-Caveat Lector- This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Struggle to Tally All 9/11 Dead by Anniversary September 1, 2002 By ERIC LIPTON >From the earliest hours after the the destruction of the World Trade Center, one of the most painful and complicated tasks has been determining precisely how many people died and who exactly they were. It has been a task made difficult by the scale of the losses, the chaos that followed the collapse of the towers, the reluctance of some grieving families to give up hope, and the thousands of unfounded or duplicate claims that poured in from around the world. Now after a year of tireless labor by a legion of police detectives, medical examiner's staff members, lawyers and even city diplomatic affairs staff members, the city is finally on the verge of establishing the final death toll. After surging as high as 6,729 in late September and dropping below 3,000 in January, the final list of victims should end up at 2,800 or just below. The remaining number of unresolved cases now stands at 78, and investigators will report on a late push on those cases by Wednesday. The need to settle on a solid list is given urgency by the approach of the first anniversary of the attack and the city's plans to read each victim's name during the main ceremony at ground zero. If a sign were needed of just how difficult it has been to establish the number with confidence, it might be the city medical examiner office's recent experience in listing the victims. On Aug. 19, it released a list of 2,819 names, and this week it will reissue its list with additions and subtractions discovered only in the last two weeks. At least two people who died of injuries weeks after the attack will be added; they were missed because they had been moved to hospitals out of state before they died. Six names will be deleted, because they turned out to be alive even though they had been designated as missing for almost a year. Four more names are being removed from the count after investigators concluded that the reports of their death were fraudulent. One woman will be removed because her death was recorded twice, under her married and maiden names. The job, undertaken around the world on behalf of heartbroken families and in pursuit historical accuracy, has been like no other. DNA kits have been sent, often by special diplomatic couriers, to more than a dozen countries, including India, China and Ecuador. Relatives or friends of possible victims have been interviewed by State Department officials in Bangladesh, Haiti and Nigeria. Law enforcement officials from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Metropolitan Police in London and even the Pike County sheriff's office in rural Georgia have helped. "At some point, you would stop and realize that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of folders in cardboard boxes all around you were people that died," said Judson K. Vickers, senior counsel at the New York City Law Department, which has helped families apply for death certificates even when remains had not been found. "But the only way to get through the process was not to treat them like people, to just focus on the job that had to be done. Otherwise you would get overwhelmed." Some of the toughest cases, not surprisingly, have concerned the victims who had the lowest profiles and stations in life, like illegal immigrants who worked in cafeterias, or one 77-year-old Bronx man who for years had shined shoes at a financial-services firm at the top of one of the towers. His name was added to the list only after survivors who were shown his photograph confirmed that he had been there that day. Throughout the year, while the total count has been more than halved, there has been a disconcerting mixture of relief and sadness. Establishing that thousands fewer had died than first feared was gratifying, but nothing could change the sobering and indisputable fact that thousands still had died. "A loss of one person is a terrible tragedy," said Chief Charles V. Campisi, the Police Department official who led the initial missing persons' accounting effort, "but the loss is at least diminished somewhat by the knowledge that so many people were saved and so many families have been reunited." To date, 1,379 victims, just about half, have been confirmed dead when their remains were positively identified by the medical examiner's office, often relying on just a tiny piece of bone or other chance remnant. An additional 1,350 were declared dead exclusively as a result of a court action, after families submitted enough evidence to prove that their relatives were at the trade center when the attack occurred and that they have not been seen since. That leaves the remaining 78 victims, who are still listed as missing, bringing the current total to 2,807 homicides, which is how they are all being entered in city records. The 78 are a disparate group. Seventeen are firefighters, employees of Cantor Fitzgerald or other companies, and although city officials are confident that they died, their remains have not been found or their families have not applied for and received a death certificate. Bud Kiefer's son, Michael Kiefer, who sped to the site with Ladder Company 132, is among those 17. Mr. Kiefer knows that his 25-year-old son, whom he considered his best friend, is among the dead, but he and his wife have not wanted to take the final step of applying for the death certificate, waiting, perhaps, for his remains