INDIANAPOLIS — It's been 10 days since the Hamilton County coroner-elect put out a call to the public.
Jeff Jellison asked for DNA from people with male family members who disappeared in the mid-80s to mid-90s, men who may have been victims of suspected serial killer Herb Baumeister, men whose remains may still be buried on Baumeister's former property in Westfield or whose remains might have already been recovered years ago but never identified.
"We've pleaded for people to come and give comparison samples and I know I've gotten calls from all over the United States," Jellison said.
So far, Jellison has received 20 DNA samples from family members, some from people who don't know what happened to their missing loved ones. He also got responses from people whose family member was already identified, but wonder if more of their loved one's remains are out there.
"They want closure. They want to know. They want their loved ones' remains returned to them so they can kind of close that chapter of their life," Jellison said.
That closure is going to take time.
Indiana State Police will be in charge of developing DNA profiles from the samples provided by family members and putting those profiles into a national database.
Out of thousands of remains found on Baumeister's property, experts have told Jellison DNA can only be extracted from about 100 bones.
Investigators will be working with some ground-penetrating radar at Baumeister's former property to see if there are more remains that still need to be recovered. Still, they hope more people will come forward with samples.
DNA profiles from those samples will also be put in that database to see if there's a match with the DNA samples from family members.
"All 100 could be one person. You don't know. We don't know who we have," Jellison said, adding one thing is for certain: Those answers won't ever be found unless more people come forward to give samples of their DNA.
"We have all of these remains, but unless we have comparison samples, we are going to come to a halt pretty quickly," Jellison said.
The coroner's office is going to meet with all the partners involved in this effort Friday to figure out when the remains and DNA samples taken from families can be sent to ISP for testing and possible matching.
Hamilton County coroner-elect Jeff Jellison told 13News, they were able to release the remains of Michael Keirn to his family members on Dec. 9.
"To be able to reunite Michael with his family after 26 years was both a satisfying and emotional experience for all involved," Jellison said.
