PLEASE HELP!
Funding for cold cases (DNA testing on unidentified human remains) and missing persons getting cut !
The federal grant that funds DNA testing for missing persons will no longer be funded.
The grant is through the National Institute of Justice and is called "Using DNA Technology To Identify the Missing."
It provides $4.7 million for the entire country and has been in existence since 2004.
An example, Oklahoma has been using the grant since 2009, and anthropologists with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said it has helped identify dozens of missing people.
“We need this grant,” said anthropologist Angela Berg.
Berg said the grant helped identify six people pulled from the bottom of Foss Lake in their cars in 2013.
They’d been missing for 40 years.
The grant also helped ID two Oklahoma City women and one girl found buried in a field in Jennings, Oklahoma also in 2013.
Those three had been missing for more than 20 years.
“There are families out there waiting to find out if remains could be their loved one,” Berg said.
This grant allows Berg to submit skeletal remains to a University of North Texas lab that helps identify people through DNA and is funded through this grant.
“Our technology is evolving and becoming so wonderful, and now we have no monies to fund this and that’s heartbreaking,” Berg said.
It’s especially heartbreaking for people like Carla Eastep.
Berg plans to do the same, saying every body deserves a name, every crime deserves to be solved.
The funding for the grant is set to expire in October 2017
Story at link: http://via.kfor.com/TAx9i
HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP: Note this affects ALL MEDICAL EXAMINER Offices across the country!! Send your pleas and your stories to implore they return the grants and funding, please.
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Dear Director Rodriguez:
I don’t normally write letters to Federal, or local, government agencies, but this matter is extremely critical. I, personally, am writing to you out of desperation
I recently learned that the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) grant "Using DNA Technology to Identify the Missing” will no longer be funded. I am devastated that the work done with this grant will no longer be available. This literally should not happen and your assistance is requested on this very urgent matter.
As you're aware, local jurisdictions have been receiving grant funds for the past several years. Without these funds, the processing and analyses of cases of Unidentified Persons and families of Missing Persons will be hindered and backlogs cannot be addressed.
I’m aware that the grant provides a valuable service to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, law enforcement and the judicial system. But most importantly the program has given hope to the families of missing loved ones. I’m sure that those administering the program are better equipped to speak to the work that’s been done with "cold cases" successfully solved with DNA. Other families live the day to day trauma of not knowing.
🔺INSERT YOUR PERSONAL SITUATION HERE: 🔻
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Example: My daughter, my only child, 🔺Heather XXXX 🔻, has been missing since 🔺XXXX. 🔻 I long to see her, to touch her face and hug her knowing she's well. But if she has passed, I must know where she is so that I can bring her home and provide her the proper burial that she deserves.
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Without this grant, there will be many who will suffer. Far too many loved ones will continue to be "missing." Without funding, Police Investigative Units will not be able to decrease their case load, Medical Examiners won't be able to bring as many answers to families, and the service organizations will continue to see unresolved cases rise each year.
Please, I urge you to recognize and support this grant for the next fiscal year, and many years following...as possible. Families of missing depend on this work being done nationally, and the program is dependent upon your funding.
If not,too many will lie in wait...hoping for their names to be found. One of those ,could be our loving 🔺NAME OF MISSING🔻
Respectfully,
🔺 YOUR NAME 🔻
Family of 🔺 NAME OF MISSING🔻
SEND TO:
1. Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice
Attn.: Nancy Rodriguez
810 7th St. N.W. Washington, DC 20531
and
2. Sally Yates, Deputy Attorney General: email is Sally.Yates@usdoj.gov
3. Or by email to the following individuals:
Nancy Rodriguez, NIJ Director: Nancy.Rodriguez@ojp.usdoj.gov
Karol Mason, Assistant Attorney General: Karol.V.Mason@ojp.usdoj.gov
Sally Yates, Deputy Attorney General: SaYates@usdoj.gov https://www.justice.gov/contact-us
Thanks for your help with this. Feel free to send your letter to other agencies or anyone who might hear our voice (ie state representatives, senators, district attorneys, the governor, etc).
Story prior to show the importance of funding. www.news9.com/story/33154106/texas-dna-lab-helps-solve-oklahoma-unidentified-missing-persons-cases
Please write, and share!
Thank you,
The Team at LostNMissing, Inc
