S3E7: Unidentified Remains

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons. While the events and cases discussed are based on real investigations, some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes. Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents. All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness. Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast, but such discussions are not intended to and should not be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Listener discretion is advised.

**Ana Lalley** (1:02)
This is Chief Ana Lalley. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something, a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit. In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You will come along with real cold case detectives as they investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice for the victims and closure for their families.
We believe that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work together to bring closure to cold cases because we know that in these cases, somebody knows something.

**Andrew Houghton** (1:46)
Hello, and welcome to Somebody Knows Something, the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Podcast. My name is Detective Andrew Houghton.

**Chris Hall** (1:52)
And I'm Detective Chris Hall.
Over the past several episodes, we have traveled to Elgin, Joliet, Aurora and Chicago as we seek more information in Wyteria's case. Now, we want to look at the forensic options that we have moving forward. For this episode, we turn our attention to a group called the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or as we call NamUs, which is currently the only National Repository for Missing, Unidentified and Unclaimed Persons in the country. We are hoping that this system might just be exactly what we need to bring Wyteria Jones home.
NamUs has an online database that has a public-facing portion and a law enforcement-only portion. The public can use the site to search for information. That public-facing portion provides limited information viewable to the public. Law enforcement section that we can access has much more additional information that isn't public, and it allows police to track cases, update cases, and conduct searches using NamUs. Police can also use case-specific information to search for other missing persons cases and unidentified remains cases to coordinate with other law enforcement agencies around the country. From the very beginning of this case, one of our major goals has been to upload DNA for Wyteria and search databases to determine if she has already been found, but not identified. And even if she has not been located, we want to have DNA available for future detectives in the event that one day she is finally found.

**Andrew Houghton** (3:27)
NamUs' story begins back in 2003 The National Institute of Justice began funding major efforts to maximize the use of DNA technology within the criminal justice system, specifically in cases of missing and unidentified persons. In 2005, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Robert McCallum Jr., created the National Missing Persons Task Force in an effort to improve law enforcement's ability to access information and solve missing and unidentified persons cases. From that task force, NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, was born.

**Chris Hall** (3:58)
NamUs launched two different systems, the NamUs Unidentified Persons or UP Database in 2007, and the NamUs Missing Persons or MP Database in 2008 Then in 2009, they combined both systems for automatic case comparisons between the Missing Persons Database and the Unidentified Persons Database.

**Andrew Houghton** (4:19)
Since 2009, the database has grown exponentially. NamUs has also expanded to include analytical and case support, fingerprint comparison, and in 2022, they established the FBI Forensic Genealogy Searching Partnership. So, NamUs can and does assist law enforcement in a number of different ways. While we will not be using Forensic Genetic Genealogy or FGG in the usual sense in this particular case, we will be using familial DNA in a slightly different way.

**Chris Hall** (4:46)
Forensic genetic genealogy traditionally involves a case in which there is an unknown offender or victim. Police can use the DNA from the unknown person and upload it to the various genealogy databases where they can search for distant relatives. Then, once they identify distant relatives, genealogy experts backtrack to try to identify the source of the DNA through extensive family trees.
A lot of listeners to our podcast have probably heard about the Golden State Killer Case in California and about how police in that case used forensic genealogy in 2018 to identify Joseph James D'Angelo as the serial rapist and murderer who terrorized the state of California in the 1970s and 1980s. But what many people don't know is that the Golden State Killer Case is not actually the first case where police used that technology.