Cold Case Unit DNA Testing Upgrades

The Office of the Queens County District Attorney (QDA), seeks funding under the ”Byrne Discretionary Community Project Grants/Byrne Discretionary Grant Program” to establish and expand programs to improve the reporting, transportation, processing, and identification of unidentified remains, and where appropriate identify and successfully prosecute the suspect(s) in cases where the cause of death is a homicide.  The QDA mission includes promoting public safety by partnering with local, state and federal criminal justice agencies along-side forensic laboratories to deliver both investigative and forensic science services to help identified human remains and prosecute offenders.  The QDA has already formed a collaboration with the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the local medical examiner’s office (OCME) Anthropology Unit, federal agencies (FBI and HSI) and with Othram, an outside laboratory that performs advanced forensic testing on human remains.  Our ultimate goal is to bring closure to families by identifying all of the UHR cases in Queens County, repatriating the remains to the family, and prosecuting the offenders, when applicable.

As of April 2023, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) lists 210 Unidentified Human Remains cases in Queens County. Of those 210 UHR, approximately 30 have thus far been catalogued and ruled the victim of a homicide.  The majority of those remains are either stored at the OCME or buried nearby; that number is growing. DNA profiles have been developed, if possible, and for those where a DNA profile has not been obtained, the majority of the remains are stored at the OCME and readily available for forensic testing. 

Those 30 remains represent 30 families that have lost their loved ones and are still searching for answers as to where they are and what happened to them.  Those 30 remains also represent cases where the perpetrator has evaded justice and has gone unpunished for taking the human life of another. 

Of those 30 cases, the QDA has already partnered with the NYPD, OCME, NamUs, Othram laboratory and other federal authorities and have verified that a DNA profile is on file, uploaded to CODIS and then submitted 4 of those cases for Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG) to attempt to identify the remains, which is the first step in any successful prosecution.  The QDA is currently without funding to send out the remainder of the cases.

QDA is requesting $500,000 over 36 months to enhance and continue this important initiative.