New Illinois law could help solve missing persons cases
By William Rodriguez
Hundreds of thousands of people are reported missing in the United States every year.
But a new law coming to Illinois could help solve some of those missing persons cases.
The Missing Persons ID Act goes into effect January 1. Under the new law, if law enforcement, coroners or medical examiners have information that could identify human remains, they will be required to enter it into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons Network (NAMUS).
On Friday, Dennis Harker, Founder and Director of the Quad Cities Missing Persons Network, says this could bring closure to a lot of unsolved cases.
After his own son went missing in 2013, Harker has dedicated his life to cracking missing persons cases.
“Whether it’s been one day, or a week, or a year or a decade, the families are always looking for any kind of help they can get,” he said.
And while his own case is closed now, he knows there’s hundreds of thousands of families who are still searching for answers. Which is why he hopes this new Missing Persons ID Act can help.
“Having a law like this enacted is going to mean something to the people,” he said. “It’s going to say somebody cares.”
When asked why we haven’t seen this law until now, Harker says as technology improves, it’s become easier and more affordable to do DNA testing. He added that it’s also because not everyone knows about the national database.
“Even some law enforcement, we’ve talked to some locally and suggested that they do a report to NAMUS and word came back that they had never heard of it before,” said Harker.
But this new law may be able to bridge some of those gaps.
“Until somebody actually enters information that would maybe match the person with a name, then they would still go as unidentified,” he said.
While Harker oversees the Quad Cities Missing Persons Network, he says the answers aren’t always here at home.
“We get contacted a lot by people across the country who say, ‘Can you help me with this case?'”
So the more information available nationwide, the better.
“Having DNA evidence, other evidence, physical description, whatever it is that they find, having that in a national database, will hopefully eventually help somebody connect with missing loved ones,” said Harker.
And hopes with this new law, some of those lost loved ones will finally be found.
“They’ve never given up hope of finding that person, so this might give them that one last chance that they have.”
