75-712g. Report of unidentified person or human remains; duties of law enforcement agency and coroner; disposal of remains. (a) Any law enforcement agency of a political subdivision of this state shall receive reports of any unidentified persons or human remains. The law enforcement agency shall enter the report immediately, and in no case later than 24 hours after receipt of the report, into the missing person system of the national crime information system and the missing and unidentified person system of the Kansas bureau of investigation.

(b) Notwithstanding any other action deemed appropriate for the handling of unidentified human remains, the coroner, in conjunction with the law enforcement agencies involved, shall make reasonable attempts to promptly identify such remains. Such attempts may include, but are not limited to, obtaining: Photographs of the human remains, prior to an autopsy; dental or skeletal x-rays; photographs of items found with the human remains; fingerprints from the remains, if possible; samples of tissue suitable for DNA typing, if possible; samples of whole bone or hair, or both, suitable for DNA typing; and any other information that may support identification efforts.

(c) The coroner shall submit any photos, dental x-rays, skeletal x-rays, fingerprints and other evidence relevant to identification to the reporting law enforcement agency within one week of obtaining them, if identification efforts have otherwise failed.

(d) If unidentified human remains have not been identified by other means within 30 days, the law enforcement agency shall make reasonable efforts to obtain prompt DNA analysis of biological samples by submitting the DNA biological samples to the Kansas bureau of investigation laboratory for analysis.

(e) No coroner or other person shall dispose of, or engage in actions that will materially affect, unidentified human remains before the coroner obtains samples suitable for DNA identification and archiving, photographs of the unidentified person or human remains and all other appropriate steps for identification have been exhausted.

(f) Cremation of unidentified human remains is prohibited.

History: L. 2006, ch. 37, § 4; July 1.