Transcripts of the Attorney General's Initiative on DNA Laboratory Backlogs (AGID-LAB) Working Group

Tuesday, October 22, 2002

USING DNA TO IDENTIFY UNIDENTIFIED DEAD BODIES

MR. SCHMITT: Another subject that I would like you to touch on briefly is one we discussed ever so briefly yesterday, and that was the notion or the idea of using DNA to identify unidentified dead bodies. We heard that there is some preliminary planning going on at the FBI and certain states to do this, but I wondered if we could have some idea of where you all see the constraints here on this. For example, do we need to have all of those samples be mitochondrial and nuclear, if you can get the nuclear, or is it okay to just start with nuclear and add mitochondrial later, point one.

Point two, what do we need to do to encourage medical examiners and coroners, the ones that actually handle these bodies, to take this information, and then are there barriers to getting it into CODIS, barriers of them getting it to you to have you put it into CODIS? Where are the disconnects in this system that we need to overcome?

MS. HART: If I could follow up on that, one of the things I'm particularly interested in is your thoughts on ways to encourage the actual collection of the samples before the remains are disposed of. I think it's a great sadness when somebody can't find out what has happened to their loved one, things like having evidence collection kits, education. What are some of the ideas that people might want to throw out here that would help encourage the collection of samples for the first end and then also dealing with how you test them and get them to CODIS?

MR. DIZINNO: We've wrestled with this question for a long time. It not only applies to say DNA, but the NCIC has an unidentified persons file, and we have a difficult time having the medical examiners or the local law enforcement agency putting into NCIC any sort of information about an unidentified remains. So that same difficulty I'm sure would be evident in trying to get the DNA samples into a CODIS system where you have the unidentified DNA profile of that person.

So it's a difficult question. We've wrestled with it for years and haven't come up with an answer as to how to encourage - and it really is local law enforcement and more so the medical examiners - to have them put that information into the appropriate system.

MR. SCHMITT: Marie, do you have an opinion on this since you work for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner?

MS. SAMPLES: Our medical examiners routinely take samples from every person that has an autopsy whether they have been identified or not, and our laboratory receives the samples from all of those people, including the unidentified ones. We in the laboratory, though, do not have an active policy that we're typing them. We basically keep them until there is some request to compare to particular potential family members. I was sitting here thinking to myself why don't we have a subset team in our laboratory who does this? I don't know why we don't, but we don't.

MS. HART: You're at least collecting samples. At least you have the ability down the road when you address the rest of that, you've at least got that bank of samples, but what we're seeing day in and day out is the samples are not even being taken.

One of the things that occurs to me is the question if one should be encouraging the collection of samples as soon as possible and then addressing in the long term how you get the testing of the samples and the full use of the database information so we can try and resolve some of these cases.

MS. NARVESON: It started me to think, too, that we have crime scene response evidence technicians that actually go to the ME's office on John Does and we will take John Doe prints. That's a very opportune moment to provide them with the information on the availability of that kind of testing. Perhaps in opening up your DNA backlog reduction concept, even these samples as prescribed by the FBI could be samples that we might be able to have money for outsourcing to at least start compiling the data.

MR. SCHMITT: One of the things that I found on Joe's point when I worked on the Hill and for the committee that had oversight of the Bureau, we talked about the fact that NCIC had this database for some time for the unidentified persons, and we got a little briefing and they told us that it's teeth and gender and height, weight as best you could identify it. We asked why wasn't it used more because there was this huge missing persons database and this almost nonexistent unidentified missing persons database, and they said, well, it takes time and if the person is dead, they can't identify it. There are other more pressing cases they have, and they don't want to take the time to do all of these measurements.

It seems as though the lesson from that is you need to make this as easy and painless as you possibly can. Susan's point is an interesting one. If the people who come in to do the fingerprints also had a kit, ten seconds, you take a swab, you take something, and then the process were in place to put it in the database, that would be almost so painless to them that they would be willing to do it.

I think that's the key here is to make it as easy and as quick as possible, and then also perhaps put some funding behind it. There was a proposal three years ago in the House to create a small pot of money to go to MEs just to do this, to encourage them to do this, and it didn't go anywhere, but the idea was a good one.

