August 1, 2024 • 13 mins
Her job is something you might see a TV series like CSI, Bega's Professor Jodie Ward is a DNA forensic 'match-maker for the missing', helping police locate missing people and finding closure for their families.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Higher, fast out ghost.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Every deceased Australian has equal opportunity to be identified and
reunited with their family. It shouldn't depend on where you died.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
God A, I'm James Fantasy. Our guest for this episode
is one of Bega's most brilliant minds, with the fascinating
title of Forensic Human Identification Specialist sounds like something straight
out of CSI Right. Professor Jody Ward is a DNA
matchmaker for the dead, though she calls our unknown Australians
(00:35):
people whose remains have sat in labs for years and
even decades without a name. Dr Ward uses data and
science to reunite these unidentified human remains with their families
and as we acknowledge missing persons week, the work that
doctor Ward does is a key step to possibly bring
enclosure to families who've had loved ones go missing and
(00:58):
fear the worst. But it could have been a very
different career path for a teenage Jody. Back in year
ten at Bega High School, a work experienced stint at
a local vet saw her quickly realized she was just
too emotional around sick or hurt animals. But the science
bug had bitten Jody hard. Her study eventually led to
a PhD in forensic genetics, a prestigious Churchill scholarship, and
(01:22):
later a key role in establishing the national DNA Program
for Unidentified and Missing Persons, and all of this amazing
success while raising her young family.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, I guess I could only do what I have
done because of my family, you know, both my partner
and my children, as well as my parents and my
sisters and friends that surround me. So I'm very lucky
to have that support. Going on the Churchill Fellowship looked
like six weeks of independent travel, which meant leaving a
(01:56):
you know, I think an eighteen month old and a
ten month old at home with my to look after
while I was doing that, And so yeah, it has
involved a lot of time. But you know, for me,
I find this extremely rewarding. And I kind of felt
that no one was really focusing in on this issue,
and as a scientist, I could see how forensic science
(02:16):
applied to this. You know what, I caught a social
justice issue at the time. I knew we could solve cases.
It just needed some funding and the support to do that.
Because forensic science has evolved so much, you know, even
over the last decade. If we think about it, some
of these cases have had no forensic testing at all.
(02:39):
Some of these cases might have had a little bit
of forensic testing based on what was available at the
time they were recovered, and others had actually had quite
a large array of forensic testing, but we're still unidentified.
So they were perfect candidates to apply some of these
more emerging forensic techniques too. So it was really about
(02:59):
trying to centralize the capability somewhere in Australia with the resources,
with the experts that needed, and we have shown through
this program that we can resolve cases this way.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Earlier this year you've received a Public Service medal for
your leadership as a part of that AFP National DNA
Program for Unidentified Missing Persons. Can you tell us a
bit about what you achieved in the program.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, So the program ran for four years and finished
a few months back. We received in the end about
one hundred sets of unidentified human remains, and just to
put that in context, there are about seven hundred and
fifty unidentified human remains in Australia, spread across all all
(03:44):
states and territories, and we wanted to apply contemporary forensic techniques,
so existing techniques as well as some brand new ones
that we were able to introduce to Australia. To some
of these seven hundred and fifty sets of remains, tom
if they could be any of the two and a
half thousand long term missing people we have in Australia.
(04:07):
And a long term missing person is categorized as someone
which has been missing for longer than three months. And
the cases we were examining some date back to the
mid nineteen hundreds, so that's both long term missing person's
cases as well as these unidentified human remains cases. So
some families have been waiting decades for answers, and so
(04:31):
of the one hundred cases we received in the program,
we were able to resolve about half of them. What
does resolution mean? For some of these cases? We were
able to identify about twenty sets of these remains as
a long term missing person, So this included people that
had been missing for only a few years and others
(04:52):
which had been missing for decades. It also included our
unknown sailor that ha had died and was the only
person found from the nineteen forty one thinking of HMAS Sydney,
so that was a real privilege for us to be
able to apply our DNA techniques to both missing persons
(05:15):
cases as well as you know, some of our fallen servicemen.
