, number of unidentified bodies recovered and inquest conducted were 37,282 in 2007, 37,668 in 2008, 34,902 in 2009, 33,857 in 2010 and 37,193 in 2011.

In 2011, the highest number of unidentified bodies was recovered in Maharashtra (6,313), followed by Tamil Nadu (4,479), Uttar Pradesh (4,084), West Bengal (3,704), Delhi (2,748), Andhra Pradesh (2,639), Karnataka (2,440), Gujarat (2,099), Madhya Pradesh (1,191), Rajasthan (1,170), Haryana (1,159) and Punjab (1,004).

The petitioner said, "One of the main reasons for large number of bodies remaining unidentified is that people freely move from one part to another in search of work and members of poor families have no means to keep in touch with their near and dear ones. It becomes difficult for the local police to identify persons who have no local connection and who have died without anyone complaining of death caused by any mischief."

It said 11,846, 13,586 and 13,268 people went missing in Delhi alone in 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively. In Andhra Pradesh, 47,936 people went missing during 2009-12 and in Gujarat, another 37,395 were reported missing during 2007-11.

Tuesday 20 January 2015

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Centre-to-create-DNA-bank-of-unidentified-bodies/articleshow/45948126.cms

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India: Legislative sanction required for DNA data bank of unidentified bodies

The Centre has told Supreme Court that "legislative sanction" is required for establishment of a DNA profiles data bank which will help to identify the dead bodies which are unidentified.

Filing an affidavit in response to a PIL, Union Science and Technology ministry said the draft Human DNA Profiling Bill is ready and the same is likely to be introduced in the budget session.

The government said an expert committee was set up to look into various issues including privacy concerns. After threadbare discussion by the members, the committee has recommended for creation of DNA data bank while opined that the issues can be addressed after the enactment of law.

"The DNA Profiling Bill will provide legislative sanction for the government to formulate, approve and implement the rules and regulations for creation, maintenance and operation of the DNA data bank. The protocols for DNA profiling by the government would ensure appropriate use of biological samples and develop infrastructure as well as protocols across all states in the country for recording details of unidentified deceased individuals, collection storage and transport of biological samples to the laboratory of DNA analysis...."

"The effective operationlisation of DNA profiling activities need necessary statutory backing in the shape of provisions of a Parliament enacted law and regulations which would be framed by DNA Profiling Board once the bill is enacted," the government said.

According to the affidavit, after the recommendation of the experts committee, the draft bill was modified and comments were received from various ministries and also from different departments. Now the revised draft bill be submitted in the budget session of Parliament after the union cabinet's approval.

Earlier, the government had cited privacy concerns, lack of experts and handful laboratories as the prime reasons for not being able to push the Bill.

The apex court had in July last year had asked the Centre to create a DNA data bank on a plea by NGO Lokniti Foundation that establishment of identity was an essential feature of individual dignity and the government must resort to modern scientific methods.

The government stated that there was requirement of large number of trained personnel and adequate number of scientific laboratories with technicians.

The country has only 30 to 40 DNA experts against an estimated requirement of around 800 technical examiners for its 1,200 million population. And, each test costs Rs 20,000 and the estimated cost of identifying 40,000 bodies would be Rs 80crore every year, in addition to the remuneration of the examiners and support staff.

Wednesday 14 January 2015

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-centre-says-its-needs-legislative-sanction-to-dna-data-bank-2052323

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India: GRP portal helps kin of rail accident victims trace them and get closure

For three years, Bajirao Pawar and his wife searched high and low for their teenage son, Mahesh, who had left home saying he wouldn't return till he made it big. Two months ago, Bajirao, as a last resort, visited the GRP commissioner's office and went through their portal 'Shodh' that uploads pictures of unknown rail accident vicims. After scouring through pages and pages of pictures, Bajirao broke down. He had spotted Mahesh's picture on the website. Today, he believes that finally knowing what had happened to their boy gave the family some closure.

There is an average of 10 deaths reported on the railways every single day.

Shodh was developed by the GRP to help families of missing persons trace them. And yet, despite police's efforts, there are 1,100 rail accident casualties from 2014 that are yet to be identified.

