About Us
Since its founding, Intermountain Forensics has been both a pioneer and thought leader in the forensic DNA community.
Intermountain Forensics is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Salt Lake City. IMF was launched in 2019 by the Cold Case Coalition, and later formed its own nonprofit.
The Cold Case Coalition was organized in response to a request from the family of Rosie Tapia, a 6-year-old girl whose 1995 rape and murder had gone cold. The Coalition’s first effort was to propose a statewide cold case database to enable agencies to collaborate on missing persons and cross-jurisdictional cases. “Rosie’s Law” was passed unanimously by the 2018 Utah legislature. The Coalition’s other efforts include a groundbreaking program making Utah the only state where a reward is offered on every cold case, and creating Utah’s first cold case playing cards.
From its formation, the Coalition heard tales of forensic DNA testing not being performed due primarily to funding issues. It heard about a Barbie doll that might be key to solving a young girl’s homicide and arranged for testing, learning first-hand the significant expense. One morning, the Coalition received a phone call from a detective in the Midwest who was determined to identify a child found dead 20 years earlier. His agency had spent its discretionary budget on DNA testing from a private lab and had no money to hire a genetic genealogy service. He asked for the Coalition’s help. Soon after, the Coalition learned about the brutal murder of a schoolteacher in eastern Utah. Evidence with probable DNA still existed, but the agency had no funding for testing that would be needed. The Coalition also heard from advocates for more accessible DNA testing in innocence challenges.
In response to these needs, the Coalition undertook what Fox News called an “ambitious” goal: the country’s first nonprofit forensic DNA lab. Designed by an internationally prominent laboratory designer, in 2020 Intermountain Forensics began its mission to bring justice to victims and the unidentified. IMF became the first forensic lab to be accredited by ANAB in Whole Genome Sequencing, and developed advanced techniques for extraction, sequencing, bioinformatics, and deconvolution of mixtures. In 2021, IMF was selected to oversee DNA identification of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. In 2024, IMF transitioned day-to-day laboratory operations to DNA Labs, International, in Florida.
IMF now focuses on other needs in the forensic DNA industry, including funding and education.