[ Music ]
>> So if you're the
anthropologist in the case
or the MLI for a case and you
don't have all the information
for your report or
at your fingertips,
you can just use these forms
and go find that information.
We had-- on occasionally we have
our medicolegal investigator,
our autopsy techs actually fill
out the clothing form 'cause
they've already filled it
out in other places.
We would like our VertiQ
database to auto populate NamUs
but it can't yet, but we're
working toward that end
so we'll never have
to enter data twice.
For those records selected in
our case management system
that we want to put into
NamUs we just hit a button
and it'll auto populate all
the information right in
and that'll be a time
saver too but again,
I can't emphasize enough doing a
good job whether it's you or one
of your designees getting
accurate description of clothing
when it's available and jewelry,
and sometimes some other things
that are found near the
body, with the body.
Take the time like
it's labor intensive.
I don't like doing it, this is
my least favorite page to do
but when I do it I
try to think in terms
of a family member looking for a
loved one and so taking the time
to put all this detail in is
actually advantageous for you
if you're trying to
identify somebody.
So brand names and sizes if
you can, color photographs
of everything, again the
sensitive items like ligatures
as we explained before
the break,
we wouldn't want to list
anything on this page
that had to do with that.
[ Silence ]
Okay, dental page.
Much more appropriate perhaps for
the anthropologist and MLIs
in the audience, you
gotta choose a status,
it's one of those
asterisks, required field,
so even if you don't
have it or in some cases,
you may not want to
do it that day.
Some of you may have an
odontologist that works with you
and you can just have
the odontologist put this
information in but you have to
check one of those three boxes
to meet the case requirements
to get this case
put into the system.
>> If you have an odontologist
do it, they're approved
in the system and they
only have access to dental?
>> Some odontologists
at NamUs have access
to every dental page
in the system.
So for instance, I think
Pete, you're in Oklahoma?
I think Pete Loomis covers
Oklahoma, so Pete also covers
like I do the western states,
so Pete covers Arizona.
I could choose not to do
any dental entries on all
of our cases, that would
just make more work for Pete
so I don't do that but
if you weren't sure
about a dental entry,
you could have a NamUs
you could ask NamUs
for assistance and one
of five board-certified forensic
odontologist in this country
for your particular state
would do that for you,
you'd have to send
them the records,
films if you had them
[simultaneous talking].
>> So responsible in
local within your
like the denture in your office,
that's not who would
be doing it?
>> For those jurisdictions that
have dentists or odontologists
that come to their office
regularly like in New York City,
I'm not sure if Ben does it
all or Ben has a dentist
>> Definitely consults
with our odontologist.
>> Yeah.
>> And the thing about these
pages is you can give this
to your odon like
in New York City.
Ben uses this, I'm
not sure he does.
And the odons could
fill that page out
and then the person who's
acting as case manager,
one of us in this room,
could put that information in
and as long as we didn't
make any transcription
or typing errors,
we'd be in good shape.
But again, NamUs has a lot of
expertise at your fingertips
and if you choose not
to do the dental page
some anthropologists
don't want to go near teeth.
So if you're one of them,
if you're an anthropologist,
and you get to be a case
manager and you'd feel better
about having a dentist do it,
NamUs can hook you up with them.
>> Practical question, you said
you could upload radiographs
as a JPEG?
Can you just scan those
on a regular scanner
where you have to
>> Flatbeds?
Yeah, orientation is key, so
if you're using the old D2 film
with a little embossed dot, you
want to make sure that dot is a
the dots are all
either all up or all down
and you want to orient
the films in a way,
in an array so it
makes some sense.
Again, we've had several
cases where on old cases
where we put the dental codes
in and we filled out this page
and we put down here comments
that we would add radiographs
later and then I get an email
excuse me-- I get an email
from Dr. Peter Loomis saying,
I think I need to look at
the x-rays on this film,
on this guy 'cause I think I got
a missing person it might be,
and I say to Dr. Loomis, well
I could load them in, you know,
tomorrow the next day, or I
could just send them to you
and you could do it, and
he's offered to do that,
so if you need help on
any one of these pages,
especially dental and DNA,
NamUs has people there for you.
Now if you've never done
an NCIC dental code,
that can be a little bit
challenging, those of you
that have done it may know that
they're not that difficult to do
but they're more involved
than a more simplistic,
what Steve Clark has called
the atomized dental codes.
