Ventura County Secures $700,000 Federal Grant for Cold Case DNA Testing

A significant $700,000 federal grant has been awarded to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office to expand the use of forensic genetic genealogy in cold case investigations.

The funding was included in the Fiscal Year 2026 government spending bill signed into law on January 23. This initiative specifically targets a backlog of unidentified human remains and missing person cases that have remained unsolved for decades.

The grant will allow the Sheriff’s Department and the Medical Examiner’s Office to use advanced DNA technology to find distant relatives of unidentified victims.

Representative Salud Carbajal, who supported the funding, highlighted the recent success of the program, which helped identify four sets of remains in a single quarter of 2024.

These cases included the 1981 murder of Maria Belmontes Blancas and the identification of Thomas Aquinas Cooney, a Vietnam veteran found near Ojai forty years ago.

In addition to the cold case funding, the federal bill also secured nearly $6 million for critical dredging at the Ventura Harbor.

These funds are essential for maintaining the depth of the harbor entrance, which frequently becomes clogged with sand during winter storms.

The combined funding aims to improve both public safety and the local economy by solving long-standing crimes and keeping the county’s maritime infrastructure operational.