to be identified. The medical examiner's office plans to continue the identification effort, mostly through more DNA testing, until at least early next year. "If you have that piece of paper in front of you and it has your son's name on it, it just hits home, it drives the nail in the coffin, so to speak," Mr. Kiefer said. "He is gone and he is not coming back." Christine M. Saladeen, whose brother, Michael Ragusa, is presumed to have died in the attack, said the family had been in no rush to have him added to the list of confirmed dead. "I guess it is just nicer to think he is only missing," she said of her brother, also a firefighter. "It is nicer than saying that someone you knew for 29 years is gone and there is nothing left of him." Twenty of the 78 still listed as missing are foreigners; city officials think they almost certainly were at the trade center but do not have enough evidence to say so definitively. In most of these cases, city officials have detailed information about the identities from relatives or friends, but they have been unable to confirm that the missing people were at the site because they were not listed in official company employee rolls under their real names or Social Security numbers. It is hoped that DNA samples collected from relatives may provide a match from the still unidentified remains from the site. A handful of the others are people for whom detailed reports were filed, but the person who filed the original claim or relatives of the missing person cannot be found to certify the report. "This is not as easy as one would think," said Shiya Ribowsky, deputy director for investigations at the office of the chief medical examiner, which is in charge of the identification process. "It is not as simple as just pounding the pavement and knocking on doors. We don't necessarily know who to turn to. But what do we do with these reports? We cannot just toss them." The mayor's press secretary, Edward Skyler, said that as far as the Sept. 11 ceremony was concerned, whatever names were on the medical examiner's list would be read, even if some were still categorized as missing. To appreciate just how much work has been done, within a week after the attack, there were 2,200 claims of foreigners missing and presumed dead, according to city officials. Consulates were asked to press families in native countries for more documentation about reported victims. Investigators checked to see whether the foreigners had been issued passports and visas and what Customs records showed about their arrival. The result is that just under 500 foreigners - most of them residents of the New York City area who were born in other countries - were confirmed as victims. Each one of those unproven claims had to be investigated and removed, one at a time. Several city officials involved in the check say that although it has been exhausting, it is among the most important moments in their careers. "I felt incredibly privileged to be able to work on this," said Florence A. Hutner, a senior counsel in the city's Law Department, which worked to try to get most of the death certificates issued within three weeks of an application, much faster than the norm when the body has not been found. "To be able to help a family at such a terribly difficult time, a family whose grief I can't even fathom, that was really such an honor." The possibility of fraud was a fear from the start, and the fear turns out to have been justified. City officials estimate that 60 to 70 fraudulent death certificate applications were submitted, decidedly complicating the effort. More than 25 people have already been charged and others are under investigation. They included a Queens woman who claimed that her estranged husband was a window washer (he was found alive and well on Long Island), a man from China who reported that his wife was killed while having breakfast with friends at the trade center (she was found alive in Japan), and a Bronx woman who claimed that she and her mother had been visiting the trade center and been separated in the chaos of the attack (the mother died, and was cremated, in 1998). A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office, Barbara Thompson, said the scale of the fraud attempts - inspired by a desire to get unjustified relief money - was unfortunately not a surprise. "Any fraud was too much fraud, but given the opportunity, it was somewhat limited," she said. Ms. Hutner said that as far as she knows, not one death certificate has had to be withdrawn because of a fraudulent claim, meaning the ruses were uncovered before the court acted on the claim. The city officials involved in compiling the final list for the Sept. 11 ceremony intend to meet once again before Wednesday - a week before the anniversary - to whittle down the list of 78, before re-releasing a final count to be read at the ceremony. When the work is finally completed - and that will be after Sept. 11 - probably no more than 50 of the 78 will have been removed from the list, officials predicted. That means the final World Trade Center death toll will drop no lower than about 2,750, not including the 10 hijackers. Counting the 233 killed in Washington and Pennsylvania, it will remain the second-bloodiest day in United States history, behind the battle of Antietam in the Civil War. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/01/nyregion/01COUN.html?ex=1031886305&ei=1&en=86e9397d653cefe8 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
