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Wednesday, Aug 29, 2012 6:45 AM UTC

In NYC, identifying the dead, and finding closure

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Topics: From the Wires,

In NYC, identifying the dead, and finding closureScientists for the City of New York Office of Chief Medical Examiner prepare samples for DNA testing, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, in New York. The office is undertaking an ambitious effort to identify the nameless dead in the city’s potter’s field, seeking to capitalize on the expertise that it gained over the last decade identifying remains from the World Trade Center attack. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) (Credit: AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York City medical examiner’s office has exhumed dozens of bodies from a potter’s field in a new push to identify several decades’ worth of unidentified bodies.

The push takes advantage of advanced DNA technology, anthropology and new federal funding. Scientists are able to review cases going back to 1988.

To date, 54 bodies for which the medical examiner had no DNA samples have been disinterred from Hart Island, the city’s potter’s field. Some have been matched to existing DNA databases.

For some families it has brought closure after years of not knowing what happened to their loved ones. For others, it is providing renewed hope for possible identification of a long-vanished brother, sister, relative or lover.

More Ula Ilnytzky.

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