Are We Not All God's Children?

Jan Smolinski asks frank questions: "How is it some of our society evaluate who is important enough to search for while others are ignored and pushed aside? Are we not all God's children?"

"Billy's Law" (H.R. 3695), is named after her son, who has been missing for more than five years. The proposed statute was introduced into Congress in August, and Smolinksi is scheduled to present her testimony at a hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Originally scheduled for December 15th, the hearing has been postponed until the end of January. "Help Find the Missing" is another label for the bill, and it is designed to do that and identify the unidentified dead at the morgues.

Jan Smolinski's experience demonstrates the suffering of relatives of the missing. The family "goes through hell over and over again. Only those that continually hound, knock on doors, make phone calls, visit the media (when they will listen to you) make flyers, create websites, network, speak up and check on information entered into databases to make sure it was created correctly may get some answers. It becomes a full-time job for many, other families split up, turn to substance abuse, have health problems and go broke because of this heartache that never goes away." In her quest for answers, she has become a leading advocate for a better judicial system.

Smolinksi submitted DNA samples to police three times but each sample went missing. She questions why the police failed to enter the DNA information into systems like NamUs (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System), a database that helps identify the dead and find the missing. Bill's Law would fund the database, which is still under construction. Currently, there are over 40,000 dead unidentified bodies around the country, but information on only 5,916 of them has been entered into NamUs.

Billy's Law would authorize $2.4 million annually for five years for NamUs, which is under the control of the Attorney General and the National Institute of Justice. It would further provide $10 million annually for five years to the Attorney General to be used for grants to state and local governments. To gain the grant money, local and state governments would be required to enter physical information about the unidentified dead and the missing into federal databases.

Jan Smolinski hopes that Billy's Law will help fix the current morass.