We use dental codes,
NamUs uses dental codes
that are very simple and
they're after Brad Adams,
they follow Brad
Adams' dissertation
on simplified dental coding
which if you don't know
about Brad's work in that arena,
he showed statistically it
doesn't make much difference
if you use a lot of
detail and a tooth
that has multiple restorations
or where that restoration is.
If you just say that
tooth is restored,
it virtually is powerful as
going through all that surfaces
and then work different
restorations
and different materials
that are used
for the restoration process,
so we use a very simplified
NamUs uses a very simplified
coding system but you can do,
you can click this NCIC
information and a lot
of the dentists who are
working, the odontologists
who are working these
cases, they are
they've already got
the complex codes,
the NCIC codes worked out.
So what they typically do
is enter the NCIC codes,
then there's a nice
little button you can push
that will convert the NCIC
codes to the simplified codes,
so you can get two
you can do two for one.
you can use the more
simplified codes.
So here's an example of
the NCIC, so you can put
you can fill those in
and then we can hit
that little convert NCIC dental
codes to the simple codes.
So if you prefer to stay
away from coding teeth,
like I said we-- NamUs has
people that can do this for you.
You would just check the top box
that says, dental information,
charting is currently
not available, and then down here
in the comments you
would say, dental charts
and radiographs sent to
Dr. Peter Loomis and that
when he gets time to put them
in, probably the next day,
then he'll do that for you.
So certain people have
access to certain pages.
Melody Josserand at
University of North Texas,
can edit all DNA
pages on the UP side.
She does all of ours.
She was nice enough to ask
permission or seek approval
that that would be okay and
since a lot of it has to do
with these long numbers
- tracking numbers,
internal numbers, we just
thought well, let her do it,
let someone from that lab
do it and then she'll put
down typically the number
of loci, STRs, or the length
of the profile from
mitochondrial DNA and whether
or not it's at the
national level of CODIS,
state level of CODIS, or
can't be put in a CODIS.
So she puts all that
information in for us
and as I've mentioned Dr.
Loomis puts some information
for us sometimes in the dental
page so we feel that, again,
keeping an eye out for the
best quality data you can,
you might as well let those
experts do that for you
and it's available
if you want it.
So we put the dental information
in and we get that third star.
So we're moving up
towards five stars.
And you can see also in
the comments, you can
if you put the information in
yourself, you could also put
down who the consulting
dentist was.
But if you don't want to go near,
excuse me, the NCIC codes,
If the dentist actually
did the
created the charts
but you typed it in,
you can put that information
in there and then someone
like Dr. Loomis a month or
a year from now that's looking
at this case and things
that maybe there might be
something he wants to compare,
he could just get right on
the phone to Steven there.
So use NCIC coding
if you can then let the
system convert it.
If you don't have it, just
put the simple stuff in.
The comments box is
essential if you want to put
down carious teeth, fractured
teeth, rotated teeth,
you put down O for other.
That's to simplify the letter
that goes and the symbol
that goes into the tooth box
and then you explain
what the O means
and it could mean anything
you want it to mean.
If you do have a-- if you do
have images, radiographs
or DEXIS images or JPEGs of
films, you can use a comments box
to say see images page
'cause all the images
in NamUs will appear
on the images page.
So you just route the reader
over to the images page
to see the radiographs,
and again the last
one is very important.
There are NamUs odontologists
available for consultation.
Right. If you're
looking for things to do,
the dentists are just chopping
at the bit, so to speak,
to make contributions to NamUs.
>> The DNA page,
somewhat similar
to the dental page
except there's not
as much information
for us to put in.
You have to choose something.
It's a required field so if
there's no sample available,
you say there's none.
If it's because the body
was cremated 20 years ago,
then put that in the
comments box and we'll never
we'll assume that DNA is never
gonna be a player in trying
to identify this
unidentified person.
We typically cut samples at
or near autopsy or excuse me,
at or near anthropology exams.
We typically click the
second one and then
when we do submit the
sample, usually a month or so
after they were resected,
we click it, we go back
and edit the third one.
We don't rely on UNT,
University of North Texas,
to do this menial kind of stuff.
So we go and click the third one
that we submitted the samples,
test not complete, and then we
wait for someone at the lab,
Bode technology or
University of North Texas
to tell us yes they got DNA,
no they didn't get DNA and then
if they ask us if it's all right
if they update our DNA
page, we say absolutely.
If you-- if we're dealing with
records or information from 5
or 10 or 20 years ago, and
there might be some old DNA
information but you
already have that report,
you can certainly
enter it in yourself.
