In 2023, the Collier County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) was one of five counties selected in the State of Florida to receive $200,000 in state funding to help identify those who were buried without being identified.
In December, deputies used the grant money to remove 13 people from Lake Trafford Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Immokalee, many of whom were laid to rest in the 1970s and 80s. All 13 of those exhumed were victims of cold case homicides, accidental deaths, or had passed away without being identified by law enforcement.
"The hope is for them to be able to get a DNA profile to begin with. Once they do that, they do their forensic grade genome sequencing, which gives you a genetic profile that we can now put into a certain database like a family tree so that we can try to identify family members of the unidentified," said Jessica Gerster, the crime scene supervisor for the Collier County Sheriff's Office.
Following the exhumation last winter, the human remains were sent to the Collier County Medical Examiner, where they were analyzed by the Anthropology Department at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU).
"The challenges here in Southwest Florida and in Collier County and Immokalee, specifically are myriad. And the biggest challenge is that we have acidic soils and we have a high groundwater table. And so the water in the acidic soils work against us and they work against us in the preservation of DNA," said Dr. Health Walsh-Haney, who leads the research for the university alongside her graduate students.
The Florida Gulf Coast University team's goal was to restructure each skeleton, file reports, and locate visible levels of collagen, or DNA samples.
"I ensure that all of the bones match, all of the joints line up and so that if we are submitting, I don't know, one rib, for example, for DNA, that all of the parts of that one human skeleton match and indeed that rib is coming from the right medical examiner's number and the right case," added Dr. Walsh-Haney.
Following the research locally, the human remains are then shipped to Texas, to be studied at the Houston-based independent laboratory Othram.
"Historically, to look at DNA from a crime scene, be it suspect DNA or unidentified human remains DNA, the traditional way of testing that would be to do STR testing which is short tandem repeat testing that looks at about 20 to 24 markers of DNA. The 20 to 24 markers allow you to only pinpoint relationships that are pretty close. It can identify you if you're already in the database or a parent, child or sibling. So outside of that, you can't detect a further relationship. So what we've developed at Othram is forensic grade genome sequencing, which looks at hundreds of thousands of markers, upwards to 2 million markers of DNA," said Michael Vogen, the Director of Accounts at Othram Labs.
Vogen tells ABC7 News that Othram has used their technology to solve thousands of cases since the company's inception in 2019, and unlike typical gene-sequencing equipment, they are able to trace genealogy as far as extremely extended family, even with severe degradation.
"We don't really need a super close relative. Our profiles are sensitive enough that we can detect out to about a sixth cousin. So we're all related, right? It's just to what degree?" said Vogen.
The Collier County Sheriff's Office has not commented on if any of the 13 people have been positively identified yet. Othram tells ABC7 News that lab work typically takes a few months, and each person's timetable is case-by-case.
"Finding out who these people are ... that's why I do my job," said Gerster.