The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) is the nation’s only centralized federal program that provides forensic, investigative, and analytical services to resolve long-term missing and unidentified decedent cases. NamUs provides a unified and secure database for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed persons records, allowing for searching, cross-matching, and sharing of case records. It is NamUs’ mission to identify unknown human decedent cases and resolve long-term missing and unclaimed person cases by providing technology, forensic services, and investigative support to criminal justice agencies. Since the inception of the NamUs program, 61,492 missing, unidentified, and unclaimed NamUs cases have been resolved. More than 11,300 of these identifications were indicated to have been made through DNA (Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) associations or direct DNA comparisons), forensic genetic genealogy, dental, fingerprint, anthropological, or radiograph comparisons. Because NamUs cases are publicly viewable, resolutions can also occur through assistance from the general public and families of the missing. In fact, over 50 cases have been resolved by NamUs through family recognition of their loved ones’ photograph or images of their personal effects in the 2024 fiscal year.
The NamUs database is operated and maintained by NIJ through a contract managed by the Office of Justice Programs’ Office of the Chief Information Officer. NamUs program operations are managed by NIJ’s Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences.
This annual report summarizes the NamUs program highlights from the 2024 government fiscal year (FY24; October 1, 2023 – September 30, 2024). It details metrics collected and analyzed from case entries, forensic service requests (received and completed), workload of key program staff, and general programmatic updates.