There's no harm in
entering in all
that information if you have it.
You can also scan in-- under
documents, you can scan in,
make a PDF of that DNA
report if you're like me
and sometimes the DNA reports
are beyond comprehension.
I just say I'll put it in there
under documents and somebody
who wants to read it and who
knows more about DNA reporting
than I do, they have
access to it.
>> Now, Melody said
not to do that.
>> Did she?
>> Or make it non-viewable
to the public 'cause
>> Sorry, yeah, if
you've put it in there
yeah, that's a good
point, thank you.
You can make any image you put
in there not viewable
to the public.
So anything you put in
fingerprints are never viewable
and radiographs, I
believe, are never viewable.
I don't think you can make
those if you code them that way.
I mean if you put radiographs
under the facial ID, this
you fool the system and you can
make it viewable to the public
but when you get to the
images pages next you'll see
that there is appropriate
headings you should use
for the type of image you're
uploading and as Angela said
if you're concerned about that
as some people are concerned
about information that might be
on there, what somebody could do
with it, then yeah, you
wouldn't make it viewable
to the general public.
So you choose a status and
then you get the options of a
this should open up-- if they
had been submitted, who
what kind of analyses are
being run and if you want to go
through all this trouble
before the results are back,
you certainly can fill in the
comments yourself like this.
We've only done this one
or two times and we did it
because a family member of a
missing person was tracking one
of our unidentified cases and
we couldn't rule the person out.
So kind of to keep them in
the loop, we said, well, okay,
we can't exclude this person, we
got DNA samples ready to go.
As soon as we ship them
out, we'll let you know.
Okay, we'll let you know
by-- you checked it
you check our UP
page occasionally,
so if you're trying to help
a family member or a cop
or anybody else out that might
be tracking one of your cases,
then you can fill
this out so they know.
Now, once you put this down,
right, so we send it to UNT
on 7-1-10, you think Texas is
North Texas is done
with that exam yet?
[Laughter] Probably not, so that
could stay like that for a year
or two depending on where
that sample is on the queue,
so if you are trying to
help a family member out,
you may be prepared that you
may get multiple emails saying so,
what's going on?
At that point of course,
all they can say is well,
you know what we know.
We sent this sample
out in July of 2010
and they haven't reported back
on it yet, but we have used
we have additional
information in a couple
of times for that reason.
But I-- we don't-- we
have so many samples
out that we don't do it.
I don't know, that it's
that important
to say what tissues are
actually sent out for DNA.
Lori, can you think
of a reason why
that would be a good
thing to know?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean there may
be a reason why you want to put
that in there, but you can,
you could put whatever
you want in there.
And again, the cyber-sleuth
and the families of missing,
at least in my experience
drive what cases I look
at the next day.
You're constantly kind
of dealing with that
you're going back to-- I
mean I use NamUs everyday
for other reasons but going
to a particular case
many times is caused
by the email I got
the day before.
So this can, you
know, by doing this,
I can just send a simple
email back and say hey,
I've updated the DNA page,
go take a look at it,
you now know what I know.
Okay, we go to green.
So the case information,
demographics, circumstances,
physical, medical,
fingerprints, clothing,
accessories, dental and DNA
pages all have required fields,
we filled them all in.
Even if we didn't know the
data, we fill something
in so now we could
submit this to NamUs.
Right now, you could stop, you
could just click on the green
and submit it to NamUs.
You can see it, you
can see everything,
when you're at this point right
now you could see everything
that you've created.
You could log out of
the system, log back on.
You could bring it
up, you could see it.
But nobody else will see it
until the grand wizard of NamUs,
Dr. Randy Hanzlick, probably
the next day, takes a look
at the cases, 'cause
Randy reviews-- Dr.
Hanzlick reviews every
one of these cases looking
for either inappropriate
things perhaps,
even though he trusts
MEs and coroners offices
to do the right thing,
but he's also making sure
that you do things
in a certain style.
He almost always pushes a button
for submit but it won't go live,
people won't see it
for probably a day.
On the missing person side,
it can take much longer
than that, it will take days.
Days and days, maybe weeks
for the case manager?
>> Yes, and to confirm that there
is a report of a missing person
with law enforcement which is a
key part for that quality assurance.
>> And then the next day,
almost always the next day
unless Randy's got something
else to do, then this is in
the system and it's out there
and everybody who has access
to a computer can see it
and everybody who's
registered at the various
different levels of access,
they can view some or all
of what you just put in.
