In what feels like the epitome of a “perfect match,” the City of Tulsa has awarded a grant to Intermountain Forensics to help identify bodies thought to be associated with the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Intermountain Forensics is a non-profit forensic DNA laboratory that uses cutting-edge technologies to provide results as cost effectively as possible—most often completely free of charge. This is accomplished through solid partnerships with the foremost forensic companies in the world who donate their time, money, equipment, resources and more.
All of it is headed by veteran lab director Danny Hellwig, who jumped at the opportunity to be involved with the 1921 Graves Investigation.
“This matches up to our mission statement and our capabilities and what we forged in terms of partnerships,” Hellwig told Forensic. “It’s perfectly in line with what we do at Intermountain Forensics.”
In 2018, the City of Tulsa announced they would reexamine the potential of graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in which a white mob looted and burned Tulsa’s Black Greenwood district, often referred to as Black Wall Street. The massacre killed up to 300 Black people.
During the years-long investigation, forensic anthropologists exhumed 19 human remains from a local cemetery thought to be victims of the massacre. Before reburying the bodies, scientists removed femurs and teeth from 14 victims.
And now, those samples are making their way to Intermountain Forensics for the second phase of the 1921 Graves Investigation—forensic DNA analysis. Once the samples arrive at Intermountain Forensics, Hellwig said the team will jump on pre-processing immediately.
“We will use our more cutting-edge pre-processing on the bone and teeth to get to a point where we can identify how much DNA can be obtained from these samples,” the lab director said. “Then, we will make decisions on where we need to go from there. Some of the work can be done in-house, some of it might need to be sent out to other partner labs that we fostered relationships with.”
It’s those special partner relationships that make Intermountain Forensics perfect for this grant.
“One of our biggest strengths is the fact that we are agnostic and we really are more aligned to getting the case solved than making a dollar,” Hellwig said.
Hellwig’s rundown of partners is basically a who’s who of the foremost forensic DNA experts in the world.
“We expect these are going to be very difficult samples so we’ve got Dr. Ed Green and Astrea Forensics on board to do their enhanced genetic genealogy on these more difficult samples,” said Hellwig. “We’ve also got Othram for some of the whole genome sequencing. On the lab side, we have resources in lab as well as fantastic partners to develop genetic genealogy profiles. On the investigative side, we’ve got Colleen Fitzpatrick at Identifinders International, and the DNA Doe Project has offered to help with this, as well as CeCe Moore at Parabon.”
Genetic genealogy will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in identification, as will next-generation sequencing efforts.
While these remains will be the oldest for Hellwig and the team at Intermountain Forensics, they have previously worked with older samples. Recently, they were able to pull DNA from licked envelopes from the late-1800s.
“I feel very good about our process, about our technology,” said Hellwig. “In my opinion, we have everything we need to get a result—good results even though the age of these samples is daunting.”
While DNA pre-processing can be accomplished fairly quickly, the genetic genealogy will take time. It could even be years on that front. In fact, overall, the project is exhaustive. And while the grant from the City of Tulsa is for a specific dollar amount, Hellwig doesn’t see that as an impediment to justice that is long overdue.
“The groups we have put together are aligned to getting this done no matter how much it takes, no matter how long it takes,” he said. “As a non-profit entity, we expect we can bring in resources, donations and grants to try to supplement what the City of Tulsa has given to the project. Whatever money needs to be spent, we’ll find it. Whatever time needs to occur to make a positive result, we’ll take it.”
Photo: A 1921 Graves Investigation team member examining possible remains during the final October 2020 exhumation process. Credit: 1921Graves.