9/11 Victim's Bones To Be Tested In Paternity Case, Judge Rules

DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — A 9/11 victim's bones can be tested in a disputed paternity case, a Manhattan judge ruled this month.

Manhattan Surrogate’s Court Judge Rita Mella directed the medical examiner's office to release bone fragments belonging to Michael Morgan Taylor, a trader at Cantor Fitzgerald who perished in the 2001 terrorist attacks at the age of 42.

The bone fragments will be tested to determine whether Taylor is the father of 24-year-old Austin Colby, a Houston resident who is seeking to prove in court that Taylor is his biological father. The New York Post, which first covered the judge's ruling, noted that a positive identification of Taylor as Colby's father could allow the 24-year-old to cash in on his late dad's $1 million estate.

Mella sided with Colby over the objections of Taylor's family in her decision, dated April 13, that Taylor's bone fragments could be tested. Mary Kay Crenshaw, Taylor's sister and the administrator of his estate, testified during the proceedings that to test her brother's bone fragments would be a "further desecration of his remains," according to Mella's ruling.

Mella wrote that Crenshaw "testified as to the family's desire for closure after the World Trade Center attacks and the effects that this matter has had on her and her family.

Mella directed the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to release any genetic material of Taylor's that it has in its possession. A representative of the medical examiner's office told the court that the office had bone fragments that were positively identified as Taylor's, but that all other genetic material had been returned to the family. Like hundreds of victims who perished in the 9/11 attacks, Taylor's remains were identified after his family gave the medical examiner's office a sample of his DNA — in Taylor's case, his toothbrush — to allow investigators to match the remains to the DNA sample provided.

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