WASHINGTON — After a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report recommended that information from two federal databases – the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC ) – be shared to help criminal justice professionals more efficiently locate missing persons, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) today called on Congress to immediately pass his bipartisan Billy’s Law, which would integrate the two systems. Billy’s Law, which Murphy originally introduced in 2009 after Billy Smolinski of Waterbury, Connecticut, went missing, would close loopholes in our national missing persons systems and streamline the reporting process for law enforcement and medical examiners by connecting NamUs to NCIC. U.S. Senator John Hoeven (R.-N.D.), U.S. Representative Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.), and U.S. Representative Ted Poe (R-Texas) joined Murphy in introducing the bill last September.

“This is proof that we are completely unequipped to deal with missing persons. This is the year 2016, yet thousands of families are missing loved ones because government won’t let databases talk to each other,” said Murphy. “The Smolinskis and thousands of others across America wake up every day with crippling uncertainty about the fate of their loved one. These families shouldn't be victimized again by a broken system. Congress needs to pass Billy’s Law immediately.”

Each year, more than 600,000 people are reported missing and hundreds of remains go unidentified. There are currently no direct links between NamUS (the only federal database for missing persons and unidentified remains that can be cross-searched, accessed and added to by the public) and NCIC (an electronic database that helps criminal justice professionals locate missing persons). Because there is no mechanism to share information between the two systems, law enforcement and medical examiners relying on the systems may miss information that could be instrumental in solving missing persons cases. Sharing information between NamUs and NCIC – as “Billy’s Law” would require – would better inform those who are investigating missing and unidentified persons cases and solve such cases more quickly.