Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit has identified the remains of Kristen Galvan, a Houston-area teen who went missing in January 2020 after becoming a victim of human trafficking.
read more
Toronto Police resolved two unidentified human remains investigations that had remained unsolved for approximately 30 and 20 years, restored the identities of two previously unidentified victims, and enabled notification and reunification with surviving family members.
read more
The Utah State Bureau of Investigation has successfully identified an unknown deceased male discovered more than 14 years ago under an Interstate 15 overpass near Roy, Utah.
read more
Before this program, the average turnaround time for receiving DNA analysis results in non-violent crime investigations was 466 days, and 170 days for violent crimes.
read more
In June 1978, the remains of an unidentified female were discovered in Kern County. Without an identity for the victim, the case went cold.
read more
Residential burials, in which people are buried inside of or very close to their houses, are no longer common, especially in the West.
read more
A new forensic reexamination of three children and adolescents sacrificed in Inca Capacocha rituals is challenging earlier interpretations about how the individuals died.
read more
In May 2026, detectives obtained a sample of Velasquez’s DNA from discarded trash and sent it to a crime lab for further analysis. The lab determined her DNA was a match to the blood droplet recovered from the bedroom television stand.
read more
Before this lab opened, Wake County was one of 99 counties relying on the State Crime Laboratory for all DNA analysis. The new lab will now begin analyzing DNA evidence, starting with a small number of cases and growing over time.
read more
CPD’s forensic laboratory achieved accreditation on its first assessment attempt, which is rare for a laboratory of its size.
read more