University of Florida Forensics Experts Help in Haiti
Friday, January 15, 2010
By: Kaitlyn Ash, WUFT

January 15, 2010 -- A group of forensic experts from the University of Florida will help with the process of identifying earthquake victims in Haiti. Faculty members headed to the island on Thursday as part of a US government assistance team. Forensic anthropologist Michael Warren, director of the University's Human Identification Lab, says the team's first step will be to set up an assistance center for Haitians with missing family members. "What they need to do is get those people into one central location, find out information about their loved one - male or female, the approximate age, is there any medical or dental history," he says. "They would also at that time ask them to bring in latent exemplars of DNA, in other words, hair brushes, toothbrushes, anything that may retain the DNA of the decedent." Warren expects the identification process to be difficult. He compares it to the challenges faced by forensic experts after the Asian tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.