Across Australia, human bones remain in storage due to uncertainty about their origin and identity. (ABC News: Erin Parke)
In short:
Australia's first independent forensic science laboratory service is established to assist with high demand for DNA testing and body identification.
There are currently about 700 sets of human remains on police files, and countless more in storage due to confusion about their origin or identity.
What's next?
Families of long-term missing people will be able to utilise the service to progress investigations independent of police.
They are among the most distressing scenarios in Australia — the missing people, the mystery skeletons, the human remains sitting in shipping containers and storage rooms in remote corners of the country.
Who are they and where are they from?
It's a question that haunts DNA scientist Jodie Ward, who has established Australia's first independent forensics laboratory in a bid to find out.
Forensic scientist Jodie Ward says cold cases are more solvable than ever thanks to advances in DNA technology. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
"There are families in Australia who are fixated on the knowledge that there are hundreds of unidentified human remains in Australia … is their missing loved one among them?" Dr Ward explains.
"With the advances in forensic technology I don't think we can consider any case cold anymore, and we should be throwing everything we have at them to try to find answers.
"Our goal is to deliver specialist forensic testing techniques for identification, some of which are not currently available in Australia, and level the playing field in terms of who can access it," she says.
The laboratory, which has been established as a social enterprise model, will give law enforcement an option for outsourcing forensic testing, to speed up investigations.
Dr Ward in a previous role, examining a bone fragment belonging to an unidentified World War I soldier. (ABC News: Nicole Chettle)
It will also provide families and private investigators an avenue to gather evidence, outside of police investigations.
Martin Hodgson, who is a human rights advocate and Yuin man, says the creation of an independent forensics service was long overdue.
"It's not just criminal cases — a lot of people don't realise how many First Nations people were moved to missions or murdered, and their remains are in boxes in police buildings or universities or buried in the wrong place," Mr Hodgson says.
Yuin man Martin Hodgson does advocacy work with Indigenous families across the country trying to repatriate remains and locate missing loved ones. (ABC News: Floss Adams)
"So to have an independent body that can help us confirm the identity of people could really be a game changer."
Hundreds of skeletons under investigation
The number of sets of unidentified human remains in Australia is difficult to quantify, as they relate to a wide range of scenarios.
Some are the skeletons of people killed in wars and natural disasters, while others belong to Indigenous Australians whose bones were stolen and traded by collectors.
Only a small portion are assigned to police to investigate, usually due to their recent discovery or suspicious circumstances.
Human remains deemed too old to warrant a police investigation often remain in storage indefinitely. (ABC News: Erin Parke)
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has confirmed there are about 700 sets of remains currently under investigation by police forces across the country.
In 2020, the first concerted effort was made to harness new forensic technology to systematically test and catalogue the backlog of bones.
The private DNA databases providing answers to unsolved mysteries
Jodie Ward worked with the AFP to create the National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons, which was able to forensically test 99 of the unidentified remains.
That resulted in 19 being matched with long-term missing persons, bringing closure to families who had lived with years of uncertainty.
But funding for the program concluded in 2024 and Dr Ward is now partnering with the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at Adelaide University to create an independent forensics team.
It brings Australia into line with countries like the USA, where investigators of all kinds can commission forensic work to assist with legal cases, understand historical burial sites, and narrow down the identity of mystery remains.
In remote parts of Australia, ancestral remains are stored in air-conditioned sea containers while their provenance is established and repatriation ceremonies organised. (ABC Kimberley: Erin Parke)
'The more resources in Australia the better'
The creation of the laboratory has been welcomed by families campaigning for more investment to solve missing persons cases.
Melissa Pouliot photographed with her cousin Ursula Barwick (right), who went missing in 1987. (Supplied: Melissa Pouliot)
Melissa Pouliot's cousin Ursula Barwick went missing in 1987, but it took almost 30 years for police to realise she'd been killed in a car crash and buried unidentified just a few weeks after disappearing.
"It wasn't until 2017 that we finally found out what had happened to Ursula, and she'd been buried in an unmarked grave so we'll probably never find her remains," Ms Pouliot says.
"We went years living with ambiguous loss, which is quite debilitating because your mind is a continual spinning wheel, trying to land on a scenario for what could have happened."
