Texas DNA Lab Helps Solve Oklahoma Unidentified, Missing Persons Cases

<p>It's considered the nation's silent mass disaster. More than 80,000 missing person's cases remain active.&nbsp;</p>

Wednesday, September 21st 2016, 10:56 pm

By: News 9


It's considered the nation's silent mass disaster. More than 80,000 missing person's cases remain active. In Oklahoma, we average around 200. However, a DNA lab in Texas is helping to solve some of these cold cases.

"I did everything I could to find her," said Jo Irick, whose mother went missing.

Irick says it was in the spring of 1969 when her mother, Nora Duncan, and two friends disappeared without a trace.

"I had mailed my mother a letter and it came back to me," she said.

She first filed a missing person's report with the FBI but the case out of Custer County soon grew cold.

"She was just there and then she was gone," said Irick. "It was terrible. It was just a terrible time in my life."

Irick spent more than 40 years looking for her mother, until she finally met Angela Berg, a forensic anthropologist at the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office.

"Each box contains someone who is unidentified," Berg said pointing to boxes of human remains stacked in a closet.

Berg works each day to identify human remains. In Oklahoma, there are about 117 boxes of unidentified human remains and around 200 missing person's cases.

"You hope to find X-rays, but if you don't find X-rays or dental and they're skeletonized obviously fingerprints are out then that's when DNA becomes invaluable," Berg said.

Through a DNA lab at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Ft. Worth, Texas, that gap between the two is closing.

"The technology is great, you really get good results but it is slow," said Berg. "We're getting cold hits on some of these individuals."

BJ Spamer works with NamUs, a database where family and law enforcement agencies can compare and share information on missing and unidentified cases.

"We've seen some very long term cases resolved," said Spamer. "If we still have searching family members we can still collect DNA and we can still collect dental records and fingerprints in a lot of these cases."

Once the DNA is collected from families, it's compared to the DNA extracted from human remains.

"There are a lot of laboratories that don't have experience with bones," said Dixie Peters with the DNA Lab at UNT Health Sciences Center.

Most laboratories don't have the money either. DNA profiling is expensive but through federal funds, lab technicians at UNT Health Sciences Center can provide DNA profiling and forensic anthropology at no cost. Since 2003, they've made 1,700 matches nationwide.

"Not only are we comparing everything that we've processed here at UNT, but we can upload that to the state level and then to the national level which is operated by the FBI," said Peters.

A DNA match eventually led Jo to her mother, after her remains were discovered along with five others in 2013. All six were found inside two separate cars at the bottom of Foss Lake.

11/6/14 Related Story: Mysteries At Oklahoma Lake Remain For Families Despite Discovery Of Loved Ones

Her mother's remains were returned to her, along with a box of her mother's belongings that were also found inside the car. As she sifts through the items, she says she is finally at peace.

"Other people bury their loved ones and they have a place to go to the cemetery and put flowers," Irick said. "Well I had nothing for all those years, but now I have a place."

If you are a family member of a missing person, you are encouraged to submit DNA to the lab. Also, make sure the missing person's report is active in NamUS database

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