Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546037
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 AUGUST 2026 FEATURE unidentified bodies MaltaToday. "The rest remain unresolved; not because we cannot build a DNA profile, but because we do not have an- ything to compare it to." Building a profile from nothing The autopsy is the first and most important step. Grima and his colleagues photo- graph the remains and document anything that might later help, including healed surgical scars, am- putations, and distinctive phys- ical features still visible. Clothing is recorded, and any possessions found with the body are not- ed, though documents are treated with caution since they may not belong to the per- son carrying them. Then comes DNA. A sam- ple is taken regardless of the body's condition. If it is fresh, blood works best. As decom- position progresses, the focus shifts to the intercostal muscle, between the ribs, which is par- ticularly reliable. If muscle is no longer viable, bones take over, with long bones, ribs, and teeth all able to yield a result. "Even from a fully skele- tonised body, a profile is still obtain- able," Grima said. What decom- position strips away is everything else—skin colour, facial features, hair. Bones hold longer, and from skeletal remains alone, a pa- thologist can determine sex and estimate age through ossi- fication, the process by which cartilage gradually hardens in- to bone, and through patterns of fusion in the skull. None of that amounts to a name, but it narrows the pool of who a per- son might have been consider- ably. What the sea takes The sea makes all of this hard- er. On land, decomposition follows a relatively predictable path. In water, the variables multiply, with sea tempera- ture, currents, marine life, and whether the body was clothed all playing a part. One thing the sea removes that land does not is insects. Maggots, which acceler- ate decomposition s i g n i f i c a n t l y on land, are absent un- d e r w a t e r . W h a t t a k e s t h e i r place is the wa- ter itself, and what- ever moves through it. Es- timating how long a body has been in the water, and therefore an approximate date of death, is possible, Gri- ma explained, but imprecise. The mortuary uses sea tem- peratures and current data to work it out. Establishing where a body entered the water, how- ever, is a different question en- tirely. "That can be done, but not by us," Grima said. "Police inves- tigators and other specialists would look at currents and pat- terns to determine where the body could have come from. There's a whole picture you can build from that data." The police confirmed the broad shape of the process when approached by MaltaTo- day. When a body is recovered from the sea, they inform the duty magistrate, who opens a magisterial inquiry and ap- points several experts. The body is transferred to the mor- tuary for autopsy, and if the person is known, family mem- bers are notified. If not, a search for a missing person begins through the po- lice system, with Interpol and Europol po- tentially noti- fied. Once all tests are c o m p l e t e , an uni- d e n t i f i e d body is a s s i g n e d an iden- t i f i c a t i o n number and kept at the mortuary for a period that depends on DNA processing time and the stage of decomposition. After Storm Harry The three bodies recovered in February came roughly a month after Storm Harry struck the Maltese islands in mid-January, generating waves of several metres and trigger- ing over 180 civil protection incidents. Whether there is any connection between the storm and the uni- dentified recover- ies is not some- thing Grima can confirm, though he says the t i m e l i n e is not im- p o s s i b l e . A body that entered the water in late January could, de- pending on currents and conditions, wash ashore weeks later. He has seen years heavier than this one, with the worst periods in his experience being 2014 and 2015. Closed, not sealed Once the autopsy is done and all appointed experts have submitted their reports, the procès-verbal (PV), the formal record of the inquiry, is closed and forwarded to the Attorney General. Under Maltese law, if the PV is not completed with- in 60 days, the magistrate must explain the delay, and there- after a report is due every two months — the closest thing the law provides to a deadline. If the person remains uni- dentified, a decision must be made about the body. Some are eventually claimed by families. Others are released for burial following a court authorisa- tion, some to mosque cemeteries depend- ing on circum- stances, and for those with no one to claim them, parishes or public au- thorities step in to organise a burial.Even after the PV clos- es, DNA is retained in case something devel- ops, whether a family surfac- es or an international request comes in, allowing the inquiry to be reopened. If a body has already been buried and new evidence emerges, the law even allows a magistrate to order ex- humation. The number that remains The three individuals recov- ered in February, each have a DNA profile, and their sex and approximate age have been inferred from the re- mains. Their clothing has been pho- tographed. Their num- ber is regis- tered in the system. A DNA pro- file, Grima ex- plained, is only as useful as what you have to compare it to. If a family has reported someone missing and provided a sample, a match becomes possible. If they have not, the profile sits in a data- base, waiting. The cases remain open and the files can be reopened, but unless someone, somewhere, comes looking, the number assigned at the mortuary door may be the only identification these three people ever have. David Grima, a biomedical scientist at Mater Dei Hospital (Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday) Cirkewwa Cliffs at Fawwara (Photo: Enrique Íñiguez Rodríguez Wikimedia Commons) Gnejna bay Fomm ir rih