She died when her flight struck the North Tower on 9/11. Her remains have finally been identified

When mourners gathered in a Southern California church for Barbara Keating’s November 2001 memorial service, an urn was placed at the altar.

The ashes inside were not those of the 72-year-old grandmother, The Desert Sun reported. Instead, they came from the rubble of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, where Keating died on September 11 – one of nearly 3,000 people killed in the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil.

In the 24 years since, Keating’s youngest son said he held little hope his mother – among the 1,100 victims whose remains had yet to be identified – would be found in the debris. But late this summer, the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner contacted his family with news:

DNA analysis had positively identified the matriarch’s remains.

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