WASHINGTON — Lorenia Ton visits the morgues of southern Arizona searching for clues among the unclaimed bodies and belongings of people who tried to cross the desert.
Sometimes it is a phone number written inside a pants leg, or a piece of paper sewn into a backpack. Other times there are family photos, images of saints or love letters.
“Sometimes we cannot find anything,” said Ton, whose job at the Mexican consulate in Tucson involves helping identify the remains and return them to Mexico.
To confirm the IDs, the consulate sends DNA samples to Bode Technology Group Inc., a private lab in Lorton, Va., outside Washington, as part of a project that has brought closure to dozens of families and countless relatives on both sides of the dangerous border.
The remains that Bode receives mainly come from Arizona. In that state, deaths of illegal immigrants rose over the summer, despite many who thought the state’s new law cracking down on immigration would send people elsewhere along the border.
In Mexico, families enter their loved ones into a vast missing-persons database, which includes details such as people’s clothes, dental records and any tattoos.
If officials find a name with the bodies, they run it through the database. If the body is still recognizable, Ton sends a photo to the family. If the body is not too decomposed, officials can run the fingerprints with U.S. border authorities and see whether that person had been deported before.
Based on those leads, the consulate makes presumptive identifications. It’s Ton’s job to contact the relatives.
“The first thing is they start crying, sometimes they scream, sometimes they hang up on me,” she says. “I have to try again.”
But DNA testing is needed for final confirmation.
Sarah Bettinger, a senior DNA analyst at Bode, wears goggles, gloves and a mask when she sands the outside of the bone samples to clean the surface. From there, she pulverizes the bone into a powder and then extracts genetic material to create a profile.
Bettinger says this project hits closer to home than others. “We’re lending a hand to people across the border,” she said. “It is very rewarding when we do find out that somebody has been identified.”
