Runa Daniel, Ph.D. 25 min

Local Investigations of Missing Persons and Unidentified Human Remains in Australia


The identification of human remains and locating missing persons are critical tasks undertaken by law enforcement agencies worldwide. In Australia, the collaborative efforts between Victoria, New South Wales, and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) play a vital role in effectively addressing these challenges. The collaboration between Victoria Police, New South Wales Police, and the AFP is primarily facilitated through information sharing, coordination, and joint investigations. These agencies recognize the importance of pooling their resources, expertise, and databases to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in solving cases related to human remains and missing persons. Joint investigations are undertaken when cases cross jurisdictional boundaries. The agencies work together to coordinate search efforts, share intelligence, and allocate resources effectively. This collaborative approach enables them to combine their specialized skills and knowledge, leading to more comprehensive investigations and higher chances of resolving cases.



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Hi, I'm Dad Naharpman. I look after the GNA lab at the Victoria Institute of

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Forensic Medicine.

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And here our main task is to help the identification of disease persons.

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And that includes unidentified human remains and missing persons.

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In Victoria, we're quite a compact state. We have the best of everything in a

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short space within Australia.

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And there's about 7 million people that call Victoria home and Melbourne being

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the capital city.

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Now, for missing persons and the way we interrogate our data, if you like, for

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Victoria, here at the Victoria Institute of Forensic Medicine,

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we are the custodians of what is known as the state database, so the Victorian

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Missing Persons DNA database.

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And that's our first point of call. We would query the DNA profiles that we

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develop, not only from unidentified human remains,

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but also from families of missing persons against our holdings within this

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local state database.

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Now, if we don't get a match between the information, our next step would be to

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query this information against what is known as the national database.

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And that national missing persons DNA database is, I guess, under the custody

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of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

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And that's where all the states and territories can upload their information

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with regards to missing persons.

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So, on behalf of Victoria, we would enter this profile data into hope that we

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would get a match between, let's say, our unidentified human remains case,

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that is Victorian, against potentially a missing person that's gone missing in

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one of our other states.

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The National Missing Persons Victim System is a repository for all information,

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and in modern post-mortem for these missing persons cases.

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However, you can say that you have DNA data available for these cases.

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That particular database can't do the kinship matching that's needed in order

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to identify individuals,

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and we are reliant on using another database, which is the NIFA component, to

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do that kinship comparison.

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So, we are running, in essence, two databases.

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One that has everything but DNA in it, and can do matching vodental records,

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but also looking at the metadata and seeing whether cases align.

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But the DNA has to be looked at in a separate database.

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So, at present, most jurisdictions are running these two databases together for

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their missing persons investigations.

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My name is Alison Sears. I'm the Manager of Science and Technology Unit within

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the Forensic Evidence and Technical Services Command of New South Wales Police

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Force.

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New South Wales has the largest population in Australia and the largest police

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force in Australia.

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The state's capital is Sydney, with an estimated 4.4 million people, so it's

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quite a populated city.

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If an individual goes missing in New South Wales, they are reported through New

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South Wales Police Force, which will all centralise back to the missing persons

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registry within New South Wales Police Force state crime command.

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That is a central point for recording of those missing.

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Approximately 90% of the missing are located, and there are that small percent

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who become, unfortunately, part of our long-term missing.

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Unidentified human remains, which are reported, are also recorded in the

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missing persons registry, which is meticulously looked after by our

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investigators.

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We work with other government jurisdictions and agencies, ensuring that we are

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constantly reviewing and making every effort to identify those unidentified

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human remains and/or locate our missing persons who have been reported.

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The National Missing Person and Victim System, or NMPVS, is a web-based

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database that collates both anti-mortem and post-mortem information of a person

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or human remains.

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From the DNA perspective, there is the Legislative National Crime Investigation

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DNA Database, or NSID, which houses DNA STR profiles for all Australian

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forensic jurisdictions.

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Within this, there are special provisions and legislation and business rules,

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of course, which facilitate DNA searching and comparisons for all jurisdictions

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, which allow for unidentified human remains, or the DNA profile, to be searched

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against and ultimately towards helping to identify those unidentified remains.

