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Dr. Warren Tewes, DDS, MS, DABFO, is a Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Odonotology and a University of Maryland Dental School faculty member. He is the lead forensic dentist for the Maryland State Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and a member of the Department of Homeland Security's Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team. Dr. Tewes developed the Maryland Dental Database for Missing and Unidentified Persons.
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In November of 2000, a University of Maryland grant established the Maryland Dental Database to identify Missing and Unidentified Persons. Dr. Warren Tewes, D.D.S, M.S., explains that this public service program is simple and separate from NCIC's dental entries.
“This MS Access dental database compares missing persons' dental records / x-rays to unidentified persons' postmortem dental records in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). We have established a statewide network of volunteer forensic dentists to assist missing persons investigators in completing antemortem dental records acquired from the missing person's family dentist.”
Law enforcement officers can contact Dr. Tewes for the name of the forensic dentist in their county. The network is available to assist law enforcement in other dental matters as they arise.
How does it work?
a. The Missing person case should be 30 days old.
b. Missing persons investigators will need to gather dental records from the family / family dentist, using download forms.
c. Investigators contact their local volunteer forensic dentist, who will chart the dental data and fax to Dr. Tewes for comparison to the unidentified persons already in the database.
With each additional missing person entered into the database, it becomes easier to identify unknown persons and sheds new information on further investigation.
The required forms to acquire a complete set of original dental records may download here:
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