Identification of the Victims of a Mass Fatality Incident based on nuclear DNA evidence

This paper focuses on the use of nuclear DNA Short Tandem Repeat traits for the identi- fication of the victims of a Mass Fatality Incident. The goal of the analysis is the assess- ment of the identification probabilities concerning the recovered victims. Identification hypotheses are evaluated conditionally to the DNA evidence observed both on the recov- ered victims and on the relatives of the missing persons disappeared in the tragical event. After specifying a set of conditional independence assertions suitable for the problem, an inference strategy is provided, treating some points to achieve computational efficiency. Alternative solutions to the problem will also be illustrated for comparison purposes. Fi- nally, the proposal is tested through the simulation of a Mass Fatality Incident and the results are compared with the considered alternative solutions.