So you always have to
say something about DNA.
If there's no tissue available
and there's never gonna be
any tissue available, again,
just put that down and you know,
we'll hope there's some other
way to identify that person.
Images-- the most
important page for families.
The search algorithms will
search on the text fields
on these images but
it's really the families
and the other people that are
using NamUs who go see pictures,
they want to see pictures.
So as many clear, appropriate
photographs as you can have
as you have, you
can put them in.
We have some that only
have one photograph.
We have some that have dozens.
We'll take pictures of
every piece of clothing.
We purchased a washing
machine in our office a couple
of years ago, it's now broken
because we wash clothing
that was discolored typically
from decomposed bodies
so we got better photographs
of logos and colors and tags
and things like that and
didn't show balled up, wet,
funky looking stuff
that a mother might see
and who knows what-- that
might make things worse.
We don't want to make
things worse, right?
If somebody actually thinks
that their loved one is on the
UP side of NamUs, that's
about as bad as it can get
for that person that day.
We don't want to show stuff
that could only make it worse.
So, we actually broke
our washing machine,
we have to get a new one but
you can go to those lengths
if you want to get
good photographs
of clothing and things
like that.
So there's the number 6
let's do this in order.
So you want to browse
to load something,
that you just hit Browse,
you go to all the places
on your computer where you
might have photographs,
you go choose the file
you want and then you want
to use this drop down menu.
Right now, it's this
facial ID case.
Again, the first image you put
in under facial ID replaces the
little blue man, the first one.
If you make a mistake and
put a belt buckle there
and then you have a tattoo that
you want to do, you have to delete
at least the belt buckle and
reenter the tattoo photograph
in the first one and
it'll pop in there.
You'll see it immediately.
You'll see as soon as it
saves, the system saves it,
you'll see it go right up there.
And then we have number
6, make it viewable,
do you want the public
to see this?
>> In most of these
cases, we click yes,
in some cases, we may say no.
I can imagine some people would
put in, you know, several views
of a skull, maybe in standard
views, would have no use
to a family member but
maybe they're doing it
so anthropologists or dentists
or somebody else can
actually see that.
I'm not sure why
you'd want to do that
but you certainly could
use NamUs for that.
Other people are using NamUs
as their case management tool
and they're putting
all the photographs
for deceased unidentified
person in there.
I'm told storage isn't
a problem so right now,
those additional
space is not an issue.
So you add the image and then
there it goes, that's the image
that they wanted to
make the banner photo
so they selected a facial
ID, and that photograph goes
up to the banner there.
That's the photograph
you'll see when you go to
so as you open up
NamUs on the UP site,
that's the image you'll see and
of course, you'll see number 8,
you could add as many
images as you want.
The radiographs have a
category, the fingerprints
if you want to scan
your fingerprint card
in has a category and so
you really don't even have
to put a caption in
there 'cause it'll put
that title on the image.
So here's what you could
expect if you had a Jane Doe
and you had a whole bunch
of clothing photographs,
you could-- you can
add those in.
So you click one of these
photos, it comes that size,
if you go click the
larger photo again,
it fills up your whole screen.
It's got a nice magnifying
tool on it
so you don't really
have to do close ups.
If you can see the label, if
this were in fact the label,
it's not, it's an
accession number but if
that were the clothing
label, you could just take
that photograph and probably the
magnification tool will allow
you to read that label.
If you want to take
another photograph,
a close up of just the label,
you certainly can do that.
But as you play around
with this,
you can see that you
can save some time just
by putting the one photo
in it and magnifying it.
They gotta be JPEGs, default,
as that images are viewable
by the public so you
have to use this
you have to click the button
off if you don't want people
to see it, if you don't
want the public to see it.
If the skull is available,
FBI will not only do
a facial approximation
but will take a CT scan of
that skull or cranium only
if that's all you have, provide
copies to you if you want.
Great for visualizing
frontal sinuses
and maxillary sinuses,
very nice images.
The only downside I
will say right now
of using the FBI is they
typically have the skull
for about 4 to 6 months.
So they make a 3D image of it.
They use one of those
3D scanners
and they make a plastic
image of the actual skull,
then they do the
approximation on that skull
but apparently it's
their protocol
that they keep the skull,
the actual bone there
until the artists are
done in consultation
with the anthropologists
and they have two
anthropologists now
in the trace evidence
unit there at the FBI.
