Our 11 days in Texas flew by quickly. It seems like we were just packing our bags to go and now we are already heading home. While our time there was short I feel like we accomplished a lot and made the most of our time. I am very proud of our UIndy team and, as always, inspired by our friends in Texas that work towards positive change on a daily basis.
I hope that’s not our luggage left forgotten on the tarmac
We started our time at Texas State University assisting members of Operation Identification with skeletal analyses. While there, teams from UIndy and Texas State University completed forensic anthropological analyses on 17 individuals. Next we drove to Houston to participate in Missing in Harris County Day. While there we worked with volunteers from a variety of organizations to collect missing persons reports and educate the community regarding the processes of exhumation and identification. We spent the last leg of our trip in Falfurrias. We helped sister Pam make cloth bags for the Sacred Heart Humanitarian Respite Center, assisted the Forensic Border Colaition in mapping cemeteries in two counties and helped Eddie at the South Texas Human Rights Center to build, repair and fill water stations. If we were able to help just one person with our actions than we were successful.
But our work is not over. We have case reports to complete, case files to manage and plans to make, to name just a few tasks. We will continue to post daily blogs over the next week or so as we reflect upon our most recent trip to Texas. Thank you for reading and please feel free to share to bring awareness to this crisis on our border.
Helen: Today our team participated in Missing in Harris County day. This was a really exciting opportunity for me as I’m used to being objective and distant from the families I want to help. We arrived early this morning to help set-up for the event, and then began to prepare for our respective duties. Originally Amanda and I were designated as greeters, but since there were so many volunteers, we ended up helping those who were conducting interviews for intake. My computer became the central hub for all intake and consent forms, photos, and documents from the event today. Once an interview was completed, I would receive their intake forms and any other documents that needed to be scanned. Amanda would then scan the documents and I would create a folder with the missing individual’s name to hold all of the items.
Amanda and I greeting families as they enter
While families were going through the welcome orientation and first starting their interviews, I worried that I wasn’t contributing enough to the event, as I had nothing to do but wait. However, after an hour or two, I was constantly uploading scanned documents, saving files, and trying to keep it all organized without time for a break. At the end of the day, I combined all of the individual’s folders into one and handed them off to Ryan Strand. At first I was nervous I wasn’t helping enough, but by the end of the day I felt like I had made the interviewer’s jobs much easier by being a central location for them to bring their forms, so that they could better attend to their families. Having the opportunity to work with these families reminded me of why I’m so passionate about helping these people find their loved ones. I am really thankful that we got to help today, and I hope that the information gained from this event will help find and identify more missing individuals.
Our work station
Amanda: My role at Missing in Harris County Day was assisting Helen in organizing the intake files. I handled documents, pictures, and consent forms that needed to be scanned and added to the intake files. I stayed mostly in my one little area of the room scanning papers, but everywhere else around me was an explosion of noise and movement. There were families talking to the intake volunteers, different organization representatives were walking around and helping out, documents were changing hands, and kids were running around. It was slow in the beginning, but then it picked up and it was non-stop work. I didn’t have an important job, but I was glad that I could be useful in some way.
The best and most rewarding part of my day was the kids. Several of the families that came in to report their missing family members brought their children with them. Kids are magic, they can take a tense and emotional moment and make you smile and laugh. There were two little kids, a brother and a sister, that got bored during the intake process and came over to see what I was doing. At the time, my work was slowing down and I decided to help keep them occupied. I taught them how to use the scanner, which they found endlessly entertaining. They were adorable and full of energy. We had a lot of fun and they made so many people in the room smile. I guess this was another job I did. Keeping kids occupied, so that their other family members could do the intake without having to worry about keeping an eye on them. I’m glad I got a chance to participate in this event. Hopefully, the information collected today will help reunite families with their missing loved ones.
Today marks the last day of skeletal analyses at Texas State. Our time in San Marcos seemed to fly by. The majority of our time here has been spent creating biological profiles for the individuals exhumed from Sacred Heart Cemetery (where my journey originally started). The creation of the biological profile is an essential part of the identification process. We use our knowledge of the human skeleton to discern what physical characteristics a person would have had during life. The biological profile includes traits like age, sex, ancestry, and stature. These trait are generally pretty vague. If I use myself as an example, I would be described as a white male between the ages of 25-40, and somewhere between 5’6” and 6’2”. While I match that description, it also describes a whole gaggle of other people. In order to positively identify someone, we need to be more specific. To do this we try to find anything that may be individualizing, for example we record dentition and past health and injuries. We also collect skeletal DNA samples so we can match them to family reference samples.
Helen Measuring up
Usually this is a slow and arduous process. In our lab in Indiana, the careful construction of a biological profile is a teaching process. Since we are part of the University, our students learn this process as we offer our services to police and coroners throughout the state. Each methodically crafted profile can take days, or sometimes longer (like if it is finals week). Luckily, every time we come to Texas we bring our most highly trained students, like Helen and Amanda, which greatly speeds up the process. Sometimes, they even let me tag along.
We also have the added benefit of working alongside the amazing people of Texas State University. The two teams have completed a total of 17 skeletal analyses over the course of a week. This is an astronomical accomplishment. It has been my honor and pleasure to work with such an amazing cast of players. I could not have asked for a more intelligent and talented group of people.
After the last skeleton was analyzed this morning, we all drove to Houston. Today we had a meeting to prepare for tomorrow’s “Missing in Harris County Day”, where we discussed the forms and procedures for the event. I will be one of the people collecting information from families who are missing loved ones. The information gathered here will be compared to data from other sources, like the biological profiles that we have been creating, and with any luck we can help friends and families find closure. While I am nervous for tomorrow’s event, I look forward to contributing my small part.