"Shodh can be accessed from anywhere but not every family is net savvy. Our personnel help them surf the portal based on the description of their missing relatives. We have also prepared a database of photographs of unknown victims that the families can go through. This rules out the need to personally visit mortuaries, which can be a very disturbing experience for a family member," says GRP commissioner Ravinder Singhal. Police have to often double up as counsellors. "Bajirao couldn't accept that the picture on the portal was his son's. We asked Bajirao's relatives to come over and not leave him alone even for a minute after he left our office," said a GRP officer. Police records showed that Mahesh was killed at Khar in April 2012, eight months after he left home. Bajirao, a night watchman based in Chembur, was away at his hometown with the rest of his family when his son left.

For Pravin Waghmare, discovering the picture of his missing grandmother on Shodh, came as a shock as she had always been found safe in the past whenever she had wandered away from home. "My grandmother, Yashwanta, was in her late seventies and had a problem remembering things. Once every few months, she would step out for buying something or for a stroll and disappear. She was usually found in Chembur where we stay, or at Wadala where our aunt lives. When she went missing earlier this year, we knew the drill. Missing complaints were registered at Chembur and Wadala police stations. But there was no trace of her," said Waghmare.

The GRP website showed that Yashwanta had been killed near Diva station on March, 30, 2014, eight months before her family learnt of the mishap.

"An unclaimed body has to be disposed of within a week. At times, we keep it in the mortuary for a fortnight if there's a slight chance of tracing the family. In cases where bodies are disposed of as unclaimed, pieces of their clothes or belongings are stored for their families to identify," said an official.

Sunday 11 January 2015

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/GRP-portal-helps-kin-of-rail-accident-victims-trace-them-and-get-closure/articleshow/45828146.cms

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NYC's first 'Missing Persons Day' lets families expand DNA search

On Saturday New York City held a Missing Persons Day at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) at 421 26th Street and 1st Avenue, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. There has been a statewide event in Albany for the past 13 years, but this is the first focused on the Metropolitan area.

Over 100,000 people are actively missing nationwide, and last year 13,000 went missing from New York City alone. Bodies can often end up in the custody of nearby medical examiners, but in New York City, the unclaimed can have a grimmer fate and end up on Hart Island, the potter's grave where over 800,000 unidentified bodies are buried.

Families have previously had trouble accessing the island, which sits across from City Island in the Bronx, because it's controlled strictly by the Department of Correction; inmates from Rikers Island dig the graves. Groups like the Hart Island Project, a non-profit run by Melinda Hunt, have been advocating for families to be granted access to records and graves since 1976, when the island was closed to the public.

Using updated DNA technology, the OCME has been able to reevaluate over a thousand cases dating as far back as 1990. Julie Bolcer, the Director of Public Affairs at the OCME, said they are in the process of collecting DNA samples from 1,200 bodies and they now operate one of the nation's few DNA Missing Persons Units. But, she said, one DNA sample isn't enough.

"Even if we get finally get the DNA, it's no good alone," Bolcer said. "We still need the missing link."

Tomorrow, families will have the opportunity to give DNA samples to the OCME to be compared with the DNA collected from the unidentified bodies. They will also be matched with DNA collections nationwide, in the hopes of finding a match. They have dental records and fingerprints that can be analyzed. The OCME can also send home DNA kits, for those unable to attend, and will be continuing their DNA project beyond tomorrow's event. Bolcer stressed that while collecting DNA is a draw of Missing Persons Day, it's just a small part of the day planned.

"It's also about support," she said. "The National Institute of Justice calls this the 'nation's silent mass disaster.' There will also be emotional support for people who have long missing family members and loved ones."

Sunday 9 November 2014

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/11/08/loved-ones-hold-onto-hope-at-nycs-first-missing-persons-day/

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Why east London is a hotspot for unidentified fatalities

The tattoo on his left hand simply read "786". In his wallet, along with a fake Italian driving licence, was a photograph of a woman.

The Asian man in his 20s was found washed up in the Thames at Ballast Quay, just south of the Isle of Dogs on January 10, 2011. His body had been in the river for seven days.

His real name remains a mystery as do the circumstances which led him into the river. Somewhere, someone must be missing him and wondering why he disappeared.

There are 235 deaths currently listed as unidentified in the capital from records dating back to the 1960s.

