A skeletal remains unrevealed the murder mystery of missing lady through DNA technology

In 1985, Alec Jeffreys first discovered and described the absolute identification technique through genomic DNA, which leads to open a new arena of forensic science. Since then, it has been adopted for crime-solving as well as various forensic applications across the globe. After the discovery of DNA technology, it passes through several continuous developmental steps concerning sensitivity, reduction in turnaround time, cost effect, minimizing multiple handling of the sample, and suitable challenging samples. After three and half decades of this DNA technology, Short Tandem Repeat (STR) based DNA technology established gold standard and irreplaceable technique in the field of forensic science, which is entirely different from its inception.

In the present study, with help of DNA technology, a murder mystery of missing women was solved. In this case, tooth and bone pieces of deceased and blood samples of probable mother and son of deceased were received for DNA test in the laboratory. STR based 20 autosomal STR markers and one sex-determining Amelogenin marker included in PowerPlex^® 21 systems kit was used for identification of unknown deceased. Based on the genetic marker unknown deceased was identified as biologically related to the probable mother and son of the deceased.