The thought is for every new idea that turns out to be a great idea there is the time when it is first done, and before that everybody looks at each other and says, I don't know why we didn't do this before, but we just didn't. Well, fine. We may be at that point, and it may be that with a little funding making it easy, giving people an incentive to do it, then it catches on and you begin to hear these successes just like we saw with DNA and the successes of families getting closure because they find out what happened to their loved ones will prompt other people to do it, and they will see how easy it was that then it will be routine and people will think how could we have not done this in the past. That may be what we need to be thinking along those lines and doing.

MR. DIZINNO: If you're going to proceed that way, we have to remember that the other side of that issue is that we need the reference sample from the next of kin of the missing person that has to be probably voluntarily provided, and that also is an issue that needs to be addressed.

MR. SCHMITT: I know that there are lobbying groups for missing people, not just children, but for missing adults that's the other half of this. We're all familiar with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but there is a group of people who get my sympathy because of their losses and are really lost in this equation because their missings are adults. It maybe the 20-year-old college student or the 25-year-old lost child. Those parents grieve just as much as the parents of the young people do, but they don't have an advocacy group except their little shoestring organization.

They in a moment would give you all of the reference samples you want to get that kind of identification, and I think if it were known to parents of kids or grown up children that this was a possibility, I think you would have them lined up to give that, especially if we give the assurance that it wouldn't be used for any other purpose other than that, which I think you probably have to do to get them to commit on this.

MS. HERD: I had a quick question for Joe. How is the FBI addressing that issue in terms of building its database of reference samples?

MR. DIZINNO: We have developed a form for next of kin of missing individuals to fill out voluntarily. Again, it states that that DNA sample will be taken solely for that purpose and included in the database for that purpose. So it's a voluntary consent form for next of kin.

MR. SCHMITT: Is there an issue here on mitochondrial or nuclear DNA? Does anyone know if the condition of these bodies is such usually that you need to use mitochondrial most of the time?

MS. SAMPLES: The reason our laboratory even moved at all towards developing our mitochondrial DNA capacity was because our chief medical examiner wanted us to have the capability to identify bodies in house because we do often get bodies that are well beyond the scope of nuclear DNA. So that's what had prompted us to go that route in the first place.

A lot of times if a body is unidentified and it's in good shape, within a week or two they figure out who it is and they cease to be unidentified. If I was to go back to my lab and start saying we should really just be typing these because it's a good thing to do, I would suggest that we wait until they're unidentified for probably at least a month before we even issue the address.

MR. SELAVKA: In case you weren't aware, and you probably are, there are a number of state programs I'm aware of, a couple in New England where the parents are provided with a day, usually aSaturday, a law enforcement day where they give fingerprints and they collect hair. They now are collecting blood drops from finger sticks or buccal swabs that the parent maintains for their child and will have those things available for reference material, which will be better than it is now with toothbrushes and hairbrushes and so forth. You could do mito work with these collected materials, and I'm wondering about a recommendation to if not sponsor, at least recommend to local law enforcement state agencies that might fund this or even insurance companies to help sponsor that kind of thing.

MR. SCHMITT: I think it's a good idea, and I've seen in this area fingerprint day at the mall and you hear about it on the radio, but it's limited just to that. They don't think about taking the hair. They don't think about taking a blood sample. Even in the case of the fingerprints the parents retain the kits. So perhaps we should do just what you're saying, Carl, encourage them, whoever is doing this, that their kits have all the different types of reference material that you would want to have.

MR. DIZINNO: Obviously the best reference is a direct reference sample, but our experience has been with these missing person cases that - actually I don't think that we received a direct reference sample from a next of kin yet. They're usually next of kin samples. One of the reasons we chose mitochondrial was, first of all, many of the remains we're dealing with are skeletonized and we're only able to obtain mitochondrial DNA profiles from those remains. Number two is because of its maternal inheritance, it makes obtaining a next of kin reference sample much easier. You don't need both parents. You can go to any maternal relative for that reference sample. So it facilitates the collection of the reference samples.