New or Pending Science on the Horizon

by Andrea Campbell

I had a difficult time choosing what to write for today. I often forget what I've told you, and I don't want anything to be too remedial—people have become pretty savvy with all the forensic information on current cases in the news. So I thought I would make a small departure and tell you about some new science or new ideas that are either in the works or coming down the pike, so-to-speak.

Sharing Faces


First the International Justice and Public Safety Information Sharing Network, also called Nlets (thank you, who could remember the other?) has just decided to coordinate policies for putting together an exchange service to share drivers' license photos. This was listed as a top priority of law enforcement for a long time. A pilot program is underway in North and South Carolina and Virginia. It would also allow them to share electronic images from motor vehicle departments for the sole purpose of identification. It seems like such a no-brainer, wonder what the hang-up is or was getting it going? (Link: See http://www.nlets.org/ for more information)

Face Recognition


Speaking of faces, the images on surveillance videos are really bad most of the time. The businesses either recycle the tapes, or have old (or even nonworking) cameras. A computer program is being developed to improve the image processing technology. The underlying technology is supposed to have face detection algorithms. I'm told that shape and appearance models lock on to the three-dimensional shape of the face in each video frame. This technology allows it to be rotated to a frontal view. That way a frame-to-frame registration of the face is combined and then a higher resolution is constructed. Yes, it sounds like something we've seen in the movies. Another idea, Active 3D Face Capture, is the brainchild of NIJ-sponsored project with the help of GE Global Research and PPR. It would set up video surveillance for large areas like a schoolyard or parking lot (where images get lost in the haze and bad resolution).

NamUs

Not so much a technology but a database, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System or NamUs, is the first online repository for missing person records and unidentified decedent cases. It will eventually consist of two databases, one with records of no-name decedents and the other with missing persons reports. It was launched in July 2007. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, medical examiners and coroners handle about 4,400 unidentified decedent cases every year and 1,000 of those remain nameless. (Link See: http://www.namus.gov/)

Cell Phone Forensics

Obviously the cell phone has progressed and affords us major capabilities now such as: voicemail, music or MP3 players, camera, video camera, voice recorder, Web browser, email, text messenger, address book, calendar, notepad, games, applications and more. And law enforcement know that any technology that can be used for legitimate uses can also be made to handle illegal aims as well. The potential for cell phones holding evidence cannot be overlooked. What is however overlooked is, the capability of police officers and detectives knowing how to preserve and retrieve all this data correctly. There are hurdles with an infinite number of custom-designed operating systems, different network providers, unfamiliar file systems, proprietary cables, chargers and connectors. For investigators who find this information overwhelming (who doesn't?) state, local and federal agencies are trying to create strategies for handling cell phone technology and disbursing it to investigative agencies. (Link See: http://www.bk.forensics.com/ also look for Cell Phone Forensics: An Overview & Analysis Update, NIST, http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistir/nistir-7387.pdf)

Chemical Signatures

I thought this was a very cool product because I have talked to law enforcement officers who work drug cases! The danger is horrendous. I doubt if any agencies here have one of these: a handheld meth-detection unit. It's called the ID-2 from Decatur Electronics. It allows an officer to pick-up trace elements of methamphetmine or pseudoephedrine without physical contact. Yep, it reads through the baggie. The scanner pulses ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy to detect the elements of meth chemicals as they react to the light. (Link See: http://www.decaturradar.com/)

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Every Day You Wait . . . Is One Day Longer

by Todd Matthews, Guest Contributor

If you have a missing loved one, not knowing what you can do about it is a huge challenge. Dealing with the situation on the usual day-to-day basis is overwhelming in itself. But not knowing what you can do to make sure all paths are being followed is another issue.

One thing you can do is to make sure your missing persons data is being properly reviewed.

Of course, the information contained in the missing person's NCIC case file is considered for law enforcement only. But rather than the usual phone call to the detective in charge of your missing loved one, maybe you can do some fact checking.

Normally the call consists of asking if there's any new info in regards to the investigation of the missing person. (More often than not, nothing has changed.) But since you may not have any idea of what is listed in the NCIC report, this might be a good time to do some fact checking. Ask the detective to confirm physical characteristics, height, weight, etc.

Do they have dental info listed? If not, do you have the dental info that you need to get to them for inclusion into the file? This is an extremely valuable piece of information! Have here been any DNA family reference samples taken? Mitochondrial and nuclear? Can you confirm the DNA has been included in the CODIS, the national DNA database?

Dates are important as well. There is no database in existence that is immune to human error. Why not double-check the dates involved such as date last seen and date of birth?. For example, numbers such as Social Security numbers are easy to mix up. Are there any birthmarks, tattoos, or other distinguishing characteristics that weren't noted? Do you have a photo that might be of value?

A simple-fact check review can't hurt anything, and might change everything. You are not asking for investigative information. You are asking to verify the very data you helped to provide. During the course of this conversation, it is a good time to ask your law enforcement contact to register as a NamUs user.

Now is the time when you yourself can get the ball rolling by entering your own loved one into NamUs. By doing this, a great deal of conversation in regards to your loved one's case begins.

I have seen simple human errors resolved in this manner. Some are minor and do not make an immediate difference, but they still affect the future. Some errors are fairly important and can have an immediate impact on resolution or on how the case is processed internally.

Once your loved one's case is in NamUs, you can work to help make sure all the gaps are filled with accurate information. The only thing worse that a lack of data is inaccurate data. Consider the tiniest details.

