Private companies such as Parabon NanoLabs, Bode Technology, and Othram work with law enforcement to identify decedents through the application of FGG. In recent years, websites such as Othram's
www.DNASOLVES.com have assisted cold case investigations submitted directly by law enforcement and death investigation agencies and have provided opportunities for crowd sourcing of funds to support the associated costs of FGG for UHRs. As of November 10, 2021, DNASolves and Othram have aided in the resolution of 39 UHR cases, illustrating the impact FGG has on cold case investigations.
Each year, thousands of unidentified human remains (UHR) cases are reported in the U.S. Technological advances have greatly enhanced the forensic community's capacity and capability to solve UHR cases, but little is known about the extent to which these ...
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THE WOODLANDS, Texas —
Othram, the leading forensic sequencing laboratory for law enforcement, is pleased to announce the identity of human remains found on a Charleston, Missouri farm in 1979. In Feb. 2020, Dr. Jennifer Bengston, Ph.D., Associate Professor from Southeast Missouri State University, partnered with the Othram laboratory and lead genealogists, Lee and Anthony Redgrave, to utilize the latest forensic genealogy technologies to help identify human remains held at the University as part of Dr. Bengtson’s forensic anthropology program.
Forensic depiction of Charleston, Mo., John Doe. (Photo/Anthony Redgrave)
The remains, found in 1979 in an agricultural field near Charleston, Missouri, had been burned prior to discovery. No identity could be established at that time and the remains were eventually turned over to Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Bengtson and her students have been working on the case since 2013. In 2016, Dr. Bengtson and her students submitted the case to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), a national clearinghouse and resource center for the missing, unidentified and unclaimed persons across the United States. Traditional STR profiling by the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification (UNTCHI) did not turn up any clues as to the person’s identity.
Dr. Bengtson and her team at SEMO sent a small sample of the remains to Othram in early 2020 in the hopes of solving this case while providing her students a valuable learning platform. The Othram laboratory specializes in extracting and enriching human DNA from degraded, contaminated sources such as bone. Once the lab digitized a full genome from the remains, lead forensic genealogists at Othram, Anthony Lukas Redgrave and Lee Bingham Redgrave, took the genetic data and worked with Dr. Bengtson and her students to recreate his genetic lineage.
“Having trained many law enforcement professionals in forensic genealogy, I was excited to work with students with a cross-disciplinary perspective to see their unique ways of looking at an unresolved case. Together, we came to a tentative identification within four days of uploading the DNA profile,” Anthony Redgrave stated.
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As an example, Othram’s Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® method is based on MPS. Our method combines MPS and advanced informatics to digitize genomes that otherwise fail with SNP chip and other non-sequencing methods. Genomic information is pieced together, leveraging multiple layers of quality data for every DNA position that is measured, to ensure accuracy.
A critical and under-appreciated advantage of massively parallel sequencing is the ability to detect novel genetic variations with exactly the same efficiency as previously seen variants. This can be used to minimize the types of error and bias intrinsic to microarrays and other methods, especially when working with imperfect forensic evidence. It is possible to combine sequence data (this cannot be done for SNP microarrays) so if insufficient data is generated from an initial test, results from multiple sequencing runs can be combined to produce an accurate representation of the DNA markers. The ability to iteratively and accurately collect DNA data from forensic evidence is critical for detecting distant genetic relationships and enabling human identification of an unknown person.
Incredible advances in genetic testing have transformed what forensic professionals can learn from DNA left at crime scenes and a growing number of seemingly “unsolvable” cases are now being closed.
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Kristen Mittleman is the chief business development officer at Othram Labs, which created the site DNA Solves.
“Our technology looks at tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of markets,” Mittleman said.
DNA Solves helps Othram build a family tree of likely relatives to the person being tested. Mittelman said the company’s success rate is nearly 100%.
“Almost all of our cases are cases that have failed elsewhere or became a DNA dead end,” Mittelman said.
HELPING SOLVE CRIMES
Othram said it’s working on hundreds of cases now. She said the technology is not just to identify remains but also to help solve crimes.
Investigators credit forensic genetic genealogy with catching the Golden State Killer, who murdered 13 people and raped nearly 50 more in the ’70s and’ 80s.
But while departments like Gwinnett’s embrace the help, the technology is not widely used.
“Our technology is fairly new and people do not know about it yet,” Mittelman said. “I think more and more people hear about what we do and see the difference, I think this will become the standard.”
That brings it back to the “Atwood girl.”
Forensic genetic genealogy could help solve mysteries involving missing people and unidentified remains. ATLANTA -
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The severity of the injuries made it challenging to initially determine biological sex or other details about the home fire victim that might identify him.
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