A Note from Karren Kraemer, Becky's Mom
As a mother of a missing Milwaukee woman, Becky Marie Marzo, I am hoping to be able to seek help
from my own government on a very sensitive issue.
What and how do we report our missing family member and what do the police do next? There is
no guidebook written that says, What we need to do? We parents of missing young women know the
saying that the men who kill our daughters live by, NO BODY, NO CRIME. I believe it is time for
my Government body to help change that. This is a start. I believe we need to start with the
obvious and then go into changing policies and procedures of filing a missing persons report.
I believe there are many issues we as a society need to address. It is impossible to address
them all at once so I will start with the most important. DNA protocols.
I have talked to law enforcement and asked, What do you do when you find human remains? To my
utter shock and disbelief the answer has been, We don't know what to do with them, so they are
put in a box and put on a shelf. This is the result of having no nation-wide protocol for
dealing with unidentified human remains. There is currently no mandate for law enforcement,
coroners and medical examiners to test these remains. This leads to my concern. I visualize my
daughters remains in one of those dusty boxes marked unknown simply because there is no
protocol.
If you get on the website of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, you will see
pages of unidentified remains. Monies are being spent on the Innocent Project which will
collect DNA from all convicted felons. It could help solve crimes and prove innocence or guilt.
This is great, but, because the dead don't vote or pay taxes, there is no priority in
identifying these remains. The unidentified dead have remained unidentified for a number
of reasons, mainly it is the result of low priorities, lack of education in development of
protocols used in the discovery of human remains and as every where funding. Investigation
would probably determine that most of these remains are the victims of homicide. Experts
estimate there are between 40,000 and 50,000 unidentified human remains in our country. Given
today's technology it is totally unacceptable for a civilized nation not to have a protocol
and treat the remains of its citizens in a more appropriate way.
The unidentified dead do not receive any consideration, until the need to identify the remains
of those who lost their lives, an example of this is in the attack on David Koresh's Branch
Davidian Complex in Waco, Texas. David Koresh was identified through DNA. Then, in the attacks
on the Murrah Federal Bldg. in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the Twin Towers in New York on
September 11th, and most recently Hurricane Katrina. DNA was used to identify many of those
remains. DNA was used to identify the 90 year old remains of an unknown male child who died
in the sinking of the Titanic. The mother of a soldier received information that it could
possibly be her son's remains in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We all know how sacred this
grave site has become because we have watched our Presidents lay a wreath there for many years,
but the mother needed to know if it was her son. Through DNA testing it was determined that it
was indeed her son.
DNA may be the only way that I will be able to find my daughter. But unless there is
mandatory testing of the unidentified dead on a national level and a national repository for
those test results that is accessible to every state and all stakeholders, the unidentified
dead will remain unidentified. The stakeholders include coroners, medical examiners, forensic
pathologists, forensic anthropologists, forensic odontologists and law enforcement. We also
need to educate the families of missing persons that they can go to a local FBI office or
their law enforcement agency to have a DNA mouth swab taken and the results entered into
this national database as a family reference sample. Most of those who have missing loved
ones don't know what they can do or where to go for assistance.
We need to have mandated testing of any unidentified dead, a national repository for these test
results for all states to be able to access. And we need to educate the law enforcement, all
stakeholders and the public. We need to make the public aware of this national problem.
This is why I am asking for your help. I can put you in touch with people who can speak to you
on a professional level. I am just a mother and know little about the politics but I have learned
a lot in the last two and a half years only because of the tragic disappearance
and presumably death of my daughter Becky. I have gone through 2.5 years of hell and have learned
more about the judicial system than I ever wanted to know.
So, now I am learning the politics of what needs to be done and how to get it done. And you can't
get it done without the help of others. A phrase I am trying to live by is "None of us is as
good as all of us" - Ray A. Kroc.
I have sent this same letter to Chief Haggerty, Sheriff David Clark, all Wisconsin State
Representatives, Wisconsin Congressmen, Mayor Barrett, and Gov. Jim Doyle. I am hoping that
someone will pick this up and help Mothers in Wisconsin find their lost children.
I am sending an example of Nebraska's Protocol in hopes to find someone in Wisconsin that will
help me pass this same process here.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Karren Kraemer