Meet the team using DNA to identify more 9/11 victims, 24 years later
There are still 1,100 victims of the Sept. 11 attacks who have yet to be identified.
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More than two decades after the Sept. 11 attacks, the medical examiner’s office has identified three additional victims, bringing the total number of identified victims to 1,653.
Mark Desire, now an assistant director at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, was at ground zero on 9/11 as part of a medical examiner’s team.
“Our job was to preserve the evidence,” he recalled. “I picked up our gear box and the South Tower cracked. We were right under that plume of debris… my thoughts were, this is how I die.”
Today, Desire oversees a team that continues to identify victims.
“Everything that destroys DNA was present at ground zero,” he said. “The fire, the water to put out the fire, sunlight, mold, bacteria, jet fuel, diesel fuel, all the chemicals in those buildings,” he said.
Advances in DNA technology have made it possible to identify victims even after 24 years.
The latest victims identified are Ryan Fitzgerald, of Floral Park, Long Island, Barbara Keating, of Palm Springs, California and a woman whose family asked that her name be kept private.
“All the remains that were recovered have already been tested before, at least once, many of them multiple times,” said Kevin McKenna, criminalist at OCME. “Any of the remains that we go back to test are being retested with newer, more advanced technologies.”
There are still 1,100 victims of the Sept. 11 attacks who have yet to be identified. The OCME team says it will continue using every available tool to put a name to as many victims as possible.
