KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knox County may soon get thousands of dollars from the federal government to help identify human remains and possibly close cold cases.
The Knox County Commission will soon consider a resolution that would formally accept $117,000 from the United States Department of Justice to pay for genetic genealogy testing to help identify human remains.
A letter from the Office of Justice Programs said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Knox County have access to remains that date back as far as 1972. Authorities have already tried using all usual identification methods to figure out who the remains belonged to, such as fingerprinting, forensic odontology and DNA analysis. The letter said the money would be used to help identify up to 24 human remains.
By using the money on forensic genetic genealogy, authorities would need to follow federal policies on the technique. The policy says forensic genetic genealogy is different from using DNA testing in both the type of technology used and the databases authorities use. Genealogy testing identifies shared blocks of DNA between forensic samples and possible relatives.
If the remains share enough DNA with another person, they could be family members.
If authorities identify possible family members of unidentified human remains, they may be able to figure out who a person was and start learning more about their cases, which could ultimately lead them to suspects, according to the award letter.