Ursula Barwick in 1987 at a family picnic. Ursula went missing that year as a 17-year-old after boarding a train to Sydney. Her family searched for 30 years for answers. (Supplied: Barwick family)
Ms Pouliot and her family, who live in regional New South Wales, have lobbied for improved police systems and DNA cataloguing.
She's hoping police agencies will take advantage of the new forensics facility to speed up testing and potentially prevent other families from experiencing decades of unnecessary heartache.
Melissa Pouliot's cousin Ursula Barwick was missing for thirty years. (ABC News: Floss Adams)
"The more resources we have locally in Australia, the better," she says.
"It will hopefully mean less delays for getting results and getting answers on DNA testing, because when you're dealing with a missing person every day, week, month and year just makes things harder.
"So, it could make a difference to a lot of families out there."
A new lens on old cases
Martin Hodgson has spent decades supporting families trying to have human remains identified and repatriated.
He works with the Foreign Prisoner Support Service, and says there's the potential for DNA testing to help with the return of the remains of people kidnapped or murdered overseas.
But he says the greatest need is closer to home.
NT Police released this facial reconstruction as part of ongoing efforts to identify a woman whose remains were found in the Darwin suburb of Leanyer in 1987. (Supplied: NT Police)
"There is a high number of missing and murdered First Nations women and children where the cases sit with nothing being done for decades at a time," he says.
"I think having an independent lab will allow us to get proactive in trying to solve cases, so that we can try to ascertain new evidence to kickstart them into action.
"For too long we've relied on police departments who are either under-resourced or unwilling to throw everything at them."
He says many First Nations people are reluctant to engage with police and government forensics labs, due to the documented incidence of negligence and miscarriages of justice.
"The reality is there are people who've gone missing from remote parts of Australia and they've never even been reported to police, because of the deep distrust that remains."
Black market bones
It's not just missing persons cases that need solving.
Across Australia there are countless older and more ambiguous human remains sitting in unmarked graves, institutions and Indigenous 'keeping places', including skeletons that have not triggered a criminal investigation, but are mired in mystery due to the idiosyncrasies of history.
The ancestral remains of Yawuru people, being repatriated to the Western Australian town of Broome. (Supplied: Kim West)
Some belong to Indigenous Australians, whose bones were collected and traded most commonly in late 1800's and early 1900's.
Others were buried in unmarked graves, with the fading memories of Aboriginal elders difficult to corroborate without DNA testing.
Sourcing funds and expertise to identity the skeletons is an ongoing challenge, according to community leaders like Gordon Marshall.
Gordon Marshall is chairman of the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Cultural Centre. (ABC News: Erin Parke)
He chairs the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, which recently oversaw the relocation of dozens of sets of human remains from an eroding cemetery on the banks of the fast-flowing Fitzroy River.
Some of the individuals have been identified via written records and oral history, but others remain in unmarked graves.
Locals were distressed to see human remains washing into the Fitzroy River at the site of a historic cemetery. (Supplied: Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre)
"It was very important that the reburial take place, because it was getting to the point where people were going fishing and finding a skull, where the river had been washing the bodies away."
White crosses signify unmarked graves at the Fitzroy Crossing cemetery in Western Australia's central Kimberley. (ABC News: Erin Parke)
"We made sure that when the remains were dug up, we had DNA samples taken, so that one day we might be able to identify those that don't have a name."
Work is ongoing to identify the remainder, so that names can be added to the simple crosses that mark the new graves.
Undocumented mass graves in Australia?
There are also growing suspicions that mass burial sites may exist at some state institutions, such as the Kinchela Boys home in New South Wales.
Forensic scientist Jodie Ward believes DNA technology can help right wrongs of the past. (ABC News: file photo)
Dr Ward is currently overseeing a DNA-led identification program in the Irish town of Tuam, where the remains of hundreds of infants and children are believed to have been interred in a mass grave out the back of a unmarried mothers' home.
She says there's a growing awareness of the potential for forensic science to help rectify the wrongs of the past.
"We have this technology, and we have a lot of families desperate for answers — so we should be leveraging forensic science to try to restore names and resolve cases."