Modern Crime-Solving Methods vs. the Mystery of World War II Deaths

DNA-based techniques that have successfully tracked down elusive serial killers may soon be used to help identify thousands of American service members “known but to God.”

South of Rome, an American military cemetery has a grave that is thought to contain a young Army private named Melton Futch. But the white marble marker reads only, “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.” It is one of some 6,000 graves of American troops killed in World War II whom the military was not able to identify with the technology of the time. Today, of course, there is DNA analysis. Increasingly sophisticated techniques make it possible to obtain, even from bones that may have deteriorated for decades, a unique genomic profile that can reliably confirm their identity.