More than 1,000 World Trade Center victims remain unidentified 25 years on
New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner last month identified the 1,654th victim of the September 11, 2001 attacks using forensic investigative genetic genealogy, a whole-genome DNA technique the office said could yield additional identifications in the years ahead. The identification comes against the backdrop of a decades-long effort that has so far matched names to roughly 60 percent of the 2,753 people killed at the World Trade Center. More than 1,000 of those killed there remain unidentified, according to the medical examiner’s office.
“There is real promise in using this approach,” said Angela Soler, director of forensic anthropology in the city’s medical examiner office. “There’s hope for more families to receive answers, and hopefully we’ll be able to test more remains in the future using this technology as well.”
Forensic investigative genetic genealogy, or FIGG, uses whole-genome sequencing, which provides a way to read a person’s entire genetic code. The technique allows investigators to make more potential matches to family members who are more distant relatives of the victim than earlier DNA methods could reach, according to Soler. Once those distant matches are made, the New York Police Department helps locate relatives who are closer to the victim.
The medical examiner’s office has identified 1,495 victims using DNA since the attacks — some solely with DNA and others through multiple methods. Soon after September 11, 2001, individuals were identified using fingerprints or dental records. As time went on, when neither was available, the office turned to DNA. Officials have been able to use new technology to extract DNA and retest the same remains.
“That’s why all these years down the road, we’re still getting new identifications, because we’re just continuing to retest and retry with every new technology that becomes available,” Soler said. “It’s been one of the most complex identification efforts that I think anybody has ever really experienced,” she added.
Last year, the city announced that with the help of DNA, 24 years later, it had identified three new victims: Ryan Fitzgerald, a 26-year-old currency trader; Barbara Keating, a 72-year-old who was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles; and a woman whose family kept her identity private.
Efforts to identify victims have been complicated by several factors. Human remains were damaged in the plane crashes and fires caused by jet fuel, leaving the office with only portions of victims for DNA samples, Soler said. Juliette Scauso, whose father Dennis Scauso was part of a New York City Fire Department hazmat unit for 12 years, said that because of the timing of the attacks, many firefighters were changing shifts, though some stayed to help. That meant some first responders who were recovered were wearing uniforms with others’ names, complicating identification, she said.
The World Trade Center site also had many more victims than the other 9/11 attack sites. At the Pentagon, five of the 184 people killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed have never been identified because of similar conditions, according to the National Park Service. Enough remains were recovered to use DNA, dental records, and fingerprints to identify all 40 victims aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the agency said.
Dennis Scauso, a Long Island father of four, was not scheduled to work on September 11, 2001, but switched shifts for the overtime pay. He was likely in the South Tower of the World Trade Center when it collapsed, the family was told. His helmet, bearing his FDNY badge number, was found months later. His remains have never been recovered. He is one of more than 1,000 people killed on September 11 in New York who have yet to be identified, according to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
“I’ve spent essentially my entire life knowing my father died, and learning to live with the fact that we never recovered him,” said Juliette Scauso, who was four when he died.
Remains recovered from the World Trade Center have been packaged and sealed to help preserve DNA for testing in the years to come. Many families have never been able to bury a loved one, but some choose to leave the remains — once found — at a repository at the 9/11 memorial site in New York. The repository was built into the bedrock of the World Trade Center site and can only be accessed by medical examiner staff. A nearby private space, known as the reflection room, is available for families to mourn.
“That’s where their loved one was in their last moments, and that’s where they want them to stay,” Soler said.
The medical examiner’s office in New York still receives weekly calls from loved ones asking about someone whose remains were never recovered. Some families do not want to be notified when remains are matched, perhaps because the confirmation is too painful, Soler said. Scauso is among those who would rather not be notified. She knows people who, in recent years, got a call that a relative has finally been identified. The thought of being next on the list is scary for her family, which has worked to keep alive the memory of her father — a jack of all trades and a lover of jazz.
“At this point, an identification wouldn’t change the reality of his death. It wouldn’t give me back my father, and I don’t necessarily want to reopen something that has become part of the way I’ve learned to live and grieve,” Scauso said. “Especially 25 years later, it’s going to open up the wounds again.” But, she said, the technology is important.
Soler said the news of an identification provides a mix of relief and sadness for families. “It’s confirmation of something that they always knew to be true — they knew their loved one died on 9/11, but I think for many families, there’s still that question in the back of their mind until the remains are formally identified,” she said. “Maybe they’re reliving it a little bit more now, having this new identification. But at the same time, it closes one chapter of their journey after 9/11.”
Workers from the medical examiner’s office arrived at Ground Zero after the planes hit the towers and were present when the buildings collapsed, according to Soler. Some of her current colleagues were also on the ground during 9/11, and the work is deeply personal for them. They are aware it is unlikely they will identify every victim of the New York attacks; in some instances, there may be no remains of a victim at all. Soler said the office has no plans to stop the work as long as families continue seeking answers for loved ones whose remains have never been recovered.