There are more than 15,000 unidentified-decedent cases in the US today. Does that surprise you?

[Dewey_Finn]

@eburacum45

Thing is, if the investigators found that a body found in 1992 was probably your long-lost great uncle who you never met, and who disappeared onto the streets with the express intention of forgetting his past and becoming anonymous, who benefits from this knowledge?

BTW, aside from providing closure to the family of a previously unidentified body (as I mentioned), another reason to identify them is that doing so might help if something criminal occurred. (That is, if they were murdered.)

[Elmer_J.Fudd]

@HMS_Irruncible

that’s hard to pull off except in cases of homelessness, foul play, suicide, misadventure, etc.

I assume that list covers the status of 99.9% of all John/Jane Doe’s.

[Elmer_J.Fudd]

I recollect that when my prints were taken in the 1990s for an FBI check so I could teach, I was assured that they would not be retained after they were checked against a criminal database.

[StGermain]

There are hundreds of deaths annually of people trying to cross the Mexican border and dying in the desert, in the Rio Grande, etc. In 2023, there were 560 found. I bet many of them didn’t carry valid IDs.

StG

[smithsb]

My error on US passport fingerprinting. Not required.