Rapid DNA Processor Will Help Denver Identify Victims of Mass Casualties

The Denver Office of the Medical Examiner will soon have a rapid DNA processor to help with its work in identifying the deceased, particularly during mass casualty events.

In 2021, Hanah Shimeall, a coroner investigator for OME, and Ian Harwick, OME decedent affairs coordinator, applied for a grant to fund the purchase of the equipment. It's part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Urban Area Security Initiative, one of three Homeland Security grant programs; this one is dedicated to enhancing regional preparedness in high-threat, high-density areas. The program has $615 million available this year; Denver will receive $386,000 for the purchase of the processor.

“If there was a plane crash, or a fire in the foothills or somewhere in one of the surrounding counties, we would be able to do victim identification and then family reunification,” Harwick says.

If the office recovered bodies that couldn't be identified from such a disaster, it would use the equipment to analyze DNA of people whose family members were missing, then compare it to the DNA of the victims. That way, the office would be able to connect remains with families much earlier. Before this technology became available, the DNA identification process would take about two weeks, Harwick notes. Now, it can take between two and 24 hours.

The OME wrote the grant with natural disasters in mind, including the Marshall fire. Had that tragedy resulted in more loss of life, the Denver OME and other medical examiners would have been called on to identify the victims — but none of them have rapid DNA technology. Harwick says that although some manufacturers have offered to do a few free tests to demonstrate the technology, additional tests would cost at least $1,200 each.

“This just allows us to not have to call in any favors. We will be able to utilize our staff, who we know are trained to exactly the specifications that we're expecting," Harwick says of the grant. “The more quickly we're able to process these scenes, that allows our staff to take the time to decompress, then also get back to work doing their normal jobs."

Though the Denver OME will have the technology in-house, it will work not only with Denver County, but with nine surrounding counties, as well as neighboring states such as Nebraska, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah in case of emergency.

In non-emergency times, OME staff hopes to apply the technology to solving older mysteries. The OME hasn't been able find family members of 237 deceased individuals dating back to 1998. It also hasn't been able to identify the remains of seventeen people, the oldest dating from the '70s, according to Shimeall. Although the office would like to solve these cases, they're low priority in a busy crime lab.

Those individuals weren’t identifiable through fingerprints, visual identifiers, dental profiles or any other OME tools. Using this technology, the office would create a DNA profile from the remains and upload it into Family Tree or GEDmatch PRO, public-source DNA databases, to try to build out a family tree. “Then [OME will] start to connect with those families and give them the closure and let them know whether they're in our office or they have been buried through assistance from Denver Human Services,” Harwick says.

OME plans to solicit bids for the technology in June, with a goal of getting the equipment in-house and ready for operation by the end of the year or in early 2023. The grant funds will cover a DNA processor, the equipment to run and use it, and staff training.

“Our investigators and our doctors are already doing really great work, and we view this as just another way to supplement the work that they're doing,” Harwick says. “It would be here in case of an emergency, but really, also we just hope that we can bring some closure to our community and allow a lot of people to move on with their lives.”