‘My mum died in 9/11 horrors – but her remains have only just been identified’

More than two decades since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York which killed nearly 3,000 people, one son has finally been able to identify his mum’s remains

Almost two and a half decades ago, the deadliest terrorist attack on American^[1] soil shocked the world^[2]. Millions watched the news in horror as two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and exploded into flames.

But 24 years to the day, more than 1,000 families of the victims still haven’t had their loved ones’ remains formally identified.

Now the remains of Barbara Keating, who was killed on 9/11, have finally been identified more than two decades after the attack, according to CNN.

Barbara Keating’s memorial service was held in November 2001 but when an urn was placed at the altar, the ashes inside were not those of the 72-year-old grandmother, The Desert Sun reported.

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Instead, they came from the rubble of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, where the grandmother died on September 1. In the 24 years since, Keating’s youngest son, Paul Keating, said he held little hope his mother would be found in the debris.

However, late this summer, the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner contacted his family to tell them that DNA analysis had positively identified his mum’s remains.

Paul, now 61, recalled how on that clear Tuesday morning, he and his mother both left his home early where she headed to Boston Logan International Airport to catch American Airlines Flight 11 to Los Angeles.

When he later heard a plane had struck the World Trade Center, he went to a nearby rooftop and looked out at the New York City skyline and saw a plume of smoke rising from the North Tower. “I had no idea it was my mother’s plane,” he said.

Even though there was no definitive identification of his mother’s remains, Paul said there were discoveries that gave him a sense of closure: Several years after the attack, investigators found an ATM card that belonged to his mum.

Then, about three years ago, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reached out to the family again, asking them to submit DNA to test against a hairbrush they thought might be Keating’s. It was a positive match. “That’s when it really hit home: These people have been doing this for that long, at that level of effort,” Paul said.

And the recent identification of his mother’s actual remains has brought things full circle for the family, Paul said. According to the medical examiner, the identification was confirmed through DNA tests of remains recovered in 2001.

“It does actually bring it to conclusion,” he said, reflecting on the hundreds of families still awaiting the same sense of resolution. “I hope the same for the families that haven’t heard so far.”

While his family did not need further proof of his mother’s death, he praised the medical examiner’s office for its dedication to the families of those killed on 9/11. “It was personal to them, and they felt like they were on a mission for us.”

The medical examiner’s office publicly announced Keating’s identification in August, along with those of 26-year-old Ryan Fitzgerald and a woman whose name was withheld at her family’s request.

Their identifications, the first since January 2024, were made possible by advances in DNA science, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jason Graham told CNN. Breakthroughs allowed his office to “work with smaller amounts of DNA,” and to “obtain DNA from very degraded samples” that previously would have been unusable, he said.

“This office made a very solemn promise to the families of the victims who were lost on September 11th, 2001,” he said, “to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to identify their loved ones and return them to their families.”

Paul said his mother would have found it admirable that the medical examiners didn’t give up. “She always admired people who were dogged in their pursuit of whatever it is they did with their lives,” said Paul. “She would be really, really impressed with this group that works on our behalf.”

Now, the Keating family is making plans for their mother’s remains. Some will be kept at the site of the World Trade Center while the rest of her remains will be laid to rest with her husband.

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