LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas authorities are collecting DNA samples from family members of missing residents this week to see if unidentified remains at crime labs are a match for their loved ones.
The “Never Forgotten-Arkansas Takes Action” event will be Thursday in Little Rock. It has brought results in the past: The remains of an eastern Arkansas man who had been missing for more than a decade were identified after his relatives gave DNA samples in 2012.
“It’s a mixed blessing if you will,” said Kermit Channell, director of the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory. “If you have a loved one who’s missing and they’re identified, it will be a difficult thing for the family, but I think at some point it will help them go on.”
More than 400 people have been reported missing in the state, according to the Arkansas Crime Information Center. The state has most of the remains of 78 unidentified people, said the center’s operations administrator, Billy Clinton.
The attorney general’s office and other agencies, including the state crime lab and Arkansas State Police, are leading the effort to identify the missing.
Authorities will collect DNA samples through cheek swabs and encourage families to provide photos, X-rays and dental records. The samples will be tested at the state crime lab and then sent to the University of North Texas for further analysis, Channell said.
In 2012, family members of Tommy Lee Newingham, a resident of Earle in eastern Arkansas, submitted their DNA and officials matched those samples with a previously unidentified set of remains found in 2011 in Memphis, Tennessee.
A cause of death has not been determined, but the skeletal remains didn’t show any signs of a violent death, said Mike Callender, chief investigator with the Crittenden County Sheriff’s Office.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel will host a luncheon at the “Never Forgotten” event to recognize residents whose family members are missing. Afterward, law enforcement officers will be available to speak to families about their cases.
“We want to make sure that they know that we haven’t forgotten,” Channell said.
___
Follow Christina Huynh on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/ckhuynh .
Please read our comment policy before commenting.