Meet Our Team: Board Advisor, David Van Norman

David Van Norman

 

Deputy Coroner Investigator – 1992 to present
Unidentified-Missing Persons Coordinator 2006 to 2011
San Bernardino County Sheriff Department - Coroner Division 

David Van Norman started with the County of San Bernardino as an Autopsy Technician in the Coroner Morgue Facility, June 1, 1992, and was hired as Deputy Coroner Investigator in December of the same year. Van Norman has investigated over 6,000 deaths (including homicides, suicides, accidents, and medical deaths). He has also served on the Coroner Recovery Team (Tactical Officer – Investigation and recovery of remains from aircraft accidents, mines, mass disaster, hazardous environment scenes).  

A Shift Supervisor/Watch Commander for 7 years (1999 to 2006), he eventually became the first full-time Unidentified Persons Coordinator in 2006.  He has been involved in approximately 25 buried body cases and up to 100 skeletal remains.  He has assisted in the identification of over a thousand cases.  

Van Norman revamped and reorganized the unidentified cases, entering them into NCIC and NamUs, and has processed the identifiers into the searchable databases.  He then organized a team that entered county cemeteries and exhumed 78 unidentified bodies in order to submit DNA samples to the California Department of Justice, Missing Persons DNA Program.

Van Norman is considered an expert in unidentified and long term missing persons case processing.  He has twice been invited by POST as a subject matter expert to update the State’s missing person investigation guidelines. He is responsible for over 90% of the sheriff department’s DNA submissions.