The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office is hosting its fourth Missing Persons Day on Saturday as a way to provide support and resources for the loved ones of missing persons.

The free public event is intended to provide the families and friends of individuals who have been missing for over a month with resources to aid in their search, and bring them closer to closure.

Counselors will also be onsite to listen and help people work through their grief.

Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, Cook County’s chief medical examiner, urges attendees to bring any records of their loved ones including photographs, identification cards and medical records. That information can be entered into the National Database of Unidentified and Missing Persons, which is monitored by every agency across the country as opposed to only being available in a local system.

Close family members also have the added advantage of being able to submit DNA samples from cheek swabs that can be entered into the national database.

“We are aware that there are about 97,000 active missing persons reports [nationwide], and we need to be able to provide closure as a service to the community,” said Arunkumar.
The medical examiner says the pandemic, which halted the event for four years, greatly increased the typical caseload.

There are currently 35 deceased persons that are unidentified in Cook County, and every year that number grows. Since the start of Missing Persons Day in 2019, over 150 family members have attended the event and one person was successfully identified as a result.

“There was a family that came to our office. They were able to look at the unknowns that we have in our office,” said Arunkumar. “They looked at [photographs] and were able to identify their loved one. They were relieved that they got that closure.”

Missing Persons Day takes place Saturday, April 20, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, 2121 W. Harrison St., Chicago.