The database by the UK Missing Persons Bureau shows bodies are found all over London, but east of the City and along the Thames features repeatedly.

No-one knows who they are but it's easy to presume most slipped through the net and ended up on the streets.

Keith Fernett, chief executive of charity Anchor House, which operates a homeless hostel in Canning Town, said the reason for this location arose from a cycle of poverty.

"The national hotspot is London," he said.

"You get gangmasters bringing in people on a regular basis, immigrants head to London, and the East End has historically been a point of entry.

"Then they get trapped in the poverty of these boroughs, which also has high incidents of offending. And if those people are not at Anchor House then where are they?"

Working at the east London centre for a decade, Keith (pictured left) has seen a number of cases where people have died or been close to dying in similar circumstances.

The charity now establishes the identification of every person it comes into contact with.

"We did that because a few years ago we discovered one of our residents was a heroin user and he disappeared," said Keith.

"After a few days we called the police and they made inquiries but nothing happened. We then contacted his family who called the police again. They finally found him in the mortuary at Newham Hospital where he had been laying dead for two weeks.

"Society doesn't take the same consideration for someone they believe is homeless or an immigrant that they would for me and you."

And, according to Keith, it's a problem which is growing. This, in part, is due to the negative coverage given towards those in poverty through TV programmes such as Benefits Street, he says, which has contributed to society "hardening" its views towards those on the streets.

The tragic result is isolation and, far too frequently, an anonymous death.

The lifestyle of those living on the streets also dramatically increases the risk of a premature death, very often in east London's vast waterways.

"Only yesterday I had to talk very harshly to an east European man who is an alcoholic and I told him 'if you carry on you'll be found dead in the Thames' because he'll lose control of himself and won't know where he is," said Keith.

"We've had people who were growing up in the East End who 20 years ago would swim in the Royal Docks. And someone decided to continue that, in November, days after leaving hospital with a heart illness. How close must he have come to dying?"

The figures of unidentified deaths is only likely to increase as the capital suffers the effects of a housing crisis at a time of a major population growth.

Anchor House currently has 190 bed spaces but 606 referrals from the authorities in what Keith calls a huge rise of people sleeping on the streets.

"It's affecting people from all walks of life now," said Keith. "We found a mother and her two children living under the Bow Roundabout recently. They were english. These people are out there."

Thursday 25 September 2014

http://www.wharf.co.uk/2014/09/why-east-london-is-a-hotspot-f.html

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Kashmir floods: Google launches 'person finder' app

Google has stepped in to help people locate their friends and relatives stranded in the severe floods in Jammu and Kashmir.

The internet giant's much-praised app 'person finder' has tied up with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to create a database on the status of stranded and missing people in the state.

Person Finder is an open source web application that provides a registry and message board for anyone looking for an information or anyone who has an information to share on people missing or stranded in a natural calamity.

Multiple agencies are involved in the rescue operations and there was hardly any database on who is alive, missing or dead. With Google's app, the task of getting information on a victim has become relatively easier.

The data for the app is provided by NDRF and other agencies involved in the search.

The database can be accessed using the link https://www.google.org/personfinder/2014-jammu-kashmir-floods/ or on mobile phones by sending a text message "search " to the number 9773300000.

"We want more and more people including NGOs and volunteers present in Jammu and Kashmir to upload more and more information in the e-link so that we can reach to an increased number of stranded people in the state," Public Policy Analyst at Google-India Fatima Alam told PTI. The application allows individuals to post the details of and search for the status of family members or friends affected by the disaster.

"If you're worried about someone in the disaster affected area, then click on 'I'm Looking for Someone' and type in their name. If you want to let people know you're safe, or if you have heard from someone in the disaster affected area, then click on 'I have information about someone' and put in their names and details," Google said in its latest post on the e-link

The database is continuously building up and is now being used to stream information to rescue teams on ground by their control rooms in Delhi and airports in Jammu and Srinagar.