More resources:
http://missingpiecesshow.homestead.com/MissingPiecesEpisode74Archive.html

Todd Matthews' calling to be a voice for missing and unidentified persons began when he solved the identity of the "Tent Girl," Barbara Hackman-Taylor, after a ten-year journey that ended in 1998. He is also Media Director for the Doe Network, a consultant to Emmy-award winning producer Dick Wolf ("Law & Order"), and on the Advisory Panel for the U. S. Department of Justice NamUS (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System) database project. Todd also hosts a weekly radio show that publicizes unidentified and missing persons cases. A documentary featuring our guest contributor's work was recently broadcast on the BBC. A second documentary about his life is in post-production.

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Grief for the Missing

by Donna Weaver

Sometimes when a perpetrator is apprehended for the abduction and murder of a child or adult it is reported that they are a suspect in the disappearances of other victims. What is it like for the families of these victims who have no answers? Their heartbreak is something I call “suspended grief.” Currently, there are few resources and little information available to assist families of missing persons in coping with the specific elements of their “suspended grief.” Traditional victim assistance services are frequently not available to these families.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Crime Information Center (NCIC), in the U.S., there are an estimated 58,200 child victims of non-family abductions; 50,930 active missing adult cases; and 6,218 active cases of unidentified persons. However, most investigators and law enforcement agencies agree that this represents a fraction of the true number of cases since it is not mandatory for local police agencies to enter adult missing person cases in NCIC. Many cold cases were never entered into the system simply because of the limits of technological resources at the time, and I have found in some instances that cases originally entered in a local agency’s system were subsequently purged to make room for new cases.

For example, as of 2004, more than half (51%) of the nation’s medical examiners' offices had no policy for retaining records—such as x-rays, DNA, or fingerprints—on unidentified human remains. Sadly, there are many such cases sitting in boxes covered by layers of dust in local police storerooms and warehouses—or worse yet—none exist at all.

In 2007, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) called the number of missing persons and unidentified human remains in our Country a crisis, labeling it a “a mass disaster over time.”

The nation’s legislators are beginning to understand the magnitude of the problem of missing persons and unidentified victims in the United States. Congress recently implemented legislative provisions allowing families of missing persons to submit DNA samples to the FBI’s national CODIS database, previously used solely for criminal DNA identification, and cases are being retrieved from many thousands of individual police jurisdictions across the country, moving toward a uniform national reporting and filing system.

In the spring of 2005, NIJ assembled federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, medical examiners and coroners, forensic scientists, key policymakers, and victim advocates and families from around the country for a national strategy meeting in Philadelphia. The meeting, called the “Identifying the Missing Summit,” defined major challenges in investigating and solving missing persons and unidentified decedent cases. The result was the formation of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System or NamUS.

NamUS was set to roll out in three phases culminating in two fully functional searchable databases: the Unidentified Decedents database and Missing Persons database in 2009. This is a huge advancement in the cause for the missing and unidentified.

However, statistics alone cannot capture the fear, horror, frustration, and pain felt by those who know and love a missing person. So what is it like living day-to-day for many of those left behind ?

According to the psychology books, there are four stages of grief: shock and denial; intense concern; despair and depression; and recovery. Rarely does this occur as progressive stages towards the resolution of grief when a loved one is missing and presumed dead. Grief becomes “suspended” and those left behind become victims themselves. The act of confronting and expressing the emotions generally associated with grief does not bring relief or enable a progression to the next stage towards resolution and recovery. Therefore, the emotional changes associated with the four stages of grief can be experienced, and re-experienced, for long periods, sometimes for the rest of one’s life.

I have found in my discussions with victims whose loved one is missing that they usually compare feelings they have experienced at the death of someone else close to them, as if in a desperate attempt to understand or gain a frame of reference in order to try to cope. Virtually all of these surviving victims have pointed out that the emotional changes they feel because their loved one is missing and presumed dead bears little resemblance to the grief they felt when someone else they love had died.

Emotional changes are commonly intensified and prolonged when a loved one is missing. Often these feelings are compounded by guilt—wondering if they did all that they could to find the person, or guilt related to going on with life, such as dating, re-marrying, or having more children because it is often perceived as giving up on the missing person before there is proof of death.

When missing person cases go cold, surviving loved ones frequently feel betrayed and abandoned by police and the justice system, which adds to their feelings of despair, helplessness, isolation, and anger. As the passing of time starts to be counted in years . . . hope, no matter how slight, often remains of finding a loved one alive, even as survivors struggle to balance this with the acceptance of the inevitable death of their missing loved one.

Prolonged intense concern also is often inevitable for many victims. The need to keep the memory of the missing person alive becomes an alternative to the overwhelming despair and depression caused by considering the reality of never finding their loved one, or knowing what their loved one experienced, or who is responsible for their disappearance and death. In many cases, “what if” and countless other questions are all survivors have in the absence of knowing the details of their loved one’s fate.

Dealing with and controlling thoughts of the missing person suffering similar horrifying fates known to have happened to other victims who were discovered months or years after they disappeared is very difficult. How can a person put such a terrible experience behind them when they do not have the barest of details to reconcile the event in their mind?

Currently, traditional victim resources related to missing persons cases generally serve victims of disaster, war, or genocide. In these types of situations, the cause of the disappearance is usually known to some degree, if not readily apparent, and large numbers of people have suffered a similar experience at once. Those left behind when a child is abducted by a stranger, or an adult disappears because they may be a victim of foul play, cannot relate to those circumstances or the emotional effects on their lives. Perhaps because in the case of war or disaster people come together as a group for support and recovery of a shared experience which is a result of something, the cause of their pain is an event shared by all, or a known, common enemy.

These are but a few of the particular issues that influence the emotions of these grieving survivors. And it is but one more consideration in determining the devastation to individuals, and the cost to society as a whole, when offenders are permitted to be free to offend again.

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