OLYMPIA, WA – In a groundbreaking move to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and people, Washington State’s Attorney General, Bob Ferguson, has announced a significant step forward. Thanks to his office’s relentless efforts, the Legislature has approved a substantial budget of $500,000. This funding is earmarked for conducting genetic genealogy and DNA testing on every single unidentified remain in the state’s backlog.
Presently, 163 unidentified remains lie in wait in Washington, each representing a cold case, an unsolved mystery, a family in waiting. With this new funding, state and federal DNA testing resources will receive a much-needed supplement. This means that the agonizing delays endured by families seeking closure and answers could soon be a thing of the past, as these cases are brought to resolution more swiftly.
The initiative is not just a bureaucratic victory but a deeply personal one, propelled by the Attorney General’s Office and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force. Convened by Ferguson in 2021, this task force, comprising leaders and activists, has been at the forefront of advocating for these funds. Their report in December 2023 was a clarion call to the Legislature, highlighting the urgent need for clearing the backlog and using DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy as potent tools for bringing peace to families of missing Indigenous persons.
Ferguson’s commitment to this cause is evident.
“Timely DNA testing can bring a measure of closure and help solve more cold cases,” he said. He expressed his gratitude to the partners in the Legislature, notably Rep. Lekanoff, Rep. Stearns, and Sen. Kauffman, among others, who have championed this cause tirelessly.
The plight of Patricia Whitefoot, a task force member who waited 14 years for the identification of her sister Daisy Mae Heath’s remains, underscores the necessity of this funding. Whitefoot’s story is a poignant reminder of the human cost of bureaucratic delays and underfunding.
The 2024 budget will allocate these new resources to the Washington State Patrol, aiding local jurisdictions in testing all unidentified remains. In cases where initial DNA testing fails to identify the remains, funds will be available for forensic genetic genealogy, a revolutionary method combining DNA testing with genealogical research using publicly available ancestry data.
The primary hurdle for law enforcement agencies in employing these sophisticated identification methods has been cost. With individual DNA testing at approximately $2,500 and forensic genetic genealogy at around $8,000, these expenses have been prohibitive. However, the new budget allocation aims to bridge this gap, providing a lifeline to numerous unsolved cases.
While the state Crime Lab handles DNA testing for local law enforcement, and the Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative funds both DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy testing at private labs, there have been limitations. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) offers free DNA testing for some unidentified remains, but it too has faced delays and eligibility constraints.
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force, a central player in this development, began as a recommendation. It’s a group of 23 members, including national leaders in addressing the crisis of violence against Indigenous people. The task force’s work has been instrumental in enacting several Attorney General Request bills into law.
Significant strides have been made, such as the launch of a statewide alert system in 2022 to help locate missing Indigenous women and people – a first of its kind in the nation. In 2023, the Legislature established a Cold Case Investigations Unit focusing on missing and murdered Indigenous women and people, a unit now fully operational with a chief investigator and additional staff.
Beyond the allocation for genetic genealogy testing, the task force’s 2023 report also recommended establishing a state work group to develop best practices for collecting Indigenous demographic data, vital for tackling racial misclassification issues in these cases.
The task force also advised the creation of a nationwide Missing Indigenous Persons Alert system, taking inspiration from Washington’s pioneering 2022 system.
These developments come in the backdrop of disturbing statistics. Indigenous women and people experience disproportionately high rates of violence. The national Centers for Disease Control & Prevention notes that homicide is alarmingly high among Indigenous demographics. The Attorney General’s Office data reveals that Indigenous victims constitute 5% of unresolved cases in Washington, while only making up less than 2% of the population.
The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates that there are approximately 4,200 unsolved cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people. A 2018 report from the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle found that Washington had the second-highest number of cases in the country.
