Not your typical lunchtime discussion

Rep. Steve Chabot hosted a 12:30 p.m. briefing today about missing persons and unidentified remains. About a dozen young House staff members snacked on sandwiches and chips while listening to Debra Culbertson of Blanchester describe how she's followed leads that her daughter was tossed into a woodchipper or dismembered and thrown into the Ohio River – all to no avail.

Culberson's daughter, Carrie, was kidnapped and murdered in 1996. Carrie Culberson's ex-boyfriend, Vincent Doan, was convicted of the murder but a body has never been found. Debra Culberson has fought for the last decade to require that unidentified human remains to undergo DNA testing. Currently, only five states, including Ohio, require such testing.

"With today's technology, that's totally unacceptable," Culberson told the group. "I want to be able to find Carrie and give her the Christian burial that she deserves."

Culberson appealed to the staff members from other congressional offices to speak to their bosses about getting involved in this issue.

"Dead people don't vote. Dead people don't pay taxes, so it's hard to get people to listen," she said.

Chabot, a Westwood Republican who is co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said legislation he authored has helped by requiring states and local communities that receive federal funding for DNA testing to report test results for such remains to a nationwide FBI database.

But too many people still don’t know about the database, he said.

Chabot said he plans to introduce a non-binding congressional resolution this week, which is National Crime Victims Awareness Week, to call for continued federal funding for DNA testing, better cooperation between local, state and federal law enforcement, training for officers involved in these types of cases and greater accessibility of the federal DNA database to local coroners and medical examiners.

Chabot said his father, who was 78, died nine years ago this week and he finds it comforting to visit his father's grave and "talk to him in my own way."

"Debra doesn't have that opportunity to go to a particular location," he said.