Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Wednesday 1 november 2017

New fingerprint algorithm helps ID bodies found decades ago

By SCOTT McFETRIDGE figure wearing a hat and
Associated Press smoking a cigarette —
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — prompted investigators to
Just after Thanksgiving Day rummage through police
in 1983, James Downey archives and resubmit the
dropped off his older broth- single available thumbprint
er, John, at a Houston bus into the Missing and Un-
station, then quickly turned identified Persons System,
away so neither the police called NamUs.
nor a motorcycle gang They were shocked months
affiliated with his brother later when the FBI’s John-
could later demand details son called to confirm they
about where the bus was had matched the thumb-
headed. print to prints of Downey
For 34 years, he didn’t hear taken after an earlier ar-
a word about him. Then this rest in Texas.About 40 per-
spring Downey received cent of the identifications
a heart-breaking call, through the FBI’s new pro-
one that more than 200 cess have been cases in
families across the coun- Arizona. Most are people
try have gotten in the last who died while attempt-
few months since the FBI ing to make the danger-
began using new finger- ous desert crossing from
print technology to resolve Mexico.Bruce Anderson,
identity cases dating back In this Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, photo, Polk County Chief Medical Examiner Gregory Schmunk the forensic anthropologist
to the 1970s. and Chief Medicolegal Death Investigator Amanda Luick, left, look over files for the John Downey for Pima County, Arizona,
Authorities reported that case, in Des Moines, Iowa. keeps more than 1,000
the remains of a man found Associated Press unidentified person charts
beaten to death decades and Texas. ically needed quality prints per, but no one came for- filed along his office wall.
ago along a brushy path “We didn’t know the ac- from all 10 fingers to make ward. “If you can remove one
in Des Moines, 800 miles tual potential success. We a match. “We know he was mur- of these charts, have one
away, had been identified were hoping to identify a The unit is now urging lo- dered and dumped in family reach out to you to
as his brother. few cases, maybe five or cal authorities to search this area but Des Moines confirm an identity, some
“We always figured some- 10,” said Bryan Johnson, a through other old case files police never really devel- of that weight on us is re-
thing had happened to manager in the FBI’s Latent and send in smudged or oped any leads on it and moved,” Anderson said.
him,” James Downey said Fingerprint Support Unit partial prints that couldn’t basically forgot about the In nearby Yuma County,
from his home in Houston. who proposed the effort. previously be matched. case,” county Medical Arizona, the FBI fingerprint
“We all assumed he’d got “We’re really proud that The FBI’s newfound ability Examiner Greg Schmunk initiative enabled authori-
killed somewhere or died in we found another way of was key to the Des Moines said. ties to finally identify a
an accident.” doing this.” case because by the time It was one of several cas- young woman whose body
Since launching the new Under the new program, Downey’s body was found es that medical examiner was found in 1999 near the
effort in February, the FBI Johnson and eight others in in February 1984, it had investigators called “shelf Colorado River, where she
and local medical exam- the FBI unit ran fingerprints been buried under snow dwellers,” referring to cre- was killed with a shotgun
iner offices have identified from about 1,500 bodies and dirt for months and mated remains that would blast to her face.
204 bodies found between through a new computer was severely decomposed. sit for decades on storage For Sgt. Ryland Croutch, the
1975 and the late 1990s. algorithm that could make Authorities sought the pub- shelves.But the fact that identification of the victim
The cases stretch across matches from low-quality lic’s help in identifying the this was a homicide and as 18-year-old Angel McAl-
the country, with the larg- prints or even a single fin- body, including publishing the unusual tattoos — in- lister, through a match with
est number in Arizona, Cali- ger or thumb. Previously, drawings of distinctive tat- cluding a skeleton clad in an earlier smudged print,
fornia, New York, Florida the standard algorithm typ- toos in the local newspa- Nazi garb and a cartoon was a relief. q