So that was about twenty sets of remains as missing people,
and then for the other thirty or so cases that
looked like us being able to confirm remains which were historical,
so older than one hundred years old, and once they
kind of hit that time period, they are no longer
(05:38):
fall under the jurisdiction of the coroner, so they're deemed
to be a historical case. We also were able to
scientifically determine quite a number to be the ancestral remains
of our First Nations people, so then they're able to
be managed appropriately and repatriated as well, and some were
deemed to be medical specimens or non human specimens. We
(06:00):
were able to close, you know, about fifty or so cases,
which meant some famili's got answers, and for some investigators
it meant closing those cases so they could focus on
some of the other cases that were able to generate
DNA profiles from but haven't.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yet stay where us. More of our conversation soon with
Professor Jody Ward, including how our own genetic curiosity via
websites like ancestry dot Com can provide critical info to
help identify our unknown Australians. I art Far South Coast,
(06:37):
i art Far South Coast. Back now to our conversation
with doctor Jody Ward, born and bred in Beager and
now a recognized world leader in the intriguing field of
forensic human identification. But doctor Ward says she's driven as
much by helping the living as she is the dead.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, and I think that's my biggest driver. It's when
you speak with these families. You meet these families, for
many of them, it's about getting answers. And you know, unfortunately,
by the time someone is considering participating in a program
like the National DNA Program, there has to be some
(07:16):
acknowledgment that their missing loved one may be deceased, because
our job is to try and put a name to
that unknown deceased person. So for many families, you know,
coming forward and providing a DNA sample for us to
include on our database to compare to the DNA profiles
we're generating from these remains can be quite a traumatizing
(07:38):
process in itself. But for many they want to know
if is their loved one one of these sets of
remains sitting in a box on a shelf somewhere in
many cases for decades. And I think the biggest realization
for me is that for many of the people that
we did identify, they were never reported missing. And I
(07:59):
still can't than this somewhat. And so a lot of
the focus of our program was around this public messaging
to say, you know, if you have a loved one
that was missing, whether they've only been missing for a
few years or a few decades, regardless of the passage
of time, we need to know that your loved one
is missing, because unless the police know, there is no
(08:21):
one out there collecting the DNA samples, collecting the dental records,
collecting the medical records. All of this information we need
sitting on our national databases so that when we do
uncover a set of remains and we obtain a DNA profile,
if there are teeth present, we can record their dental chart,
(08:41):
we can upload it to the databases we do have
access to to search against the records of all the
missing people we're aware of. And it's only until we
get those databases filled with the right data can we more.
I guess effectively and efficiently match unidentified to missing people.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
It's just unimaginable how much of a harrowing experience it
must be for a loved one to go missing. These
families are often just trying their best to find answers,
but are often unable to. What is it that makes
you Jody care so much about their plight?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, I've often got asked this question, and you know,
it's not like I have a personal story necessarily with missingness,
but I don't think many people. Well, when I first
learned in twenty eleven of the hundreds of unknown Australians
we have sitting on shelves, I was amazed by that
kind of statistic And as a forensic scientist, I could
(09:43):
see how we have these amazing forensic techniques that weren't
being applied to these sets of remains, and you could
see other countries taking initiatives getting results, and why weren't
we doing that here in Australia. And so I think
it's about in showing that every deceased Austrayian has equal
(10:04):
opportunity to be identified and reunited with their family. It
shouldn't depend on where you died. It shouldn't depend on
whether that local forensic lab has forensic investigative genetic genealogy
capabilities or not, or whether they have, you know, the
ten thousand dollars to send that DNA off shore to
(10:25):
get testing. So I think there was so much scope
in this country for us to be leading the way
in applying these new techniques to the hundreds of cases
we had. And you know, I now am convinced that
the process works. We've shown that, but unfortunately, now the
programs ended, the federal funding has been exhausted. So for me,
(10:46):
now my mission hasn't stopped. You know, I promised families
that we would I would do anything and everything I
could to ensure that we had exhausted every option so
they knew that they loved one wasn't sitting archived somewhere
on a shelf in a mortuary. So for now, I'm
(11:06):
again back to this point of thinking outside of the box.
You know, where can this funding come from? Who can
do the testing? Does it have to be a government lab?
Can it be an independent So again I think there's
more that we can do as a community to try
and resolve these cases, and forensic investigative genetic genealogy is
the perfect example of how citizen forensic science at its best.
