Visiting the Office of the Medical Examiner can feel like an episode out of CSI, but on Friday, Bronx families looking for loved ones will get to meet one-on-one with the scientists who piece together missing persons cases.

On Tuesday, News 12 got a look into how the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) uses science to bring closure to families. OCME criminologists and anthropologists work to identify a deceased person after a body is brought to a morgue or after a missing persons report is filed. Scientists use skeletons, DNA, and more to piece together who that person was and how they might have died. The information gathered can then be run through missing persons databases to get the word out through sketches and facial reconstruction.

It was a missing persons sketch through OCME and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that helped identify Humberto Luna in August 2024, a young man found dead in Starlight Park in March 2024.

The OCME team will host NYC Missing Persons Day in the Bronx for the first time on Friday, Dec. 6 at their Bronx Family Services Center at 260 East 161 Street, 4th Floor, The Bronx, NY, 10451 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Families are encouraged to book an appointment at (212) 323-1201.