Grant aids DNA hunt for missing people

Tommy Bowman visited his aunt in Altadena and later went on a hike with relatives in the Angeles National Forest on a Saturday afternoon in 1957.

On the walk back, the 8-year-old went ahead of the group and told his cousins he would wait for them at the car. The Redondo Beach boy was never seen again.

His family is still waiting for Bowman 49 years after he vanished.

"Forty-nine years is quite awhile," said his father, 84-year-old Eldon Bowman of Simi Valley.

Does he think his oldest child is still alive?

"When there's nothing to indicate otherwise, it's the more pleasant thing to consider," he said. "But after \ 50 years, it makes you wonder."

The Bowman case is among 28 missing-persons cases where Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department detectives have collected DNA samples from relatives that were included in a state DNA database. And detectives expect to collect more samples this year thanks to a grant from the National Institute of Justice.

About $62,000 of the $882,399 federal grant is earmarked for the Missing Person DNA program, according to sheriff's Sgt. Paul Mondry.

"We won't be hiring more people. Maybe \ utilizing more people to obtain the samples," said sheriff's Detective Diane Harris, who handles missing-person cases.

The Sheriff's Department has about 200 cases of missing adults and children dating as far back as the 1950s.

Under a 2001 law, officers must tell relatives of missing persons that they can choose to give DNA samples, which will be included in a database maintained by the state Department of Justice. Officers do the collecting.

The same law created the state's Missing Persons DNA program. DNA profiles from samples given by relatives and samples from the missing person are kept in one database called the family reference file. Another database holds DNA profiles generated from unidentified remains.

Police can use the family reference file to see if it matches any profiles in the other database. An agency trying to put a name to a John or Jane Doe case can also send in a sample to be checked against the database. State officials said a now grown kidnapped victim can also verify his identity with help from the database.

About 69 people have been identified, according to Aaron Carruthers, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office.

So far, Harris said there have been no matches on the databases in any of their cases.

The Department of Justice started receiving DNA samples in 2002, Carruthers said.

"Currently we have 961 samples that were either contributed by family members as reference samples or samples pulled from personal items belonging to the missing person, for example maybe a toothbrush," he said.

The program also has 836 samples from unidentified persons.

The Sheriff's Department started collecting DNA samples from relatives of missing adults and children in 2003. They've collected samples on 28 cases since then.

"We just did it in our spare time. Now with the grant we are able to have additional time to do this," Harris said.

Their plan is to have a day when people can come in to give DNA samples, she said.

Umberto and Luz Elena Rojas of Rowland Heights recently gave DNA samples for the program. Their daughter, Adriana Lisette Rojas, has been missing for 10 years.

Luz Rojas thinks her daughter is still alive but admits to sometimes thinking otherwise.

On May 7, 1996, 17-year-old Adriana Rojas called her mother at work and said she was going to rest at home before heading to night class. Her older brother later heard the front door slam. Rojas left behind a half-eaten sandwich and her purse, money, backpack and pager.

When she ran away from home before she took a lot of items including drapes. But this time, she left with nothing. There's been no word from her since.

Detectives have questioned a paroled sex offender who lived nearby but haven't arrested or charged anyone.

Luz Rojas has mulled over what her daughter did in the last few months and weeks before she disappeared. She said her daughter was acting different and thinks the teen was planning to leave.

She said Adriana was close to her siblings but in the last few months wouldn't talk to her older brother and was fighting with her little brother.

The teen also didn't bring home papers for a graduation cap and gown, which led her mother to suspect she didn't want to graduate. And the usually mature-acting teen asked her mother to make her a big fruit salad and feed it to her like she was a little girl.

"She was acting funny. She was saying goodbye to me. I know," Luz Rojas said.

Adriana Rojas also told her mother she wanted to move and hated the house that she used to love before.

Luz Rojas dreams every night of searching then finding her daughter.

"When I find her, I ask her, `Why mija?` ... Was I a bad mother? Did I do something wrong? Just come home."'

The roses they both planted in the front of the house are still there and her daughter's upstairs room is kept pretty much as it was when she disappeared. Luz Rojas doesn't want to move.

"I will be here until she comes back," she said.