They keep the skull there
until the final product is done
then they mail the skull back.
You can also use
the Project EDAN,
some of you know Todd Mathews,
a long time user and friend
of NamUs, he has a bunch of
other artists that don't work
for the FBI so if you prefer
not to go to the FBI somebody
at NamUs could put you in
touch with the forensic artist
that would do a nice job.
Again, you submit
it and you have to
the images have to
be appropriate.
Randy, let's say you do a case
and it gets accepted
the next day,
you see it as out there
then you add some images,
you can see them, as I said,
you can see them immediately
as you add them but they
won't go live on the system
until the next day when Dr.
Hanzlick gets another long list
of changes to NamUs cases.
>> Bruce, can I ask you about, what's
the turn around time for the FBI?
>> For what?
>> A facial approximation.
>> About four to
six months, right.
We've done three of them and one
of them got back in four months.
The other two took six and
a bunch of phone calls.
So, you know, we
have a local artist,
we have a couple local artists
in Arizona, they're chomping at
to bit to do this,
they want to do it.
The reason our office is
using the FBI is we've entered
into an agreement with them to
and we've already sent the first
case of an identified person.
They don't know what
she looks like, we do.
So we're doing a little
test to see because I think
as I mentioned before lunch,
these are very realistic-looking
faces but how close they are
to the person, we don't know.
So they've agreed, the artists
have agreed to do a little test
and we're gonna supply
these skulls of known people
that we have pretty good
facial photographs for.
And I don't know how many we'll
have to do but if the first two
or three or four looked
nothing like the actual person,
maybe they'll change
what they're doing
or maybe we'll change
what we're doing.
So if you have somebody
like Betty Pat Gatliff
who you think is better than
anybody else on the planet
at doing these things, I
would say go to that person.
You know, I'm not saying
the FBI does any better job
than the other places
but their
those artists do as good a job
as making the person look real
and alive than I think any
other one that I've seen.
>> Is there a cost for that
service? For the FBI?
>> Free? You have to come
up with a FedEx box and 10
or 20 bucks to ship it and then
they'll pay for the return.
>> Betty Pat is
3 thousand dollars.
>> Oh wow!
Okay well, free versus
3 thousand, you decide.
So documents is pretty
similar to images,
you just make PDF files, you
upload them the same way,
this is-- even though we don't
do this, this is a good way,
a good place to put your
anthropology report if you want
that in there, odontology
report, DNA report as we talked
about earlier, we
don't use it too much.
We're not adding
those at this time.
Again, you want the
public to see it,
I guess that's the most
important box to look
at before you hit Publish.
Now, you can always go back.
If you don't want the public
to see something but you forget
to uncheck that box
and then the next day,
when Randy approves it,
he'd say, "oh my god!"
You just go in there
and delete it.
It'll take a day for it to
be removed but you can get
out in pretty short order.
Nothing is undoable and then
you get this nice little list
under documents of what's
actually in the system.
And same old, same old.
I'm sorry, so you don't
have to use PDFs only,
you could use a variety
of file types.
Police Information Page-- so
this is the page you want to put,
you're gonna have to
click this box here
because when you start a new
case, you need to expand this
so if you click this box
here, and then voila!
You get this page,
and this is a page
where you want the police
contact information.
We don't use particular officers
because the turnover is so high
and many times, it's a beat
patrolman that finds a body
or bones and they
have nothing to do
with the further investigation
but we get the police agency,
we get their police case
number and then we
sometimes, we just
cut and paste what's
in the regular circumstances
on the circumstances page
down here, excuse me,
to the comment section
on the police page, and in
those cases that are sensitive,
that are homicides or possible
homicides, it's under the notes
and circumstances, it's up to
you on which one you want to use.
I'm not sure.
They're both searchable.
Circumstances are
searchable, I'm sure.
Notes, I'm not sure about
so if you want something
to be searchable by the
cops then you could put
in the circumstances box but
this is where you put things
about the ligature and why you
think it might be a homicide
and any other details about
link to another body perhaps.
This is all that stuff
that you'd prefer the
general public not see.
They don't need to
see it, and again,
except for the perpetrator.
It's not gonna make sense
to anybody but that person
and the cops, perhaps.
So we've met the-- I've
made another mistake,
you do have to fill out the
police page so in case
no, no, no, sorry, no.
We got the case minimums met
before after the DNA page,
so which one of these are
Yeah, there's nothing required
on this page, you know.