Google had launched the app during 2013 Uttarakhand floods too. It was created by volunteer Google engineers in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Wednesday 10 September 2014

http://news.oneindia.in/india/kashmir-floods-google-chips-with-person-finder-app-1518680.html

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Better management of dead and missing migrants needed in Europe

As the number of migrants and asylum seekers reaching southern Europe’s shores this year continues to climb - to about 75,000 at last count - so too does the death toll from attempts to cross the Mediterranean in over-crowded, unseaworthy boats.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that more than 800 migrants have died trying to make the treacherous crossing from North Africa since the beginning of the year.

Last week alone, the bodies of 29 migrants were found in the packed hold of a fishing boat where they are thought to have been overcome by engine fumes. According to survivor accounts, 60 others who tried to escape from the suffocating hold were stabbed and thrown overboard by five fellow passengers. A day earlier, the Italian navy rescued 12 people after their rubber dinghy capsized off the coast of Libya. Another 109 who were on the boat are missing.

An unknown number of other migrants who attempt the journey disappear without a trace, their bodies presumably claimed by the sea, leaving families back home desperate for news of their loved ones that never comes.

Yafet Gibe, an Eritrean refugee living in Sudan, last heard from his wife, Brikti, who was trying to reach Europe with their 20-month-old daughter, over a month ago. She called him from Libya, the departure point for most migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach Europe, on 20 June and told him that she would be boarding a boat on 28 June. Both a friend of Gibe’s based in Libya and the smuggler who had charged US$1,600 for the journey from Sudan to Libya and another $1,700 for the Mediterranean crossing, confirmed that Brikti and her child left on the boat as planned.

But Gibe, who had planned to join his wife in Europe with their other child at a later stage, has not heard from her since and he learned that about 250 other migrants and asylum seekers travelling on the same boat have also failed to make contact with their families. The smuggler insists that they are all in an Italian prison, but as the weeks pass with no word from any of them, this seems increasingly unlikely.

“Now I’m in Sudan and there’s no one that can help me,” Gibe told IRIN over the phone from Khartoum. “Some of my friends in Europe have contacted the Red Cross and they’re checking the names of those arriving in Italy, but there’s no news.”

No system for identifying dead migrants

Currently, Europe has no centralized system for identifying the bodies of migrants, who often travel without documentation, nor for informing their families in origin countries. Where there is no dead body available to collect DNA samples and other identifying data, the task of helping families to trace missing relatives is even harder. Now there is mounting pressure from migrant and human rights advocates who argue that migrants’ families have a right to know the fate of missing relatives and European governments should be doing more to help them.

“There’s an inability to grieve when you don’t have closure; entire lives become focused on the return of a loved one and family relations can disintegrate,” said Simon Robins, a researcher with the University of York’s Centre for Applied Human Rights, who recently co-authored a briefing paper on how Europe could better deal with the migrants who die or go missing on its southern frontier.

He and his co-authors argue that “there is a humanitarian imperative and a moral and legal responsibility” to attempt to identify the bodies of dead migrants, inform their relatives and treat their bodies with dignity. However, based on research they conducted on the Greek island of Lesbos, this rarely happens. The researchers found “a gray zone where no authority assumed responsibility” for dealing with the bodies of migrants retrieved by the island’s coast guard. Nor is there any national or EU budget allocated for their burial. The result is that “unidentified migrants are hastily buried in unmarked graves” making it impossible for families to locate their remains.

“Gathering data from bodies is crucial where there is a body, but clearly a significant fraction of bodies are at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and will never be found,” said Robins, adding that there are still ways of reconstructing who was on a boat.

Interviewing shipwreck survivors

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) interviews survivors of shipwrecks and other disasters at sea who are brought to Italian ports in an effort to compile a list of migrants whose bodies were lost or dumped at sea. The list is then passed on to the Italian authorities.

“What happens in practice is that as soon as a new shipwreck is reported, we’re immediately called by the families. We would then put them in touch with someone who was on the boat to determine if their relative was there,” explained Simona Moscarelli, a migration law expert with IOM in Rome. “In some cases, we’ve also accompanied migrants’ relatives to the police so they can report the missing.”

The shipwreck that claimed the lives of more than 350 mainly Eritrean asylum seekers off the coast of Lampedusa in October 2013 shocked the world and provided the impetus for the Italian navy’s search-and-rescue mission, Mare Nostrum, which has rescued tens of thousands of migrants since it launched. The incident was unusual in that it occurred so close to shore that divers were able to retrieve the bodies. However nine months later, more than half of those bodies remain unidentified and the families of those that have been identified are yet to be officially notified, according to the Italian Red Cross.

