9/11 Victim Identified After Almost 17 Years

DNA advances helped investigators ID bone fragment
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 26, 2018 3:11 AM CDT
9/11 Victim Identified After Almost 17 Years
The Tribute in Light is seen in the sky above the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.   (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Advances in DNA testing have helped investigators identify the remains of one more victim of the 9/11 attacks—the 1,642nd to be identified, and the first in almost a year. A bone fragment that investigators had attempted to identify several times over the years has been confirmed as belonging to Scott Michael Johnson, a 26-year-old financial analyst who worked on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower, the New York Daily News reports. He was one of 67 Keefe Bruyette & Woods employees to die that day.

The bone fragment was identified with the help of new DNA technology that can identify samples that have degraded in the almost 17 years since the attacks. Mother Ann Johnson, 71, is glad the medical examiner's office kept its promise to never stop trying to identify all 2,753 victims. "Having said that, it's also made me cry and when I told our daughter, we sat there and both cried," she tells the New York Times. "You get pulled right back into it and it also means there’s a finality. Somehow I always thought he would just walk up and say, 'Here I am. I had amnesia.'" (Another victim was identified in August last year, but the man's family chose to withhold his name.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X