You don't have to put
anything on this page.
I guess that that's
just a standard,
that asterisk warning is
just a standard on every page
so if you didn't hit
Submit to NamUs back then,
now you can hit Submit
to NamUs now.
So this kind of reiterates
what we're just talking
about if you want to-- oh,
the body parts thing is good
'cause we've had a couple
of dismemberment cases.
This would be a good place
in the police page to talk
about what parts of the body
you have and if you want to talk
about the dismemberment sites,
what kind of tool was used
to dismemberment
dismember that person?
We're searching for the
parts that we don't have
of two dismemberment
cases in our office
so I assume other
agencies are searching
for the parts they don't
have so we might be able
to use the police page as a way
to get that information out.
>> Can I ask you a question?
You are talking about body parts,
[ Inaudible ] skeleton that the
pathologist would use?
>> No, it's pretty much-- if
you have to go back to the
we can do-- we'll pay
more attention to this
in the lab in a minute.
You have things that are
skeletal, only largely skeletal
but then it's kinda just a
regional thing, hands and feet,
so if you didn't have skeleton,
like if we get skeletons
where the hands have been taken
away by critters or chewed
on by critters
so we don't talk
about the individual
skeleta elements,
just the hands and
feet are missing.
Okay, reports page,
probably the most
all three of these are nice.
You can generate case reports,
printable color one-page fliers
and this case chronology report,
this middle one, this is a blow
by blow, date by date, person by
person, minute by minute record
of who's made changes
to your case.
So I will get, for
instance, I get an email,
I got one this morning
that DNA page was changed.
I can just assume Melanie did
it at UNT but I open it up,
I go to the chronology and I see
that Melody Josserand
added some information
to the DNA page yesterday
and it was just approved.
It's good to know, it's good
to check that on occasion,
and if you're ever looking at one
of your cases, and you think,
well I don't remember
putting that in,
go check the case chronology
'cause it's possible someone
like Pete Loomis who has access
to your dental page and Melody
who has access to your DNA page,
they may have made some changes.
But we've had cases before
where things have been removed
and why they were
removed, I'm not sure.
In fact, we have two cases right
now where we're still trying
to find out why that is.
There may be a good
reason for it but we just
you notice that when you pay
close attention to your cases,
especially if it's one or
two cases you're tracking
like this button up here you
can add to case tracking
and then every time
you open up your files,
you have a short list or a
long list of case numbers
that you can immediately
go to and immediately find
so you might want to pay attention
to the case chronology report.
Contacts is pretty simple.
It's the agency that has
jurisdiction over the body.
It's the case manager of the
NamUs case, a person might be
in that same office, might
not be in the same office,
and then it will have the RSA,
the regional systems
administrator, that's somebody
who works for the NamUs staff
and you can always ask questions
of that person or people.
You can always on-- when
you go this page here,
you could go right
and typically this
has the person's name
like this will have my name,
this has your name Angela,
for all the cases you have
in there in your email.
And sometimes families call the
phone number of the MEs office,
is our experience
and sometimes perhaps more
often they send an email.
So I guess we're gonna see here,
we're gonna change
a case manager.
No, we're not gonna change the
case manager but if you wanted
to you could press this button
and you get a list of the 200
or 300 current people.
Kate, you're on the list,
I know, to be case manager
and if you decided that you
want to make somebody else a case
manager, you should let
them know you're gonna do
that and you can do that.
If you want to turn
over like we're going
to turn the whole county
over pretty soon to somebody
in that county, we'll just have
the NamUs administrators take
all of those county cases
in one fall swoop and do it
so we don't have to open
up all 50 or 60 cases
and do it this way but you can
change case manager real easy.
Activities log, this is
under used part of NamUs.
I don't use this
as much as I should
and I encourage you
all not to be like me
and if you make some changes or
have some questions about NamUs,
go ahead and hit the Expand
button here and now you can type
in whatever information
you want.
If you have a question about a
case, if you've had some cases
like ours where it's
the cranium only,
we had it down as John Doe,
and the DNA results come back
and it's not a John,
it's a Jane.
Not only do we just change sex
up on the demographics page,
but for somebody who've might
have been tracking our case,
we go down to the activities log
and say, "based on DNA results,
the sex assessment has been changed from
male to female," to give them
to make them think well,
"this was a male yesterday,"
and let's say someone who
is tracking, you know,
their missing son, and they may
have, you know, 51 possibilities
and we make that change and the
next day they have 50 or 52,
they may think, what's
going on here?