(11:30):
That technique only works if someone like yourself takes your
ancestry DNA profile, moves it to GEDMatch, and allows us
to search an unknown human remains profile against it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
For someone who's just received news that a loved one
has gone missing, or perhaps they knew someone who went
missing a while back, what steps do you recommend they take?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So I think to reiterate that if you do have
a missing loved one, that you formally report their disappearance
to the police. You provide a DNA reference sample to
the police. You share everything you know or can remember
about your missing loved one, so things like who their
(12:17):
dentist was, whether you have you know as a mother,
you keep all your children's X rays and baby teeth
and locks of hair and things at home. All of
those medical information and biological specimens. They can all be
used by a forensic team to help try and locate
(12:39):
and identify a missing loved one if unfortunately they have
died and their remains are located in the future.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
The fascinating work of Professor Jodi Ward. We have another
episode with doctor Ward next time, and in it. She
explains how one of the South coasts most notorious and
unsolved missing persons cases has shaped her work in forensic
science and her perspective as a mother. That's our Heart
Far South Coast for now proudly supported by the new
South Wales Government. I'm James fantasy catch. Next time, I
(13:14):
Heart Far South Coast
Higher, fast out ghost.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Every deceased Australian has equal opportunity to be identified and
reunited with their family. It shouldn't depend on where you died.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
God A, I'm James Fantasy. Our guest for this episode
is one of Bega's most brilliant minds, with the fascinating
title of Forensic Human Identification Specialist sounds like something straight
out of CSI Right. Professor Jody Ward is a DNA
matchmaker for the dead, though she calls our unknown Australians
(00:35):
people whose remains have sat in labs for years and
even decades without a name. Dr Ward uses data and
science to reunite these unidentified human remains with their families
and as we acknowledge missing persons week, the work that
doctor Ward does is a key step to possibly bring
enclosure to families who've had loved ones go missing and
(00:58):
fear the worst. But it could have been a very
different career path for a teenage Jody. Back in year
ten at Bega High School, a work experienced stint at
a local vet saw her quickly realized she was just
too emotional around sick or hurt animals. But the science
bug had bitten Jody hard. Her study eventually led to
a PhD in forensic genetics, a prestigious Churchill scholarship, and
(01:22):
later a key role in establishing the national DNA Program
for Unidentified and Missing Persons, and all of this amazing
success while raising her young family.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, I guess I could only do what I have
done because of my family, you know, both my partner
and my children, as well as my parents and my
sisters and friends that surround me. So I'm very lucky
to have that support. Going on the Churchill Fellowship looked
like six weeks of independent travel, which meant leaving a
(01:56):
you know, I think an eighteen month old and a
ten month old at home with my to look after
while I was doing that, And so yeah, it has
involved a lot of time. But you know, for me,
I find this extremely rewarding. And I kind of felt
that no one was really focusing in on this issue,
and as a scientist, I could see how forensic science
(02:16):
applied to this. You know what, I caught a social
justice issue at the time. I knew we could solve cases.
It just needed some funding and the support to do that.
Because forensic science has evolved so much, you know, even
over the last decade. If we think about it, some
of these cases have had no forensic testing at all.
(02:39):
Some of these cases might have had a little bit
of forensic testing based on what was available at the
time they were recovered, and others had actually had quite
a large array of forensic testing, but we're still unidentified.
So they were perfect candidates to apply some of these
more emerging forensic techniques too. So it was really about
(02:59):
trying to centralize the capability somewhere in Australia with the resources,
with the experts that needed, and we have shown through
this program that we can resolve cases this way.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Earlier this year you've received a Public Service medal for
your leadership as a part of that AFP National DNA
Program for Unidentified Missing Persons. Can you tell us a
bit about what you achieved in the program.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, So the program ran for four years and finished
a few months back. We received in the end about
one hundred sets of unidentified human remains, and just to
put that in context, there are about seven hundred and
fifty unidentified human remains in Australia, spread across all all
(03:44):
states and territories, and we wanted to apply contemporary forensic techniques,
so existing techniques as well as some brand new ones
that we were able to introduce to Australia. To some
of these seven hundred and fifty sets of remains, tom
if they could be any of the two and a
half thousand long term missing people we have in Australia.
(04:07):
And a long term missing person is categorized as someone
which has been missing for longer than three months. And
the cases we were examining some date back to the
mid nineteen hundreds, so that's both long term missing person's
cases as well as these unidentified human remains cases. So
some families have been waiting decades for answers, and so
(04:31):
of the one hundred cases we received in the program,
we were able to resolve about half of them. What
does resolution mean? For some of these cases? We were
able to identify about twenty sets of these remains as
a long term missing person, So this included people that
had been missing for only a few years and others
(04:52):
which had been missing for decades. It also included our
unknown sailor that ha had died and was the only
person found from the nineteen forty one thinking of HMAS Sydney,
so that was a real privilege for us to be
able to apply our DNA techniques to both missing persons
(05:15):
cases as well as you know, some of our fallen servicemen.
