The Northern Territory Police Force Missing Persons Unit and Forensic Science Branch, in conjunction with the Australian Federal Police’s National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons, have been able to match unidentified human remains to a long term missing person, Owen Ryder.
In August 1999, Mr Ryder’s wife noticed her husband had not returned to their home at Kwala Outstation, located about 10kms East of Hermannsburg.
Community members made several attempts to locate and track Mr Ryder but were unsuccessful before reporting his disappearance to police.
Police conducted an extensive search by land and air but were unsuccessful in locating Mr Ryder. Police established Mr Ryder was last seen in the vicinity of the Larapinta Drive and Wallace Rockhole Road intersection and in 2004, Mr Ryder was declared deceased by the coroner.
Three years later, in February 2007, unidentified human remains were located in a paddock about 8kms from the Larapinta Drive and Wallace Rockhole Road turn off. A crime scene was established, and investigators understood a missing person, Mr Ryder, had been reported missing in the vicinity of the discovery back in 1999.
Although a forensic analysis occurred, at the time, no DNA profile could be extracted from the remains and enquires were exhausted until a National DNA Program was undertaken by the AFP.
Last year (2022), a sample from the unidentified human remains was sent by the NTPFES Biology Unit to the AFP laboratory in Canberra.
A partial DNA profile was recovered by the AFP and the results were provided to the NTPFES Biology Unit for DNA database searching. Database searching facilitated comparisons to the Ryder family, resulting in a successful match which confirmed the human remains located near Wallace Rockhole in 2007 were Mr Ryder.
The NTPFES Biology Unit has substantially increased its capability to recover DNA from remains, already resulting in identifications, and continue to expand their capabilities to help establish links between any recovered remains and family members.
This new capability in combination with DNA samples provided by the family of missing persons can provide another avenue for the investigation and identification of unidentified human remains. Police urge anyone who has a missing family member to contact the NT Police Missing Persons Unit on 131 444 to discuss providing DNA.
NT Police are continually looking at new practices and enhancing their technologies to assist with identifying and locating long term missing persons in the hopes of providing families' closure.