Local authorities have taken DNA samples from all of the bodies, but without comparison samples from close relatives (known as ante-mortem data) that would allow a match to be made, the samples have little value. The 50 percent of the bodies that have been identified were mainly as a result of linking up relatives (who called organizations like the Red Cross and IOM in the days following the tragedy) with survivors who could confirm whether or not their family members were on the boat.

Both the Red Cross and IOM have a presence in Eritrea and potentially could collect DNA samples from relatives, but according to Lourdes Penados, regional forensic advisor with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), not many of the immediate family in Eritrea have made contact and asking them to present themselves for DNA collection presents considerable diplomatic and security challenges in a country where emigrating without the permission of the state is forbidden and severely punished.

Lack of centralized databases

ICRC hosted a conference in November 2013 on the issue of how Europe’s Mediterranean countries could better manage and identify dead migrants.

“We found that the problems are similar in most of these countries,” Penados told IRIN. “There’s a lack of databases for unidentified bodies and a lack of communication between institutions at the national and regional levels.”

A number of recommendations came out of the conference, including that there be standardized practices for collecting and managing information on dead migrants and that the data be recorded in centralized databases accessible to all relevant institutions. However, Penados said progress on implementing the recommendations had so far been very slow despite the ICRC’s efforts to lobby the European Union (EU) on the issue.

“It’s a regional issue so the EU has to get involved and also allocate resources for this centralization to happen,” she said.

One of the major impediments remains the lack of any mechanism to link post-mortem data from European countries where dead migrants are found with ante-mortem data from their countries of origin all over the world.

“It’s potentially a hugely complicated logistical problem,” admitted Robins, who nevertheless argued that with sufficient political will, the obstacles could be overcome.

Andreas Kleiser of the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) agreed that tracing dead migrants back to their families in various origin countries would take “a sizeable effort” but that similarly complex efforts to identify the dead in the wake of natural disasters and conflicts had yielded results.

“If you go back to the [2004] tsunami in Thailand, you had about 8,500 victims, among them many tourists from all over the globe. So you had to find the family members and get the DNA references and that was done. Interpol and national police forces cooperated to ask family members for DNA samples.

“So it can be done, but it takes a mechanism to coordinate these things and you need money.”

Last year, ICMP and IOM signed a cooperation agreement that aims to draw on ICMP’s long experience in using DNA testing to trace the missing and its sizeable database of reference and victim profiles and align this with IOM’s presence in origin countries where it could collect missing person information and DNA samples. However, concrete programmes have yet to be put in place and there is widespread agreement that leadership and funding needs to come from the EU.

“It involves EU member states and EU border protection systems,” pointed out Klesier. “It needs to be addressed at an EU-wide level and in the external relations of the EU as well.”

Monday 28 July 2014

http://www.irinnews.org/report/100403/better-management-of-dead-and-missing-migrants-needed-in-europe

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NAMUS offers way to share missing persons data

An estimated 40,000 unidentified dead bodies 10 years ago in the offices of medical examiners and coroners nationwide — many of those officials with limited access to information about missing person cases from across the country — prompted the creation of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a federally funded national repository of people who have vanished. It may be the most comprehensive database available to the public; the FBI refuses to release its own list.

“I think NAMUS is the response to that,” Todd Matthews, a spokesman for the organization, said about the FBI’s decision. “ ‘What can we share with the public?’ We have to find a way to share this information or it’s being lost.”

FBI officials insist their data on missing persons belongs to the individual agencies that submit it, and the FBI is “not at liberty to release it.”

The Chicago Sun-Times also sought from the Illinois State Police information about missing persons reported to the agency since 2003. More than three weeks later, no data has been provided.

However, members of the public can search missing persons cases in NAMUS by name or state at findthemissing.org. The database contained 180 open cases last week in Illinois out of more than 10,200 across the country.

Anyone, including family members and police, can enter a case into the database. But all cases are verified with law enforcement before they appear publicly.

Matthews said coroners and medical examiners trying to identify John and Jane Does could find the national reach of the database particularly helpful.

