DNA tests can’t identify possible student remains in Mexico

An Austrian forensics lab was unable to find DNA that could be used to conventionally identity the remains due to heat damage University of Innsbruck will try one final, unconventional, way to identify the remains - results to take three months The students went missing Sept. 26 after confrontations with police in the Guerrero state city of Iguala

By Associated Press

Published: 12:36 EST, 20 January 2015 | Updated: 04:03 EST, 21 January 2015

Mexican prosecutors said Tuesday that DNA tests could not identify the charred remains that might be those of 42 missing college students.

An Austrian forensics lab was unable to find any more DNA that could be used by conventional means to identify them, but said they have authorized a final, unconventional effort.

The Attorney General's Office said the University of Innsbruck reported that 'excessive heat' damaged the mitochondrial DNA in fragments of teeth and bones, 'at least to the point that normal methods cannot be used to successfully analyze them.'

Failure to positively identify the remains would be a setback for the government, which has struggled with widespread, often violent protests demanding that the students be returned alive, and with relatives' skepticism about the official belief they are dead.

The shadow of a demonstrator is cast on a wall with graffiti protesting the disappearance of 43 rural college students, in front of the Mexican Attorney General's office, in Mexico City

The University had previously found DNA in the remains that belonged to one of the 43 students who were detained and disappeared in the southern state of Guerrero in September.

Prosecutors say the students were turned over to a drug gang that killed them and then incinerated their bodies on a fuel-fed pyre, before crushing the charred remains and them in a river.

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DNA tests can't identify possible student remains in Mexico