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By: F. Key Kidder  
Issue: Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006

DISASTER VICTIM IDENTIFICATION IS AN EMERGING CHALLENGE FOR FORENSIC PRACTITIONERS, DRIVEN BY THE DEADLY UPSURGE IN NATIONAL CATASTROPHES AND THE ONGOING THREAT OF TERRORIST STRIKES.

Teams of forensic experts were among the first responders to help restore order amidst the chaos of the 2001 World Trade Center bombing, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

But disaster management, in the U.S. as elsewhere, is clearly a work in progress. Systemic issues abound, and other aspects of the recovery process – namely the contribution of the forensic sciences – are handicapped by data shortfalls from the field.

In June 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice, in conjunction with the National Center for Forensic Science, took the important first step of issuing guidelines entitled “Mass Fatality Incidents: A Guide for Human Forensic Identification.”

The guide, in considering the full array of post-mortem data collection techniques – visual, anatomical and circumstantial evidence, dentition, fingerprints, and DNA – directed medical examiners to use “all available methods” to confirm victims’ identities.

Robert Christensen, Vice President for Federal
Business development for Cross Match, is a
certified fingerprint examiner.

But of equal if not greater value to the forensic community is input from parties with practical knowledge of the type acquired only by first-hand experience in mass fatality situations.

Mortui Vivis Praecipant, the Latin credo of the mortuary arts, translates as “let the living learn from the dead.” And if a more informed forensic response to future events is to occur, it will, in large measure, emanate from firms like Cross Match Technologies, one of the contractors called in to help identify the dead in a Gulfport, Mississippi mortuary operation after Katrina blew through.

Before Gulfport was inundated by Katrina’s 35-45 foot storm surge, 71,000 lived in the coastal city 60 miles east of New Orleans. The Gulfport morgue – which identified victims found east of the Mississippi River – was one of two post-mortem identification centers hastily erected by Federal authorities.

Catastrophes present their own particular set of victim identification issues. Many World Trade Center victims were vaporized – gone without a trace. After the 2004 tsunami, identification was complicated by the magnitude of the death toll (upwards of several hundred thousand), the mix of nationalities (governments from 26 nations were involved), and climatic conditions which hastened decomposition and led to hasty mass burials.

Factors conspiring against victim identification in Gulfport included its climate; prolonged immersion in water; delays in the arrival of heavy machinery to clear debris and collapsed structures covering victims; property destruction which destroyed collaborating evidence such as dental records and DNA traces; the dispersion of survivors to identify kin and acquaintances; and animals preying on remains.

But Mississippi also employed less exacting ID standards than Louisiana. In Mississippi, tattoos, certain physical characteristics, and driver’s licenses were used to identify corpses – means considered insufficient, in and of themselves, by Louisiana authorities.

Operations at the Gulfport morgue – which was constructed from a makeshift cluster of refrigerated trailers that cooled both corpses and workers – were governed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

A 1979 executive order by President Carter merged many of the disaster-related responsibilities, previously held by various departments and agencies, into a new agency, FEMA. Presently part of the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA is tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from, and mitigating against disasters. Within its purview are disaster victim identification and death investigation in mass fatality scenarios.

FEMA deputized local and out-of-state residents to form Deployed Mortuary Operational Response Teams (DMORT), and supervised morgue functions, where corpses were moved through a series of separate stations, with each one administering a specific ID test.

Cross Match was well-positioned to receive the contract to capture fingerprints at the Gulfport morgue. Mississippi native and CEO James W. Ziglar has extensive government contacts, and was nominated by President Bush in 2001 to serve as Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization. He resigned in 2002 to re-enter private business, and joined Cross Match in August, 2005. The company is a leading global provider of biometric security devices.

Cross Match sent its “jump kits” – modified biometric ID systems certified by the FBI – and small support teams to Gulfport for 48 hours on September 10 and again September 16.

Katrina made its nearby landfall August 29. Given that time frame, decomposition was assured, hurried along by the warm, moist climate.

(Per its agreement with FEMA, Cross Match would reveal little about morgue operations. FEMA was also unavailable for comment. What happened in the Gulfport morgue, at least for the time being, stays in the Gulfport morgue.)

“The protocol in these situations,” said Joe Polski, chief operations officer of the International Association for Identification, “is to find the easiest answers first. DNA work can be long and complicated. Fingerprinting usually isn’t.”

“There were two types of bodies – liquefied and mummified,” said Robert Christensen, 49, Cross Match’s Vice President for Federal Business Development and a certified fingerprint examiner.

“Mummified were basically hydrated and rolled. Liquified were all gloved.” To enhance mummified ridges, Christensen said an over-the-counter triple lanolin crème was applied.

“How would I grade us?” said Christensen. “I’d give us a 9, because live scan is so superior to ink procedures. Live scan provides instantaneous feedback, so you can alter whatever you’re doing with that finger to get a better result.

“Frankly, the largest ID source I saw being used in Gulfport was photo identification. All data was captured into an EFT file, along with fingerprints and other characteristics, and that file stayed with the body,” said Christensen.

While some fingerprint experts questioned the quality of gloved prints, the majority believe print quality issues are readily dealt with by skilled, experienced operators.

Polski said fingerprint quality was “only half the story. You have to think about databases too….It’s not at all unlikely a number of the victims
wouldn’t be on file.”

Fingerprints were checked against AFIS systems from states in the affected area, said Christensen, with a capability of ramping up to IAFIS at the Federal level.

Christensen said he learned three lessons from Gulfport.

“One, since fingers were removed from the hand, we had to adjust the live scan software so it didn’t require a simultaneous capture, a slap print. Two, we learned we needed to keep the fingerprint reader clean and sanitized under those conditions, because it could get messy. And three, we had to isolate the computer in a giant zip-lock bag. Thank goodness we had touch screens…and not a keyboard.”

Christensen said he was unaware of how authorities intended to use individual data files.

The work of identifying Katrina’s victims – using a synthesis of forensic techniques – should keep plenty of forensic practitioners employed for the foreseeable future.

Only earlier this year did authorities admit they’d reached the limits of forensic science when they called it a day in their efforts to identify victim remains from New York’s World Trade Center bombing – more than four years after the fact.

Francis Key Kidder started out as a journalist before moving on to politics and government relations, where he still keeps his hand in writing. He may be reached at 410-828-6529.