“If you’re not comparing the missing and unidentified outside your local area, you’re really not going to accomplish a lot,” Matthews said.

Saturday 26 July 2014

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/28679491-418/namus-offers-way-to-share-missing-persons-data.html

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India: Government plans DNA database to help find missing people

The government told the Indian Supreme Court on Monday that it intends to create a database of DNA profiles for the first time to locate missing persons and to identify bodies, and a Bill in this regard is in the pipeline.

The decision is significant as approximately 40,000 unidentified bodies are disposed of every year, removing every trace of their existence.

At the same time, thousands are reported missing across the country.

The DNA profiles will be used to ascertain if there is a connection between unidentified bodies and missing persons.

The Centre provided the information in its response to a PIL filed by the NGO Lokniti Foundation, seeking a direction to the government to implement a scientific system of DNA profiling at the national-level for cross-matching missing persons reported from different parts of the country with unidentified bodies.

The PIL said it will also help establish the identity of victims in mass disaster situations like a tsunami, fire or terror attacks.

"Government is seized of the matter and will take an appropriate decision. We are not undermining the issue. But keeping in mind the expertise, expense and infrastructure involved, extensive consultation is required. We are even planning a bill on the issue," Additional Solicitor General Neeraj Kishan Kaul told a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra.

The NGO'S lawyer, Ashok Dhamija, said the INTERPOL Global DNA Profiling Survey of 2008 showed that 120 of 172 INTERPOL member countries were using forensic DNA profiling in criminal investigation, and as many as 54 countries had set up full-fledged national DNA databases.



Tuesday 15 July 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2692100/Government-plans-DNA-database-help-missing-people.html

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Names and dignity for the desert’s unknown dead

When Robin Reineke achieves a goal at work her spirits are lifted. It lasts no longer than one minute. Then she remembers the implications of her success: a good result is matching the remains of a migrant who has died crossing the US-Mexican border with the family’s description.

For many families, however, finding their loved ones is a comfort. Trapped in a purgatory of not knowing, their quest for answers can become all-consuming. Ms Reineke recalls one woman who recognised her son’s camouflage trousers from the buttons – they had been moved to fit his slim frame when his father handed them down.

The woman had been distraught over her son’s whereabouts – he had left in the night without telling her, which is common among migrants hoping for a smooth departure. When she finally received confirmation that her son’s remains had been found in the desert, her frantic mind was calmed. She could bury her son. “She was so grateful that she could take care of him and honour him,” reflects 32-year-old Ms Reineke.

Providing support to such families is part of Ms Reineke’s job as executive director of the Colibrí Center for Human Rights in Tucson, Arizona. The non-governmental organisation compiles and owns the most comprehensive data about missing border crossers and unidentified remains found where the US and Mexico meet. The database draws on information derived from forensic examinations and provided by foreign consulates and families. It enables people to find their relatives’ unidentified remains. When there is a possible match, Ms Reineke calls the family.

The centre takes its name from the hummingbird, colibrí in Spanish. In 2009 the remains of a man who died while crossing the border were found. In his pocket was a small, dead hummingbird – an indigenous symbol of safe passage.

Most anthropologists who work in human identification are forensic anthropologists. Among them is Bruce Anderson, Ms Reineke’s colleague, who specialises in skin and bone that might establish an identity through old fractures or dental work.

Ms Reineke, however, is a cultural anthropologist focused on social relationships. She believes her background helps her liaise between forensic scientists and families of the missing, generally indigenous people. “We understand cultural and religious needs in terms of the disposition of the dead body. We act as mediators between the scientists, who are focused on the dead, and the families focused on the living and honouring the memory of the deceased.”

Each year the remains of about 165 people are recovered from the desert of Pima county in southern Arizona. About 35 per cent cannot be identified. Before 2000, typically 10 bodies were found in the Pima county desert every year.

A report by the University of Arizona attributes the increase to tightened border security that was introduced by the Clinton administration. This has created a so-called funnel effect in which migrants choose entry points that are less policed but more remote.

The report rejects the notion that more people are dying because more people are trying to cross the border. Border Patrol apprehension statistics – a measure often used as a proxy for unauthorised migration flow – show that the number of people attempting the crossing has actually decreased.

