New York officials identify remains of two 9/11 victims
The remains of two victims killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 have been identified days before the 22nd anniversary, according to New York City officials.
A man and a woman, whose names are being withheld at the request of their families, are the latest to be positively identified by the city’s coroner’s office, Mayor Eric Adams’ office, in a decades-long effort to return the victims to their families announced on Friday.
The two are the 1,648th. or 1,649. Victim identified by the ME through a painstaking process using DNA sequencing on human remains recovered from the rubble of the Lower Manhattan attack that killed 2,753 people.
They are the first clearly identified victims since 2021.
“More than 20 years after the disaster, these two new identifications continue to fulfill a solemn promise by the OCME to return the remains of World Trade Center victims to their families,” said Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jason Graham in a statement.
“As we face the largest and most complex forensic investigation in our nation’s history, we remain steadfast in our mission to leverage the latest advances in science to deliver on that promise,” he added.
After years of negative DNA results, OCME recently began using the U.S. military’s most advanced, highly sensitive sequencing technology to identify the remains of missing American service members, which has resulted in more positive identifications.
Similar efforts are underway to identify body fragments of the more than 100 people killed in the Maui wildfires last month.
The coroner’s office confirmed the man’s identity through DNA testing of the remains recovered in 2001. The woman’s identification was confirmed through DNA testing of remains recovered in 2001, 2006 and 2013.
OCME has identified approximately 1,104 victims since the attacks.
A shocking 40% of those who died remain unknown.
More than 1,000 remains are currently stored at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on the site of the World Trade Center.
With post wires
