25 Years Later, New DNA Technology Offers Hope for Identifying 1,000+ 9/11 Victims

Juliette Scauso was four years old when her father, Dennis, a New York City firefighter with twelve years in the hazmat unit, switched shifts on September 11, 2001, to pick up overtime pay. He was likely in the South Tower when it collapsed. All she has held onto for a quarter-century is his mangled helmet, badge number still visible. "I've spent essentially my entire life knowing my father died, and learning to live with the fact that we never recovered him," she said.

Dennis Scauso is one of more than 1,000 people killed at the World Trade Center that day who remain unidentified. Nearly 3,000 died in the attacks across New York. For twenty-five years, the city's medical examiner office has pursued identification with whatever tools science could provide—fingerprints, dental records, DNA. The work has been relentless and, by any measure, extraordinary. Sixty percent of the 2,753 victims who died at the towers have now been identified. But the remaining cases have grown harder, not easier, as the decades pass.

Last month, the city announced it had identified its 1,654th victim using a technology called forensic investigative genetic genealogy, or FIGG. The method works by sequencing a victim's entire genetic code, then searching for matches not just to immediate family but to distant relatives. Once those connections are made, investigators narrow the circle, working backward to confirm identity. Angela Soler, director of forensic anthropology at the medical examiner's office, called it a genuine breakthrough. "There is real promise in using this approach," she said. "There's hope for more families to receive answers."

The identification effort has been complicated by the sheer violence of what happened. Jet fuel fires and the force of the plane impacts damaged remains so severely that investigators often had only fragments to work with. Firefighters, changing shifts that morning, grabbed whatever gear was at hand—some were recovered wearing uniforms with other men's names stitched inside. The World Trade Center site held far more victims than the Pentagon or the Shanksville crash site, where identification proved more complete. At the Pentagon, five of 184 people were never identified. All forty aboard United 93 were eventually named.

Since the attacks, the medical examiner's office has preserved remains carefully, sealed and stored to protect DNA for future testing. As technology evolved—from fingerprints and dental records to DNA extraction to whole genome sequencing—the office retested the same remains again and again. Each advance opened new possibilities. "That's why all these years down the road, we're still getting new identifications, because we're just continuing to retest and retry with every new technology that becomes available," Soler explained. DNA alone has led to the identification of 1,495 victims, some through genetic evidence alone, others through multiple methods combined.

Last year, the city announced three new identifications made twenty-four years after the attacks: Ryan Fitzgerald, a twenty-six-year-old currency trader; Barbara Keating, seventy-two, who was aboard American Airlines Flight 11; and a woman whose family chose to keep her identity private. Each identification is both a resolution and a reopening. The medical examiner's office still receives calls every week from people asking about someone whose remains were never found.

Some families have chosen to leave their loved ones' remains at a repository built into the bedrock beneath the 9/11 memorial site, accessible only to medical examiner staff. A nearby reflection room allows families to grieve at the place where their relatives spent their final moments. Others have not been able to bury anyone at all. Some families have asked not to be notified if remains are identified, fearing the confirmation will shatter the fragile equilibrium they have built over decades. Scauso understands this impulse. She has watched others receive the call. The thought of being next terrifies her. "At this point, an identification wouldn't change the reality of his death," she said. "It wouldn't give me back my father, and I don't necessarily want to reopen something that has become part of the way I've learned to live and grieve."

Yet Soler has witnessed the other side of this equation. For many families, formal identification closes a chapter, even if it also stirs old pain. "It's confirmation of something that they always knew to be true," she said. "But I think for many families, there's still that question in the back of their mind until the remains are formally identified." Soler and some of her colleagues were at Ground Zero when the planes hit, when the towers fell. They know it is unlikely every victim will ever be identified—some may have left no remains at all. But they have committed to continuing as long as families are searching. "As long as there's families looking for answers, we'll continue searching for them," Soler said.