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That's using STR, DNA technology, and we're also able to utilize familial DNA

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searching and matching through NSID, a side application of NSID IFRA, IFA,

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which is governed by ACIC, and which has the ability for kinship searching,

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matching, that's a sibling or a parent-child relationship within the NSID

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profile database.

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Here in Victoria, we use a number of forensic tools that are available to us

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from a DNA point of view, as well as looking at autosomal STRs.

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We look at developing a mitochondrial profile, which might give us an

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indication of the ancestry of the individual from a maternal point of view.

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This then allows us to do the initial comparison to the local and national

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databases.

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Now we are looking to introduce the utilisation of FIC, where cases where we've

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tried everything possible to identify these individuals and have failed.

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We would then try to see whether we could apply FIC to enable us to look for

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more extended family members using databases that are publicly available.

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Also, I guess we take the view that a missing person investigation DNA is an

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import component, but it's a component of the forensic investigation that needs

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to take place.

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We would use forensic anthropology, or ontology, other tools that may be

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available to us, radiocarbon dating, to try and form a picture and get as much

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information for these cases that we can possibly put together to then inform an

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identification process.

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New South Wales does have access and utilises the YSDR profiling, especially

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when it comes to the kinship searching and matching.

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And we do have that mitochondrial DNA capability as well, which we utilise in

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select scenarios.

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My name is Rene Daniel, I'm the Director of Intelligent Forensics, it's a

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forensic DNA intelligence consultancy.

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I'm also an affiliate of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine as a

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research fellow and an adjunct associate professor at the Queensland University

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of Technology.

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There's been quite a revolution in terms of DNA technologies available for

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forensic DNA analysis, and particularly for the identification of unidentified

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human remains in missing persons investigations.

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And I won't take you back as far as RFLPs and Southern blotting and the use of

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radio isotopes, which I'm sure a lot of us have had experience with, but really

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it's about the YSDR profiling resolution.

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So this has been aided by a number of technologies that were advancing

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alongside the forensic field, mostly in genomic research and medical research.

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And what this has done is that it has allowed us to be able to analyse more STR

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markers simultaneously and provides us with greater resolution in terms of

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human differentiation.

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It's enabled us to use less DNA from biological evidence, and it has also

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allowed us to successfully analyse DNA from unidentified human remains that may

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be compromised, degraded, and may be found in environments which may have

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previously caused issues in terms of generating full STR profiles.

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Alongside this was the use of mitochondrial DNA, and that was generally done by

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saying a sequencing and looking at the control region.

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So the use of autosomal SNPs has allowed us to predict bi-geographical ancestry

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from major global populations to be able to infer the iron hair colour of

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individuals.

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And this era era of DNA analysis we refer to as forensic DNA intelligence.

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And all of these developments are really about supporting investigations to

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ultimately lead to an identification.

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And this has really been assisted by the adoption of the autosomal SNPs, but

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also with next generation sequencing, which has really revolutionised what we

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can do now in forensic DNA analysis.

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And to be able to analyse evidence that comes from unidentified human remains

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more successfully.

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More recently, in March last year, in 2023, New South Wales Police Force

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launched a holistic forensic investigative genetic genealogy, or FIG capability

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, following over three years of research and development into the application of

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FIG in an Australian environment.

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The key point is the traditional local and national databases are set up for ST

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R testing and results.

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Obviously FIG requires SNP testing using either whole genome array or whole

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genome sequencing, and also a whole host of bioinformatics support in many

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instances for the compromised sample types, such as our skeletal remains.

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The local and national DNA databases are not able to be utilised for FIG, as

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this capability requires privately owned public facing DNA databases that allow

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law enforcement access.

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And they do not utilise the SNP testing data at the moment, our local and

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national DNA databases.

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I'm Nathan Scudder.

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I'm the coordinator of Biometrics at the Australian Federal Police in Canberra.

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In the role of coordinator biometrics, I supervise the forensic biology team

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along with our fingerprint and facial identification capabilities.

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In terms of policies and procedures, these do vary between jurisdictions and

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the missing persons and human remains and identifications areas are certainly

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collaborative, and there are a range of jurisdictions involved in that process.

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The key themes in this area are maintaining public trust and confidence, and

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also the confidence of the families of missing persons.

