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K&R News

2015-07-07 | Out of Line: The UK and US Response to Kidnap-For-Ransom
One leader he had not been addressing was President Obama. Until last week, the policy of the United States towards hostage-taking by designated terrorist organisations was, like that of the UK, clear. The safe release of hostages was to be achieved without ransom payments or political concessions for, in the view of the US, ‘hostage-takers looking for ransoms distinguish between those governments that pay ransoms and those that do not and…make a point of not taking hostages from those countries that refuse to make concessions.’ Yet last week, President Obama announced Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-30 – Hostage Recovery Activities, introducing ambiguity into this previously strongly articulated belief.

2015-07-03 | Lack of data on victims
The lack of available data on the passengers of the Hercules C-130 that crashed in Medan on Tuesday has slowed the process of victim identification. “The challenges relate to our antemortem data, which deals with DNA, teeth, birthmarks and other identifying features of the victims,” the North Sumatra Police Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team’s deputy chairman Sr. Comr. Didiet Setyobudi told The Jakarta Post at Adam Malik General Hospital on Wednesday.

2015-07-01 | My 977 days held hostage by Somali pirates
One afternoon two years into my captivity, in a dirty villa, I sat up on the mattress and noticed that my guard had left the room. His rifle lay on a mat. I considered grabbing it. The pirates were holding me in Galkacyo, a regional capital in central Somalia. They told me it was Haradheere, near the coast, but I knew Haradheere had no commercial airport, and at first the pirates would giggle every time we heard passenger planes take off and land.

2015-05-07 | Three is the Magic Number for Positive ID
Positive identification of unknown remains is essential to the resolution of criminal investigations, insurance claims, the facilitation of the release of the decedent to family for interment, and the emotional recovery of family and friends. Although radiographic comparisons are commonly used, to date, there has been little to no testing of the validity of using such methods to establish a positive identification.

2015-05-07 | Identifying The Nameless: Advancing The Science Of Human Decomposition To Identify Deceased Migrants
“When someone dies on U.S. soil, it is our responsibility to identify that person,” she said while walking in the shade where cadavers lay on the ground, protected by metal screens. Specifically, Spradley collects data on the rate of decay of these cadavers. It’s part of her research in determining a migrant’s time of death. “Most of the bodies disposed of in a clandestine manner in this part of Texas, it’s usually on the surface," she noted. "It’s very hard to dig a burial there. So knowing how bodies decompose on the surface is very important.”

2015-04-19 | The Maps Within: Using Viruses in Forensic Biology
There is no forensic method that can identify the geographical origins of an individual based upon their genetic makeup. But for unidentified victims of a mass casualty event, pinpointing a victim’s provenance brings investigators one step closer to giving an identity to an unknown and giving closure to those affected. And over the past few years, a team of Japanese researchers have sought to devise such a technique by profiling the human body’s endogenous microbes to suss out our hidden zip codes.

2015-04-14 | Isotopes Unlock Clues in Unidentified Human Remains
With some 10,000 open cases of unidentified human remains in the U.S. today, the research’s results will have real-life implications for law enforcement, medical examiners and families looking for answers.

2015-04-13 | UP man declared 'killed' in mishap returns home
Samar Bahadur Yadav alias Raju had not only been declared killed in the mishap, his ‘body’ too had been handed over to his kin after postmortem, who then had ‘cremated’ him and also held his terahavin (a community feast held on the 13th day marking the end of rituals).

2015-04-10 | DNA helps state police identify remains of 2 missing teenagers
A new Michigan State Police unit that is focused on identifying previously unidentified John and Jane Does is being credited with two recent identifications of missing 14-year-old girls.

2015-04-08 | Identifying the Bodies of Border Crossers
Since 2000, more than 6,000 people have died trying to cross undocumented into the U.S. These are only the remains that have been found. We currently have more than 2,000 reports for people who are still missing on the border, presumably whose bodies either haven't been found or haven't been identified. Very few Americans know this is happening. Our goals are to support the efforts made by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME), a small office in Southern AZ, to identify presumed migrants who've lost their lives in the attempt to cross the border. This is a very difficult task considering many travel without identification, or with false identification, and are often not found till long after their death, making the options for identification extremely limited.