So that was about twenty sets of remains as missing people,
and then for the other thirty or so cases that
looked like us being able to confirm remains which were historical,
so older than one hundred years old, and once they
kind of hit that time period, they are no longer
(05:38):
fall under the jurisdiction of the coroner, so they're deemed
to be a historical case. We also were able to
scientifically determine quite a number to be the ancestral remains
of our First Nations people, so then they're able to
be managed appropriately and repatriated as well, and some were
deemed to be medical specimens or non human specimens. We
(06:00):
were able to close, you know, about fifty or so cases,
which meant some famili's got answers, and for some investigators
it meant closing those cases so they could focus on
some of the other cases that were able to generate
DNA profiles from but haven't.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yet stay where us. More of our conversation soon with
Professor Jody Ward, including how our own genetic curiosity via
websites like ancestry dot Com can provide critical info to
help identify our unknown Australians. I art Far South Coast,
(06:37):
i art Far South Coast. Back now to our conversation
with doctor Jody Ward, born and bred in Beager and
now a recognized world leader in the intriguing field of
forensic human identification. But doctor Ward says she's driven as
much by helping the living as she is the dead.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, and I think that's my biggest driver. It's when
you speak with these families. You meet these families, for
many of them, it's about getting answers. And you know, unfortunately,
by the time someone is considering participating in a program
like the National DNA Program, there has to be some
(07:16):
acknowledgment that their missing loved one may be deceased, because
our job is to try and put a name to
that unknown deceased person. So for many families, you know,
coming forward and providing a DNA sample for us to
include on our database to compare to the DNA profiles
we're generating from these remains can be quite a traumatizing
(07:38):
process in itself. But for many they want to know
if is their loved one one of these sets of
remains sitting in a box on a shelf somewhere in
many cases for decades. And I think the biggest realization
for me is that for many of the people that
we did identify, they were never reported missing. And I
(07:59):
still can't than this somewhat. And so a lot of
the focus of our program was around this public messaging
to say, you know, if you have a loved one
that was missing, whether they've only been missing for a
few years or a few decades, regardless of the passage
of time, we need to know that your loved one
is missing, because unless the police know, there is no
(08:21):
one out there collecting the DNA samples, collecting the dental records,
collecting the medical records. All of this information we need
sitting on our national databases so that when we do
uncover a set of remains and we obtain a DNA profile,
if there are teeth present, we can record their dental chart,
(08:41):
we can upload it to the databases we do have
access to to search against the records of all the
missing people we're aware of. And it's only until we
get those databases filled with the right data can we more.
I guess effectively and efficiently match unidentified to missing people.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
It's just unimaginable how much of a harrowing experience it
must be for a loved one to go missing. These
families are often just trying their best to find answers,
but are often unable to. What is it that makes
you Jody care so much about their plight?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, I've often got asked this question, and you know,
it's not like I have a personal story necessarily with missingness,
but I don't think many people. Well, when I first
learned in twenty eleven of the hundreds of unknown Australians
we have sitting on shelves, I was amazed by that
kind of statistic And as a forensic scientist, I could
(09:43):
see how we have these amazing forensic techniques that weren't
being applied to these sets of remains, and you could
see other countries taking initiatives getting results, and why weren't
we doing that here in Australia. And so I think
it's about in showing that every deceased Austrayian has equal
(10:04):
opportunity to be identified and reunited with their family. It
shouldn't depend on where you died. It shouldn't depend on
whether that local forensic lab has forensic investigative genetic genealogy
capabilities or not, or whether they have, you know, the
ten thousand dollars to send that DNA off shore to
(10:25):
get testing. So I think there was so much scope
in this country for us to be leading the way
in applying these new techniques to the hundreds of cases
we had. And you know, I now am convinced that
the process works. We've shown that, but unfortunately, now the
programs ended, the federal funding has been exhausted. So for me,
(10:46):
now my mission hasn't stopped. You know, I promised families
that we would I would do anything and everything I
could to ensure that we had exhausted every option so
they knew that they loved one wasn't sitting archived somewhere
on a shelf in a mortuary. So for now, I'm
(11:06):
again back to this point of thinking outside of the box.
You know, where can this funding come from? Who can
do the testing? Does it have to be a government lab?
Can it be an independent So again I think there's
more that we can do as a community to try
and resolve these cases, and forensic investigative genetic genealogy is
the perfect example of how citizen forensic science at its best.
(11:30):
That technique only works if someone like yourself takes your
ancestry DNA profile, moves it to GEDMatch, and allows us
to search an unknown human remains profile against it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
For someone who's just received news that a loved one
has gone missing, or perhaps they knew someone who went
missing a while back, what steps do you recommend they take?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So I think to reiterate that if you do have
a missing loved one, that you formally report their disappearance
to the police. You provide a DNA reference sample to
the police. You share everything you know or can remember
about your missing loved one, so things like who their
(12:17):
dentist was, whether you have you know as a mother,
you keep all your children's X rays and baby teeth
and locks of hair and things at home. All of
those medical information and biological specimens. They can all be
used by a forensic team to help try and locate
(12:39):
and identify a missing loved one if unfortunately they have
died and their remains are located in the future.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
The fascinating work of Professor Jodi Ward. We have another
episode with doctor Ward next time, and in it. She
explains how one of the South coasts most notorious and
unsolved missing persons cases has shaped her work in forensic
science and her perspective as a mother. That's our Heart
Far South Coast for now proudly supported by the new
South Wales Government. I'm James fantasy catch. Next time, I
(13:14):
Heart Far South Coast
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