In June 2000, 16-year-old Molly Bish was abducted and murdered in Massachusetts. Her killer has never been found. Twenty years later, her sister Heather Bish continues to pursue justice by advocating for legislation that allows law enforcement to search for violent criminals on DNA databases, using familial searches. “The beauty of familial testing is, it’s science. It doesn’t wrongly convict anyone,” Heather Bish said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) marked its 2018 National Missing Children's Day by unveiling a new national DNA program to help find missing persons and identify human remains. The RCMP National DNA Databank collects samples from missing persons and unidentified human remains to determine if there is a match to a convicted offender or crime scene DNA.

Michigan legislators are proposing a bill that would require law enforcement officers to enter all missing person cases into the U.S. Department of Justice NamUs database. Proponents say it will help solve more missing person cases. The legislation would also require details about unidentified bodies to be submitted to the database. Similar laws have been passed in Tennessee, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. While these other states have differing requirements regarding when the information must be entered, the Michigan law would require entries to be made as soon as the preliminary investigation is completed.