Half of the deaths are caused by overheating. Typically, groups of mig­rants walk for three to five days, with little access to water. Those who have underlying health problems or are in pain are likely to be left behind, which is potentially lethal in the desert.

Ms Reineke is featured in Who is Dayani Cristal? , a documentary that deals with a forensic investigation into the case of a migrant found in the desert. The film retraces the man’s steps from Honduras following the path of other migrant travellers. As is usual for these “illegals”, he carried no passport or papers. Ultimately it is his tattoos, which name his young daughter, that help to identify him.

After identification, his family is able to make the match and bury him. Ms Reineke makes the point that many families are not able to do this. “A lot of cases aren’t resolved,” she says.

She cites the example of a newly married and pregnant Guatemalan woman who contacted her recently. Her husband had lost his job and felt his only option was to go to the US and send money home. Despite her request that he remain in Guatemala he left in the middle of the night. He has not been found.

Ms Reineke believes the film helps to humanise the migration debate. “In the US, the discussion on immigrants is hostile and racist. We dehumanise migrants. People shouldn’t have to walk through the desert to come to the US. People don’t want to leave their families.”

Does she not believe in border controls? “We’re too focused on the border and don’t look at the broader social and economic reasons.”

Her work on migrant identification began in 2005. She took an internship with Dr Anderson while studying for her PhD in cultural anthropology. At that point, he was desperate for help compiling details of those found dead in the desert.

The bulk of her work deals with calls from families anxious about missing relatives. Now the centre, funded by the Ford Foundation, among others, receives as many as 70 calls a week. On average she or her colleagues take about an hour to ask questions to create a detailed profile that includes identifying features such as a history of bone fractures, also establishing whether the person has tried to cross before.

Details of personal items are obviously useful to investigators – photographs, handwritten notes from family members, children’s drawings, bibles. Many migrants carry prayer cards or other items representing saints.

Ms Reineke anticipates the missing are likely to be dead but is careful to talk of them to their families in the present tense. Nonetheless, she sees it as her duty “to prepare them for the very worst”.

Many families are scared of coming forward to US authorities, she says, in case their relative has made the journey successfully and is working illegally across the border.

The work can be frustrating, Ms Reineke reflects. “The science and technologies can be out of reach due to expense.”

Moreover, dealing with different government authorities can be complicated. The job, inevitably, gets her down at times. But she is cautious about overstating the impact on her.

“If I take on the families’ grief then I can’t help them.”

Friday 16 May 2014

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8b48fbd0-d775-11e3-80e0-00144feabdc0.html

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Indian Air Force to set up high-risk crew’s DNA database

In a first, the Indian Air Force has initiated a project for DNA profiling of its personnel, selecting a high-risk group of aircrew that undertakes dangerous missions for the first round. A database of the DNA records will be established in Pune.

The DNA samples of nearly 2,500 crew members who face “potential threat to life” during everyday operations are being collected. The project, initiated by the Directorate General of Medical Services (Air), was accelerated after last year’s helicopter crash in Uttarakhand in which 20 people died. It took several days before some of the bodies could be handed over to the families as they could not be identified.

A similar crash that took place in a high altitude area in the Northeast in 2011 also posed several difficulties for the medical teams in identifying the remains.

“Establishing identity of the deceased is not only a legal necessity but also a moral responsibility as it has emotional implications for the family members. DNA profiling of the available body parts is the only foolproof scientific method of establishing identity of the deceased,” said an IAF official.

“In the first phase, the samples of crew members who undertake dangerous missions are being collected, but this could expand across the force later,” said an official said. For the past few weeks, blood samples of all

IAF air crew in the high-risk group are being collected and the project is likely to be completed by July-end. “The blood samples being collected by single prick method will be recorded in FTA (Fluorescent Treponemal Antibody) cards, the process by which such a profiling is stored, to be part of the repository at the Forensic Department of the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) in Pune,” said an official.

The DNA profiling of air crew from the Army and Navy has also been given priority. Over the next few years, once the project includes the entire armed forces, the FTA cards for nearly 1.5 million personnel are likely to be generated, making it the largest repository of DNA profiles in the country.

Thursday 24 April 2014

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/iaf-to-set-up-high-risk-crews-dna-database/

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