Police Hope DNA Database Can Solve Mysteries of Missing Children
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Imagine losing a child, though not through accident or death but through a sudden unexplained disappearance. A new program in California is hoping to solve the mystery of thousands of missing children. And CNN's Rusty Dornin says the first step is a DNA database.</s>RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four-year-old Nikki Campbell rode her bike down the street to a friend's house in 1991. Her family never saw her again.</s>ANN CAMPBELL, MOTHER OF MISSING CHILD: No, I don't believe we will ever bring her home alive. But I do know that she's out there somewhere and that we can bring her home someday.</s>DORNIN: So nine years after her daughter was kidnapped, Ann Campbell swabbed the inside of her mouth extracting saliva. In the first-of-its-kind program, the DNA will then be compared with DNA from unidentified bodies held at coroner's offices throughout California.</s>LANCE GIMA, DNA LAB DIRECTOR: Just like in fingerprints, we'll do a search of a profile from the remains against the file that's been put together from the family members' DNA profiles and hopefully get a match and identify the source of the remains.</s>DORNIN: The program, funded by adding $2 to the $8 death certificate, officially gets under way in January. Already coroners throughout the state are preparing.</s>KEN HOLMES, MARIN CO. CORONER: When he have an unidentified person, we take small amount of tissue and freeze it for potential DNA sampling.</s>DORNIN: Building both sides of the database will be a slow process. It could take years. To be truly successful, other states need to adopt similar programs. On one side, DNA must be gathered from unidentified bodies, and then relatives must be found. (on camera): The state will be taking DNA samples from family members of the 3,000 missing in California. But the priority will be the families of the missing children.</s>NELSON:  (voice-over): One hundred fifty of the 2,000 unidentified remains in California are children.</s>CAMPBELL: I just love this picture.</s>DORNIN: Ann Campbell knows there's the chance that one of them is her Nikki.</s>CAMPBELL: It will just bring closure, and it will make me happy in a sense because I'll know something.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was 4 years old. This November, he'll be 22. That's a lifetime, and all I need to know is where he is. And if this will help any of us, I will do it 150 times a day.</s>DORNIN: For some, knowing the worst is better than the endless uncertainty. Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.