ABSTRACT
Long-term UHR investigations may span multiple jurisdictions across the country over multiple decades, and involve all ages, sexes, and ethnicities. Use of the term “race” is strongly discouraged in such investigations because cold hit associations have revealed numerous inconsistencies between the race of an individual in life and analytical information about his or her remains after death. A cold hit is an association (usually via CODIS or NGI) between a missing person’s DNA profile or a biological family member DNA profile and a DNA profile or fingerprints from unidentified remains that has been made without any investigative link between submitting agencies. Most DNA identifications are warm hits that result from investigators’ diligence or from leads (usually) provided by family members.
