BFF-28 DNA advances identify 26-year-old man killed on 9/11

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DNA advances identify 26-year-old man killed on 9/11

NEW YORK, July 26, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Seventeen years after the September 11,
2001 attacks, the remains of a 26-year-old finance worker killed in New York
have been formally identified thanks to advances in DNA testing, officials
announced Wednesday.

Scott Michael Johnson is the 1,642nd person to be identified of the 2,753
people killed when two passenger jets, hijacked by Al-Qaeda, destroyed the
Twin Towers at the World Trade Center, the symbol of New York’s financial
wealth.

Johnson worked as a securities analyst at investment banking company Keefe,
Bruyette and Woods, New York’s chief medical examiner Barbara Sampson said.

“You get pulled right back into it and it also means there’s a finality.
Somehow I always thought he would just walk up and say, ‘Here I am. I had
amnesia’,” his mother, Ann Johnson told The New York Times.

It was the first identification since August 2017, although that man’s
identity was not publicly revealed at his family’s request.

“We made a commitment to the families of victims that we would do whatever
it takes, for as long as it takes, to identify their loved ones,” said
Sampson.

While more than 1,100 9/11 victims remain unidentified, DNA technology has
led to 89 percent of all positive identifications, the medical examiner’s
office said.

BSS/AFP/MR/1150 hrs