So if they actually
go to that case,
we want to be able
to explain to them.
So that's the extreme example
when we've made a very,
very important change to a case
but anything like that even
if you want to just put the
DNA information there.
This appears on every page,
at the bottom of every page,
the activities log appears
so you have no excuse
for not seeing it, and don't be
like me, use it more than I do
because it's a really good
way to see who's looking
at your cases, who might
be monitoring your cases,
who's maybe changing your cases.
Good feature to use.
And it is indelible
so if you're like me
and you occasionally use it
and you make a mistake,
you can't erase it.
What you have to do is open
it up again and say, "Oh,
the entry right
above, that's a mistake,
here's what I meant to say,"
so I guess that's a good thing,
it's kinda like the
old scientific notes,
do you erase it or do you
just put a line through it
so you just put a line through
it and everybody knows you made
that mistake but
correct-- you corrected it.
The important thing
is we corrected it.
Okay, that's it.
So we'll go right into-- we
can answer questions right now.
I can answer questions
right now then we'll go
into the lab shortly and
we'll actually put a case
or two into NamUs.
If you've done it before,
we can-- got some
we've got some things
with us, some materials
like scanning some documents
that might be more challenging
than putting in another
case for you
but if you've never done it
before, I encourage all of you
to put at least one or two
cases into the UP side.
Yeah, Deborah.
>> I just have one question, not
about the unidentified persons
but about the missing person,
families generally call
up when they're unidentified
and so if they
I want to tell them to, you know,
look into putting their
missing person in NamUs,
who would I direct them to?
How do they go about doing that?
>> There is a-- I
guess we can do this
on the training site, can we?
There's under Resources,
there's a list
of all the regional systems
administrators by state.
And you can send the-- you can
send them there or quite simply,
you could just use the-- you
could just send the question
to them to ask the same, right?
'Cause they had missing
persons
>> Actually it's different. It's
find the missing
>> Find the missing, yeah.
>> If you wanted to, you could
actually direct them to go
to NamUs.gov and instead of
selecting the icon that's
for the Unidentified Remains,
they can select the one that's
for the Missing Persons, and
they can actually register
and they can immediately start
entering their loved one's case.
>> Do wthey have to have filed
a Missing Persons Report?
>> They do.
They have to filed the
Missing Persons Report
so if they have not filed
that then they contact
law enforcement.
If there is trouble
with them being able
to file a missing persons
report, usually not a problem
and with a current case, let's
say, someone's been missing
for 20 years, they may need
they may have more difficulty,
say, for example in a large city
such as New York City
getting an owner, if you will,
for that case for
law enforcement
so there are some
workarounds for that and that's
when your regional
system administrator
on the Missing Persons side, is he
a good resource for that family
and they will help
bridge that gap and find a solution for the problem.
>> I've talked to a lot of people
that do not have internet access,
for a variety of reasons, but,
would they just contact regional manager?
and find a solution for the problem.
>> Yes and the regional
manager person is
they are empowered to enter a
case on the missing person side.
Typically they-- their workflow
doesn't really allow them a lot
of times to do that
>> Right.
>> But we also-- Bruce has
talked about the public
members of public giving you
assistance on this and in some
of the smaller regional states
I had someone enter cases
from the public and then they
sat on the queue while we waited
for law enforcement to hit
the okay to publish them so,
you know it-- we always want
to have the local law
enforcement agency give the
green light before
it goes public
and that's why there can
be a little bit of a delay
but it's well worthwhile
to get the regional system
administrator--now RSS
it's still the regional
administrator on the missing persons
side and they will
get it done.
>> Another common
another common situation,
Deborah,
is that a mother will say,
well, she's in the Doe Network
but she's not in
missing-- not in the NamUs.
So we encourage them
that even though they're
in the Doe Network, get
them into NamUs too.
And if it's true that families
are looking to do something
to move the ball forward,
I think most families
would be amenable
to taking the time to do that.
Now if they're sure based on the
Doe Network description or based
on their knowledge of their
daughter and this person
in NamUs is gonna
be their daughter,
then they may be reluctant
to go through those steps
because an ID might be
imminent but in most cases,
that's not true and the extra
time it takes for them to put it
in NamUs-- and for
no other reason
that the algorithms
can try to come
up with some potential matches.
It gets the family that
takes the time to put a case
on the missing person site
more familiar with the system,
and navigating through the missing
person site, putting that case
in and allows them I
think to maybe appreciate
that the decedent side, the
UP side a little bit better.
