25 years later, forensic analysts use genetic genealogy in push to identify remains of nearly 1,100 World Trade Center victims

FDNY Battalion Chief Orio Palmer had donated bone marrow before he was killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the sister of the Valley Stream resident recalled recently.

"We actually had a burial about seven years later," said Agnes McCaffrey, explaining that her brother's bone marrow donation enabled family members to bury their loved one in the Sept. 11 memorial section at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury.

Forensic teams had not been able to otherwise recover or positively identify any of the legendary firefighter's remains in the years since the attacks.

"Nothing," said retired FDNY Lt. Jim McCaffrey, Palmer's brother-in-law. "Not even personal effects."

But family members said they have found hope for closure through a recent announcement by officials at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner, who announced that the agency is now using genetic genealogy — a breakthrough forensic technique — to try to identify nearly 1,100 remains of World Trade Center victims. 

Agnes and Jim McCaffrey hope the identification of Palmer's remains through genealogy would give the family some peace of mind, particularly if there are remains to bury in a cemetery.

"I think it would give people a lot of solace ... because they would have something to bury, their own cemetery, their own plot," Jim McCaffrey said.

Palmer's emergency radio dispatches from the 78th floor of the south tower during his rescue effort have been preserved. They are among hundreds of voices recounting the attacks on the World Trade Center that can be heard at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in lower Manhattan.

"Orio's dispatches are famous," McCaffrey said in an interview with Newsday in 2014. "You hear him call for help, reporting what he saw and where to lay down hose lines. He was a professional. ... They went into the Twin Towers knowing, especially the experienced ones, that they would never come back."

Finding genetic similarities

Efforts to find and identify those remains have been at the center of a massive 25-year effort by medical examiner officials. They have explained that some of the recovered body parts were so badly damaged by fire — and destructive forces brought about by the collapse of the buildings — that DNA was destroyed, making identification virtually impossible.

Propelled by a desire to identify as many victims as possible and to fulfill a promise they said they made to the 9/11 families, OCME officials teamed up with a special unit of the NYPD to use genetic genealogy to identify remains not connected with named victims. In recent months, some 47 individual sets of remains — for which no family DNA reference samples exist — have been selected as possible candidates for analysis with genetic genealogy.

Known as "investigative genetic genealogy," or IGG, the method compares an unknown genetic sample to DNA profiles submitted to various public ancestry databases used to trace family trees. Genetic similarities between the unknown DNA and the database entries allow investigators to follow up and determine the identity of a person.

Last month, the OCME announced it had used genealogy to identify the remains of a woman victim of the World Trade Center attacks, the 1,654th person so identified.

Brad Adams, who retired last year from OCME, said it was a development years in the making. 

"There are a number of good DNA samples that don’t match any [family] reference samples," explained Adams, who now teaches forensic science at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. "There could be victims that have never been reported missing." 

Mark Desire, assistant director of forensic biology at OCME, said some victims didn't have family members coming forward to report a missing relative from 9/11. Victims also included citizens of more than 80 countries, a factor complicating the tracing of family connections, Desire said.

OCME has the most advanced DNA technology at its disposal, he said, including bone-grinding and pulverizing procedures, next-generation sequencing machines and the ability to examine male elements of a DNA sample. Experts from other countries have also helped develop useful methods where cells of bones, some of the most difficult from which to extract DNA, can be analyzed. As a result, some 18 bone samples have been matched to previously identified remains.

But as OCME has found out, without a family reference to which to compare remains, analysts are stuck.

For that reason, the agency turned to genetic genealogy, and investigators believe the method could help identify more victims. As it turned out, rather than having to bid out large contracts for private labs to do the genetic analysis, OCME was able to enlist the NYPD, which has a specialized unit of detectives and civilian genealogists with expertise in genealogical tracing, something that has become cutting-edge nationwide in identifying both crime victims and potential suspects.

Hope for family members

Some families who have never had remains of their loved ones recovered, even after providing reference samples, say they support the use of genealogy.

McCaffrey said Palmer’s family provided DNA reference samples — hair, a toothbrush and saliva swabs — but none of the battalion chief's remains have yet been identified.

Sally Regenhard, of Yonkers, has long been an outspoken critic of the way the Ground Zero recovery was handled and how human remains were carted away to a Staten Island landfill and sorted on conveyor belts by police and firefighters. Regenhard lost her firefighter son, Christian, a 28-year-old FDNY probationary firefighter and Bronx native. None of his remains have been recovered. Regenhard favors the use of genealogy to identify the victims but questioned the way officials rolled out word of new identifications around the time of the anniversary of Sept. 11.

"I am glad they're using it to identify people," Regenhard said. "However, I am very cynical about this because it is being used to justify that the recovery of human remains and examination was an abject failure."

Rosemary Cain, formerly of Massapequa and now living in Sayville, lost her firefighter son, George, who was 35, and eventually got some of her son’s remains and buried them in St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale. Like Regenhard, Cain believes everything should be done to identify the victims but is unnerved by the way officials announced new identifications before the anniversary.

"I think at the very least they should do anything they can," said Cain, who said the victims should have proper burials. But she said that when new identifications are announced so close to the anniversary — as was done last month — it stirs the emotional pot and adds to the continuing unease and sense of loss.

Monica Iken-Murphy lost her husband, Michael Iken, whose remains have never been found. She said she still has hope that, either through future DNA technology or genetic genealogy, the remains of her late husband will be discovered.

"For me there is always hope. If he is found, we will keep him there," said Iken-Murphy, referring to a repository at Ground Zero for the unidentified dead.