Medical Examiner’s Office

The New York Times reports that the FBI and the New York City medical examiner’s office have identified the remains of 13 of the 9/11 hijackers. The remains are still in their custody because no one has claimed them (see Summer 2002). The FBI holds the remains of the nine hijackers who took over Flight 77 and Flight 93, which were recovered from the Pentagon and Shanksville crash sites. The identity of the remains was established indirectly. First, investigators identified the victims using DNA profiles provided by relatives. Those remains that could not be matched to any profile were assumed to belong to the hijackers. The New York City medical examiner’s office also has the remains of four hijackers recovered from the World Trade Center site. A DNA profile for each of the 10 hijackers who took part in the New York attacks was established by the FBI from recovered personal items, such as luggage and cigarette butts left in a rental car. The FBI then supplied these profiles to the medical examiner’s office but without naming them. Therefore, the examiner’s office could only match the four recovered sets of remains but could not identify them by name. Both the FBI and the medical examiner’s office refuse to disclose where exactly the remains are being kept. [New York Times, 9/21/2008; Newsweek, 1/12/2009]