Twenty-four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) on Thursday announced three new identifications of World Trade Center victims.
Ryan Fitzgerald of Floral Park, N.Y., Barbara Keating of Palm Springs, Calif., and an adult woman whose name is being withheld at the request of her family are the 1,651st, 1,652nd and 1,653rd victims positively identified through DNA analysis, OCME said in their announcement.
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The tally represents little more than half of the 2,753 people killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and are the first new victims identified since January 2024, according to OCME.
The three new victim identifications were the result of “ongoing outreach to families for DNA reference samples,” the announcement said, which were then analyzed by OCME using advanced DNA technology and compared to the victims’ remains, which were recovered in 2001 and 2002.
“The pain of losing a loved one in the September 11th terror attacks echoes across the decades, but with these three new identifications, we take a step forward in comforting the family members still aching from that day,” said New York Mayor Eric Adams in a statement.
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“Nearly 25 years after the disaster at the World Trade Center, our commitment to identify the missing and return them to their loved ones stands as strong as ever,” said Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jason Graham. “Each new identification testifies to the promise of science and sustained outreach to families despite the passage of time. We continue this work as our way of honoring the lost.”
Some 1,100 victims of the 9/11 attacks, representing roughly 40% of those who died that day, remain unidentified, according to OCME.
