DeKalb County hosts missing-persons DNA event to aid cold cases

A family snapshot, a tattoo photo and a DNA swab were the tools DeKalb County put on the table as it tried to push cold cases forward at Avondale Estates Town Green. The county’s fourth annual Missing Persons and DNA Event ran Sunday, May 17, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 64 N. Avondale Road, during the Avondale Estates Farmers Market.

The DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office said the point was straightforward: raise awareness of unidentified remains cases, accept missing-person reports and collect DNA that could be entered into law-enforcement databases. Staff from the DeKalb County Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office were set to take new reports or update existing ones, then enter the information into NCIC and NamUs. DNA reference samples could be uploaded to CODIS and genealogy databases, giving investigators another route when a name, a body or a case file has gone nowhere for years.

Families were told to bring anything that could strengthen a report or help a comparison. That included photos of missing loved ones, tattoo images if they mattered, original police reports if available and medical or missing-person identification documents. For the DNA side, the event asked for two family members, one from the mother’s side and one from the father’s side, because those reference points can make the difference in matching unidentified remains or moving a missing-person case from open file to active lead. Free genealogy kits and informational sessions were part of the day as well, including presentations on how genealogy databases can solve cases and on forensic art in missing-person work.

The event was tied to a broader effort that has been building since 2022, when the DeKalb County Cold Case Task Force was formed with the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the DeKalb County Police Department and a private lab partner. Public materials for the task force say May is Missing and Unidentified Persons Month, and the county has used these May events for four years to gather reports and DNA.

The scale of the work explains the urgency. A 2025 FOX 5 Atlanta report said the task force was created with a $496,000 federal grant, had identified 12 sets of human remains and was working on 17 more cases, with the oldest dating to 1987. Another 2025 report said the task force had identified at least half of those left waiting in the morgue and was tackling around 30 cases. County officials have also said some remains were housed at the medical examiner’s office, while others were buried and later exhumed for identification work.

The DNA event also connected to the Walkathon for the Missing and Exploited, hosted by Raymond Green International Outreach of Hope, the nonprofit founded by Donna Green after her infant son Raymond was kidnapped in Atlanta in 1978. That link gave the day a sharper edge: the same tables that collected names and cheek swabs were aimed at the kind of breakthrough that can turn an unidentified set of remains into a person, and a missing-person report into a case that finally has somewhere to go.