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In undertaking any of this work, we need to ensure that we have a strong

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privacy focus.

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And across the jurisdictions, the use of tools such as privacy impact

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assessments to look at the capability and how we can use it in a privacy

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compliant way is pivotal to the use of capabilities like forensic investigation

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genealogy for human remains.

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So there's also the investigative and coronial aspects of missing persons and

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human remains and identification and having processes in place for the use of

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DNA capabilities that work in with the coronial requirements and the

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requirements of investigators is also quite important.

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It's been our experience that for investigators, knowledge and awareness of

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what these new tests are or existing tests, but quite often it's the new tests

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now, the emerging capabilities, the awareness for them of what these tests can

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bring to their investigations is very important,

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because we can be looking at all kinds of new technologies and new ways of

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doing things, but we need them to understand what that can do and how that can

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bring an advantage or benefit to the investigations.

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So in terms of the new and emerging technologies like forensic DNA phenotyping

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and forensic investigative genetic genealogy or FIG, it's been really important

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for us to have regular open communication with investigators, intelligence

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analysts, and other experts are involved in all of these processes.

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And really to summarize it, it would be to say that it's important to translate

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science into investigation, and that's a bridge that we have been building for

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a number of years now.

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We have conducted training for investigators by running them through exercises

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where we're able to assist and support them to be able to apply the DNA

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intelligence that we're providing in a mock case, for example,

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it's allowed us to be able to get an understanding of what their needs are, and

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it's also assisted the investigators to understand how to use this information

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that we're now providing to them.

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So here in Victoria, we work very closely with the coronas cord where the cases

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are reported.

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We have built over a number of decades, the experience, and working with our

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colleagues, for example, in the mortuary.

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They know the sample types to collect, depending on the case circumstances.

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And really, we are of the view that we give it a go.

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Every sample gets tested.

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Sometimes it's not the optimal sample that we receive, but we will try our best

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to develop a DNA profile.

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And we're not successful.

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The idea is to retain a sample for that case so that should we have advances in

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the future around capability, being able to go back and retest those samples so

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that now they are successful.

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That's the approach that we take, so that we try and develop a DNA profile for

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all UHR cases that are reported to the coroner.

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We have established what is known as a missing persons working group, and that

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has representation from stakeholders that have a role to play in our missing

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persons investigation.

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So that's everyone from representation from Victoria Police, the Coronas Corda

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Victoria, and the Institute.

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And the idea is for this group to work together to establish the policies and

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procedures around these missing persons in long-term cases.

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So that we can speed up the process and have a good understanding of what the

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roles are and what everyone needs to do in order to progress these

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investigations.

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We have quite a few internal governance reviews, co-occase reviews, UHR reviews

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, missing person reviews.

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All these meetings provide this very holistic forum for regular communication,

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and that brings together representatives from the different investigative and

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the forensic commands around NSW Police Force.

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In some of those meetings and some of those reviews, there's a plethora of

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representation across investigations, science, research and innovation, and

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emerging technology to look at where any emerging technology can provide.

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The technology can provide capability uplifts and improve or accelerate those

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cases into, from that intel perspective, into more of a resolution perspective.

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Being able to work with partner agencies to access records, to work through

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family trees and so forth is also important.

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The need to partner internationally can occur from time to time, and that's

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where agencies like the Australian Federal Police can help leverage those

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contacts through interpol in instances where a missing person could be missing

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offshore and provide those connections back to Australian law enforcement.

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The case that we termed the Sandy Point Man, these were skeletal remains that

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were recovered in 2017.

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For us it was amazing in that this individual was almost complete, a complete

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skeleton.

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Now we went through the process of applying a normal methodology for the

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notification and that he included looking at dental work for the Ananditha Fat

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im remains.

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What could we tell about the anthropology, DNA, getting your standard STR

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mitochondrial profiles, and doing as much as we could to try and build together

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a picture of who this individual may be.

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And once we got to the point where these routine tools that are available to us

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were not able to identify this individual, so we had no matches to a local

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database, no matches to the national database,

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we started to look at other tools that we could utilise to identify this

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individual.

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And that is where we thought the application of FIC could be one that would

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assist us in identifying this individual.

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And as part of our collaboration with members of the team who are with us today

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, we were able to work through the FIC and I'll hand over to Vuna to talk about

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that work that was done.