>> How do you deal with
families that call you
and they're not necessarily
computer savvy
and they do have internet
access, we have a lot of people
that even they don't have
internet access [inaudible]
or they just don't know how to
navigate through the system.
I mean, there are times
where I'll just sit with
on, you know, on the
phone with them and go
through the website while
they're at their computer
but in terms of just, you know,
is there a video
or something on
>> Yeah, on the front page,
the home page of NamUs,
we'll see that in a minute
and the training site
has that, I'm sure.
Yeah there's videos on
how to use it, what it is,
the history of it
and how to use it.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> Can you not enter
the missing persons?
I mean I can
>> I've looked.
I can do the quick
searches and
>> Right.
>> What have you but I'm not
>> 'Cause I can enter
and then I call Rose
and I'd enter
for this family
and then she changes
herself to Case Manager,
and then she takes it from
there but if I have them
on the phone already or they've
brought me documentation,
dental, 'cause they want me
to prepare it or something,
I gotta take care of it, because
sometimes these families get
frustrated and they'll
never come back
and I don't want to lose them
and they were blown
off at law enforcement.
>> You know, I don't
I haven't done that
yet because I wasn't sure
what the protocol was
and I don't want to
necessarily step
over law enforcement,
that's what you're
>> The law enforcement
doesn't seem
to be actively pursuing I'm trying to
get in the NamUs, is that just
>> Alright.
In some cases, I think
that might be true
but as Kary said, anybody can
start a case once you register
as a missing person but until
it has a police involvement,
vis-a-vis the police report
number, it never gets public,
it can't get published.
So, and families sometimes,
Kary knows better than I do,
families get fooled
into thinking
that because they can
see it when they log on,
everybody can see
it but they can't,
and more importantly perhaps
on that, the search algorithms,
they've been using that case
yet, it's not published,
so you gotta go through all
the hoops to get it published
and then everybody else can see
it so someone like me or you
who has particular Jane
Doe with some features,
you might be searching the
missing person site looking
for those same features
on a Jane Doe
that the mother is
searching the UP side looking
for that same tattoo, so
you want to get those things
into NamUs if possible.
We always encourage
people even if the case is
in the Doe Network or
one of those smaller,
even smaller local
databases of missing persons,
we encourage them to take the
time to put them into NamUs.
>> Can we use this PowerPoint
when we go to present
at our agencies like the
medical examiner in Charleston.
For him, they're doing NCIC,
they're not familiar with this
at all so I'd want to
present it to them.
I mean I can go on the
website to show them.
>> Yeah. You mean can you get a
copy of this actual PowerPoint?
>> Well, I think
we already have it.
>> You have it.
>> Can we use it?
>> You can go to NamUs
academies, I mean, Steve
[ Inaudible Remarks ]
>> Can anybody-- you just
have to log on to use that?
'Cause we all have log-ons at
the NamUs academy website to see
under the resource pages
where all these information goes
but you have it on
your thumb drive?
You have all these
on your thumb drive?
Yeah.
Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely.
Anything you think will
help people to enter cases and
provide accurate information.
[ Inaudible Remarks ]
>> I'd also encourage you and I
can give you a list for Texas,
for any state, but find out
who those five-person teams are
for those of you
that are in states
that are already been covered by
the NamUs academies and I know
for Texas, they use
Roger, the dentist, right?
The dentist out of Dallas?
Who's a-- who's a
>> They have a page,
you can just take
>> Yeah, so they may, you
know, since there are several
of you anthropologists
from Texas, they may want
to add an anthropologist to
their team or it could be
that they all five can't go
to one place for presentation
and they want an anthropologist
so, I know the odontologist
in Dallas where Dana
works, her boss I think,
his name is Roger
and he was the
he was a forensic science
specialist for the State
of Texas when we did the
academy in Albuquerque,
so Texas did not send
an anthropologist.
So some states send an
anthro in that slot,
some states send a
dentist, some a pathologist.
But there's only one slot per
state so that'd be another
and-- so they have access to
since Krista was an attendee
at the training academy in
Saint Louis last summer,
she has access to
all those materials
and those five people
also have passwords
so they could even
get more information.
There's even a demonstration, a
PowerPoint, half an hour long,
specifically for people in Texas
that these five created as part
of the academy so it should
have the kind of stuff
that you guys are more used to.
[ Music ]
