Unidentified and Missing Person Forensic Genetic Genealogy Testing Initiative

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Knox County Regional Forensic Center are partnering to request federal funds through the BJA’s FY 24 Invited to Apply - Byrne Discretionary Community Project Grants/Byrne Discretionary Grants Program (O-BJA-2024-172101) to utilize cutting-edge DNA testing technology for the identification of previously unknown human remains, many of which are missing persons and/or victims of violent crime cold cases.  

Both entities applied and were approved through U.S. Congressman Tim Burchett’s (TN-02) fiscal year 2024 Community Project Funding request for the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations to directly fund Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG) testing for, at minimum, a combined total of 20 to 24 unidentified human remains (UHR) cases located in East Tennessee and beyond. Therefore, funding is requested from this project to use FGG testing as a means to find the identities of these missing or previously unidentified cases.  The UHR cases which the TBI and Knox County currently have access to are dated from approximately 1972 to 2022.  These cases have exhausted all typical identification methods, such as visual identification, finger printing, forensic odontology, surgical implants, radiological, anthropology, and DNA.

While the purpose of the proposed 24-month project(s) is to identify human remains, determining the identities of UHR victims can develop information and potential leads about the circumstances leading to each person’s disappearance and/or death; therefore, identification is vital to Tennessee’s (TN) ability to solve violent crime cold cases. Therefore, two separate grant applications are being submitted by both the TBI and Knox County RFC requesting $100,000 and $117,000 respectively in federal funds to significantly increase TN’s capacity to “name” current “jane” or “john doe’s”, identify those who are missing them, and ensure their families, who often are waiting decades for answers, can receive some level of closure by allowing them to make final dispositions, either through burial, cremation, or donation of the now identified individuals.