Multiple bodies of possible Tulsa Race Massacre victims that were taken from Oklahoma cemeteries will be exhumed for a second time on Wednesday to gather more evidence necessary for identification.
Fourteen of the 19 bodies fit the criteria to retrieve additional DNA, and two had enough DNA to begin sequencing, according to Tulsa spokeswoman Michelle Brooks. The sets have been transported to Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City, Utah, which will aid in the identification process.
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“There were 14 of the 19 (bodies) that fit the criteria for further DNA analysis,” Brooks said. “These are the ones that will be re-exhumed.”
Intermountain Forensics is seeking descendants of massacre victims to provide genetic material to determine whether the bodies were from the 1921 incident.
Searches for additional victims will begin after the exhumation, which will include soil testing at two sites on the Arkansas River, where massacre victims are believed to be buried in mass graves. The repeated exhumation was announced last month, and the bodies will be reburied following the retrieval, according to a report by archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck and forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield.
The 1921 massacre occurred in an affluent black neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, called Greenwood when a white mob stormed the neighborhood and burned down more than 1,000 homes, raided hundreds of others, and destroyed local businesses. Historians estimate the death toll from the massacre to be between 75 and 300, but only 36 were recorded at the time.
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The three remaining survivors of the violence, Viola Fletcher, Hughes Van Ellis, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, have never received any compensation for the massacre. However, a lawsuit seeking unspecified punitive damages is pending.
If approved, the suit will provide reparations to the survivors and the living descendants of other victims.
