Trade center missing down to 158

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Six months after the World Trade Center attack, 158 people are officially classified as missing — some of them almost certainly dead, some perhaps mistakenly on the list, and some possibly trying to fake their deaths.

The missing include firefighters and foreign visitors, bond brokers and illegal immigrants working mostly food service and maintenance jobs, an Associated Press analysis has found.

In many cases, families have mourned these people, and their employers consider them dead, but their remains have not been identified and no one has applied for a death certificate. Some are illegal immigrants whose families, often living in other countries, have been unable to obtain death certificates because the victims’ employers will not cooperate.

Others may not be dead at all but were wrongly reported missing in the chaos after Sept. 11 or may be trying to fake their deaths, according to police.

The police department estimates at least 60 percent of the 158 still classified as missing did die in the attack, while the rest require further investigation.

The official city count of the missing and dead peaked at 6,729 on Sept. 24 but quickly began dropping as the list was cross-checked for mistakes and duplicated names.

City officials say 2,672 people — including those on the two airliners that brought down the twin towers — are confirmed dead, either by identified remains or a death certificate issued by a court based on proof that the victim was in the trade center at the time of the catastrophe.

The remaining 158 were reported missing by family and friends, but so far nothing officially proves they died on Sept. 11.