Senate committee advances bill to boost missing-person reporting and expand NamUs entries

A Senate committee voted to advance a bill passed by the House Judiciary B Committee that aims to increase reporting to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and to align a related fraud statute's limitations period with prior Senate language.

The committee approved an amendment to change a statute-of-limitations provision from seven years to 10 years and adopted a strike-all rewrite before passing the measure as amended. Sponsor Senator Sparks said the bill's early sections address reporting and identification in missing-person cases and noted the amendment would match earlier Senate legislation extending the limitations period. After discussion, the panel approved the change; the chair announced "the ayes have it."

Counsel Samsel told the committee that "Section 2 requires all local law enforcement agencies to accept without delay any report of a missing person and may attempt to obtain a DNA sample from the missing person." He also said the bill requires remains not already in NamUs to be entered into the system and that the committee would request a fiscal note to clarify costs.

Committee members asked how much of the work would impose local costs. Senator Barrett asked whether compliance would require spending local funds; committee leaders said NamUs itself is free but that the procedures and staff time needed to prepare and upload records were not yet clarified and warranted a fiscal note. The chair pointed to language that, if a reported missing person remains unresolved after five days but not more than 15 days, would trigger generation of a NamUs report and additional attempts to obtain information.

The committee adopted the strike-all and, after the vote, the chair said the title was sufficient to pass as amended. The transcript does not record a roll-call tally with member names; votes were announced verbally and the chair declared the measures approved by voice vote.