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So this was a fantastic opportunity for our collaboration because we had

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conducted a lot of research in relation to FIC methods and processes, receive

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training,

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and we were able to come together and combine our expertise to be able to apply

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FIC in the Sandy Point Man case.

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And I just wanted to say too that we did this with the assistance of Dr Colleen

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Fitzpatrick from Identifying Ders International.

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In terms of the application of FIC, this was also done with Dr Jennifer Raymond

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from New South Wales Police.

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We were lucky to get some ex-information which indicated the maternal line of

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Sandy Point Man and applying all of these expertise,

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we were then able to come to a most recent common ancestor and then ultimately

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produce a candidate for VIFAM.

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And this ended up being the correct individual based on VIFAM's identification.

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And it happened to be the first Australian case, the coronial investigation

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that was reported as being resolved with the assistance of FIC and also with

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coronial sign off.

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VIFAM was able to confirm the identification of the Sandy Point Man who was

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Christopher Luke Moore who had tragically drowned at Sandy Point in 1928.

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It was really interesting that the story about their missing relative had been

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passed through generations.

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So it was really nice to hear the stories about Christopher Luke Moore and who

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he was and the family was open enough to invite VIFAM and affiliates like

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myself and to be able to sit with them and talk about this.

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And it was a really heartening experience for all of us and certainly a

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highlight in my career.

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So in terms of the Sandy Point Man case and as Rinna has said, it's a high lot

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of her career, it's a high lot of my career.

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It was very much a team effort and the time spent building trees and working

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through that case just highlights, as Dadna said, the benefits to the families.

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It was very surreal sitting with the family after the internment.

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Despite all the people around the table were in their 70s or 80s and none of

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them were born when this individual had drowned.

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So to have that story that had passed down through the family and that closure

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and that ability to meet the family was certainly something that I've taken

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away from this.

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But it certainly is something as well that we're working on around the time

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commitment, the dedication that is put into these cases by a whole range of

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individuals.

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And as this field progresses, we do have to be mindful of that.

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It is kind of addictive.

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So for us, in terms of putting together a brief for the coroner for the

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identification of Sandy Point, we also needed to, in a way, confirm that

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investigative lead that FIC had generated.

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And unlike, I guess, criminal application of this methodology where people can

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go and get a reference sample to compare and then confirm their investigative

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lead.

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From a UHR application point of view, we knew we couldn't get a direct sample

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for comparison.

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So for us, it was about looking for the scene and next of kin, available family

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members, potentially of this individual that could provide a reference sample

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and using mitochondrial DNA testing, we were able to show that we had a live

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and relative that matched Christopher Moore and the history behind what the

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family understood to us. And family understood to have happened to him matched with what we were able to

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piece together from the genealogy.

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So it really was about bringing all that information together, confirming the

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lead that we had developed.

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How did that fit in with our historical understanding of the case?

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We did some bomb poll stating to try and date when the case was potentially

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from bringing all that information together,

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were they unable to present this brief to the coroner who then accepted this

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evidence as being the identification of this individual.

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In any program involving missing persons or unidentified human remains,

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partnership between agencies and countries is critical.

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So there are some capabilities here in Australia, the National DNA Program for

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unidentified and missing persons, the work of the Victorian Student Forensic

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Medicine,

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internationally, the University of North Texas, Centre for Human Interfication.

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All of these groups and agencies are leveraging capabilities in this area and

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there's opportunities for us all to learn from each other

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and from other international and domestic partners and agencies as we

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operationalise capabilities in this area.

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Thank you so much, the opportunity to provide this small insight to the large

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number and complexity of going on here in Australia around the missing persons

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space.

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It's been fantastic opportunity to have this conversation with our colleagues

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and sharing this information with you

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and are more than happy to engage with anyone out there with any questions or

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any information that they would like to know about how we've gone about our

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capabilities.

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We love to share that information, we love to have a bit of a conversation too

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being a Aussies, we love our chats, but please reach out if we can help in any

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way.

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If you're looking to set up any of these capabilities there's certainly a lot

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of lessons we've learnt along the way, but it's been a fantastic opportunity

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and thank you to kids for allowing us to bring this to you.

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