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cause of a gag order in the case. • ___
DNA advances help identify dead buried in NYC potter's field; 54 bodies exhumed
• NEW YORK (AP) -- On a wind-swept island off New York City, the remains of 850,000 people rest in pine boxes in a grid of covered trenches -- but many are not resting in peace. • They are the unidentified or unclaimed dead who have been found around the nation's largest city -- often with little hope of a loved one ever knowing their fate. Now, with advances in DNA technology and anthropology and with new federal funding, the city medical examiner's office has exhumed dozens of the bodies in a new push to identify several decades' worth. • It's how Ben Maurer's family finally learned that the 17-year-old had jumped to his death from a Manhattan building on June 25, 2002. • His mother, Germaine, submitted his DNA to the medical examiner in 2009, when the first phase of the project began. The DNA was entered into a public database containing information on thousands of cases of missing and unidentified people -- and matched a John Doe buried in the potter's field on 101-acre Hart Island on Long Island Sound. • He was given a proper funeral near the family's home in Piscataway, N.J., shortly after his remains were returned to them in 2009.
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