A mother and daughter tubing the Delaware River find a single human bone— a left radius — on Resolution Island, a small outcropping in the river. A headless body washes up on the Pennsylvania shores of the Delaware River in 2021. Both remains fall within the jurisdiction of the Bucks County Coroner’s Office in Pennsylvania.
To this day the Coroner’s Office has not been able to identify these remains or determine their manner of death. But the increasing use of rapid DNA and genetic genealogy to identify human remains offers hope. These forensic technologies have recently contributed to the successful identification of other bodies in Bucks County and elsewhere.
What is Rapid DNA?
According to the FBI, Rapid DNA is “the fully automated process of developing a DNA profile … in 1-2 hours without the need for a DNA laboratory and without any human interpretation.” The technology dates back to before the Human Genome Project. Law enforcement uses it in criminal investigations, but it’s also a powerful tool for body identification and disaster victim identification. Coroner and medical examiner offices need to partner with a local law enforcement agency to gain access to the technology.
Partnering with Law Enforcement
In early 2017 the Bensalem Township Police Department in Bucks County became the first in the country to implement a RapidDNA program, headed by Det. Sgt. Glenn Vandegrift. Their RapidDNA instrument, about the size of a desktop printer, can develop DNA profiles from many different sources, including bone. In early April 2023, the technology was instrumental in identifying a body found in the Delaware River.
Marine units assisted local police and investigators from the Coroner’s Office in recovering a man’s body from a rock outcropping in the river. The Bensalem Police Criminal Investigations Division used its RapidHit ID™ system to compare DNA samples collected at autopsy with DNA reference samples from family members of a known missing person. In the past it would have taken weeks or months to get answers. But the Rapid DNA technology confirmed Adam Zimpfer’s identity within a matter of hours. Coroner Meredith Buck stated there were no signs of foul play at the time of the autopsy; the final cause and manner of death were pending.
DNA Databases
DNA profiles are useless for identification purposes without a database and software to compare the sample DNA to existing profiles or known reference samples.
CODIS
CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) is the FBI criminal justice database. There are strict requirements and safeguards in place for entering or accessing DNA profiles in CODIS. For example, an accredited laboratory must generate the DNA data. Since the passage of the Rapid DNA Act of 2017, profiles obtained by the new technology can be eligible for entry into CODIS under certain conditions.
Currently, CODIS accepts DNA data generated through PCR Short Tandem Repeat (STR) technology, Y chromosome STR (Y STR) technology, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) technology. Y STR and mtDNA data, however, are only searched in the case of missing persons. Since January 1, 2017, a CODIS “hit” requires matching of alleles at 20 specific loci. The National Human Genome Research Institute defines a locus as “a physical site or location within a genome (such as a gene or another DNA segment of interest), somewhat like a street address.”
NamUs
But many, probably most, missing persons and unidentified bodies don’t have a criminal record. Accordingly, it’s unlikely their DNA will be in CODIS. Enter NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). A government-funded program, it has separate database indices for missing persons, unidentified remains, and relatives of missing persons. The same DNA requirements, however, alleles at 20 specific loci, apply to NamUs DNA entries.
The two still-unidentified Delaware River cases — the radius bone and the headless body — mentioned at the beginning of this article illustrate the shortcomings of existing CODIS-type databases, including NamUs. DNA from the remains of those two bodies yielded no matches in CODIS or NamUs.
Local Databases
Limitations of CODIS and backlogs in DNA analysis have led some law enforcement agencies to develop local DNA databases using commercially available systems and software. These local DNA databases, primarily employed for criminal justice purposes, can also be used to identify burned, decomposed, or otherwise unidentifiable human remains. Investigators can use Rapid DNA profiles from unidentified remains for direct comparison to Rapid DNA profiles from pre-mortem and/or familial reference samples or existing profiles in the local database.
When these and other identification approaches have failed, law enforcement, coroners, and medical examiners are turning to genetic genealogy.
Investigative Genetic Genealogy
Coroners and law enforcement cannot access private genealogical databases like Ancestry.com or 23andme.com to identify human remains. However, people can voluntarily upload their own DNA profiles onto an open source genealogy database like GEDMatch. DNA profiles on genealogical databases analyze DNA differently than CODIS. Instead of comparing alleles at 20 loci, genetic DNA databases analyze over 600,000 SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). Investigators can use genealogical databases — but not CODIS — to solve crimes and identify remains. Its application for those purposes is known as Investigative Genetic Genealogy — IGG.
Investigators used the GEDMatch database to identify the so-called “Golden State Killer” in 2018. Since then IGG has become one of the hottest and newest forensic sciences. In southeastern Pennsylvania, including Bucks County, coroners and medical examiners are using genetic genealogy to identify their most difficult cases.
Pennsylvania Cases Identified with Rapid DNA and Genetic Genealogy
Thousands of bodies in the United States remain unidentified. Pennsylvania alone has 321 unidentified bodies listed in NamUs at the time this is being written. “Cold cases” in these and other states go back decades. Many died long before DNA was routinely collected, so often the first challenge is obtaining a DNA profile.
A January 17, 2023 local news story described 11 unidentified cases in Bucks and Montgomery Counties. On January 30, 2023, the reporter updated the story after the identification of one of those cases. That case was one of several long-unidentified bodies in the Philadelphia area recently given a name through the use of IGG.
Bucks County 1986 Case
A fisherman found a human skull near a Delaware River boat ramp in 1986. The skull then spent decades in a township police department. In 2019 detectives took the skull to the Bucks County Coroner’s Office, which entered it in the NamUs database. There were no matches. In 2022 detectives from the Bucks County District Attorney’s office sent the skull to Othram, a private genetic genealogy company based in Houston, TX. Othram then “obtained a viable extract from the remains and used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to develop a profile. Using this profile, Othram’s in-house genealogists performed a genealogical search to develop leads, …”
In early February 2023, the District Attorney’s Office announced the skull was that of Richard Thomas Alt. His parents had last seen the 31-year-old Trenton resident on Christmas Eve 1984.
Othram uses crowdfunding for certain cases. In the Richard Thomas Alt case, for example, Audiochuck, a true crime podcast, provided funding. This website has information about other missing/unidentified Pennsylvania cases in progress or awaiting funding at Othram.
Learn More about Using Rapid DNA and Genetic Genealogy to Identify Human Remains
Using Rapid DNA and genetic genealogy to identify human remains is a complex recent innovation. Many online resources are referenced in this article. Here are a few more:
Note: The author (Christina VandePol, M.D., F-ABMDI) is not employed by or compensated in any way by entities providing products or services mentioned in this article.
Amazing new technology!