The search process: Integrating the investigation and identification of missing and unidentified persons.

The effective search for the missing and identification of persons, alive or dead, are core components in the prevention and in resolving the issue of Missing Persons. Despite the growing literature on this topic, there is still a lack of publications describing the Search as a process that includes different phases inherently composed of forensic investigative and identification principles for both living and deceased missing persons. This paper is the result of discussions between the Forensic Unit of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and members of its external Forensic Advisory Board.

Using already-solved cases of a mass disaster event for prioritizing the search among remaining victims: a Bayesian approach.

This work presents a new method for assisting in the identification process of missing persons in several contexts, such as enforced disappearances. We apply a Bayesian technique to incorporate non-genetic variables in the construction of prior information. In that way, we can learn from the already-solved cases of a particular mass event of death, and use that information to guide the search among remaining victims.

Large-scale forensic investigations into the missing: Challenges and considerations.

Large-scale forensic investigations may follow episodes of mass violence and disasters where hundreds or thousands of people have died or are missing. A number of unique challenges for forensic science, different from domestic investigations, arise in these contexts. The setting and situation of these investigations regularly force forensic scientists into practices not regularly encountered while working in a standard criminal justice system.

Ancestry informative markers: inference of ancestry in aged bone samples using an autosomal AIM-Indel multiplex.

Ancestry informative markers (AIMs) can be useful to infer ancestry proportions of the donors of forensic evidence. The probability of success typing degraded samples, such as human skeletal remains, is strongly influenced by the DNA fragment lengths that can be amplified and the presence of PCR inhibitors. Several AIM panels are available amongst the many forensic marker sets developed for genotyping degraded DNA.