NC Cold Case Initiative- Unidentified Project

We are dedicated to helping medical examiners and law enforcement in their efforts to identify these John and Jane Does’ so they can give the families answers and seek justice when it is warranted. When you are born you are given a Name, that name is your Identity from the time you are born and after death. Our Name is our Identity, which is a basic Human Right that allows us as human beings to enjoy all of our Human Rights as a society.

Our Story:

In February 2020, Leslie Kaufman, Forensic Genealogist, First Genes, LLC partnered with Dr. Ann Ross, Forensic Anthropologist, Department of Biological Sciences and PI of the Human Identification and Forensic Analysis Laboratory at NCSU to assist in the Identification of North Carolina's 126+ unidentified persons. Drs. Ross and Passalcqua of Western Carolina, Board Certified practitioners, received a UNC Interinstitutional Grant that provided funding for the pilot phase of this project.

The funding we received for the first phase of this project paid for the extraction of DNA from the bones of 13 unidentified persons for extraction and sequencing of a SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) genetic profile for Forensic Genetic Genealogy. Of the 13 cases submitted, 7 viable genetic SNP profiles were obtained for forensic genealogy to try to determine their identities. Six of the samples were too degraded to provide profiles. One case from Harnett County has been identified, two more have been identified, and are in the final stages of the process. I am currently building family trees for the last four. However, this process is an interdisciplinary effort as forensic genealogy relies heavily on the initial forensic anthropological estimation of the biological profile (e.g., age-at-death, stature, biological sex, and population affinity).

We are currently seeking funding for the next phase. The Funds needed are to pay for DNA Extraction, perform DNA sequencing and build a genetic SNP profile to upload into GEDmatch, a public database for genealogy as well as to pay for the use of the genetic genealogy databases and their tools to increase our chances of finding additional relatives to build family trees for identification. Each Case costs about $5000.00. In the future, we would like to open this identification project to John and Jane Does outside of NC. There are over 40,000 unidentified persons in the US at any given time.

For more information, visit www.firstgenes.com / current projects.

Thank you!!