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Families of World Trade Center victims relive agony

Five years after the terrorist attacks, new discoveries hold hope and pain .

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 12, 2006

NEW YORK - Mary Jane Waring has waited five years for someone to find her brother so she can bury a small part of what she lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

But since the recent discovery of hundreds more bones in long-buried places at ground zero, she has become afraid of the emotions that could be stirred up.

"If they do find something, it would be very upsetting for everybody," said Waring, whose brother, James Waring, died in the top floors of the World Trade Center's north tower.

Some people who never received any remains of their family members are uncertain about what they want to find. Others, who have already buried some remains, face the possibility of another funeral or burial.

Hope for the return of remains to families of the 2,749 people who died at the trade center - more than 40 percent of whom have never been identified - has grown with the recent discoveries, and forensic experts say advances in DNA technology could lead to new identifications for many victims.

"I'll tell you the truth, I couldn't go through exhuming his body again," said Bruce De Cell, whose son-in-law, Mark Petrocelli, died in the north tower. The family has received remains five times and buried him twice, the last time in 2003. "As far as I'm concerned, I hope I don't hear any more."

In September, Joan Greener received word that remains of her niece, Karen Martin, were identified. "It was like a knife in your chest again," said Greener, of Salem, Mass. "You spent a couple of days bawling your eyes out and feeling that pain again. But then you thought, you know, this is a good thing."

Greener's family had buried dust from ground zero in 2001 to remember Martin, 40, of Danvers, Mass., a flight attendant on the first hijacked airliner crashed into the trade center.

The lengthy search for body parts is a rare thing for disasters. The remains of all 230 victims of TWA Flight 800, which crashed in the ocean off Long Island in 1996, and of the 168 Oklahoma City federal building bombing victims have been identified.

Although Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,300 people in Louisiana, only about 30 bodies remain unidentified.

The fragments found beginning in mid October came from abandoned manholes on the western edge of the Trade Center site. City officials plan a yearlong search for more remains.

[Last modified November 12, 2006, 01:49:29]