NCJ Number
222140
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 53 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2008 Pages: 8-15
Date Published
January 2008
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the methods used and problems encountered by the Pima County (Arizona) Office of the Medical Examiner in identifying illegal migrants who died in the course of crossing the U.S. border with Mexico through the Sonoran Desert, whose temperatures are dangerously high in the summer months.
Abstract
The combined effects of a dry, hot environment and the remoteness of some of the routes used by illegal border crossers can quickly render a person who dies in this environment unidentifiable by visual means. The Office of the Medical Examiner uses two levels of identification, "positive" and "circumstantial." For a positive identification to occur there must be one of two scenarios. Someone who knows the decedent provides the means of identification, usually through visual recognition of the face; or a qualified medico-legal investigator conducts a point-by-point comparison of antemortem and postmortem records. Some examples of such record comparisons are dental and medical radiographic films, comparisons of fingerprints, and comparisons of nuclear DNA profiles. For a circumstantial identification to be achieved, all consistencies between the decedent and the presumptive person are noted, and no unexplained inconsistencies can exist, the greater the number of consistencies that exist, the greater the confidence in the identification. The typical decedent characterized by the Office of the Medical Examiner is an undocumented border crosser (UBC) is a Mexican National between 21 and 30 years old, three times more likely to be male, and who is only identified 73 percent of the time. This compares with close to 100 percent of identifications for deceased American citizens processed by the Office of the Medical Examiner. 10 figures, 3 tables, and 11 references