[hammers girl]

If my brother was on a witness protection programme and he died of natural causes or some other unrelated cause would sombody let a member of his family know?

[excon]

Hello hammers:

I doubt it. What makes you think cops are good people, or care about the families of these people?

excon

[Fr_Chuck]

No, what happens unlike the movies, the person is given a new ID, he has some protectoin and supervision while not going back to court.
Remember unlike the movies where the person goes away and never comes back, they have to come back for any appeals in court and so on.

But after all of the court cases are over, and he has a new job, new home, the witness protection people just go away and he has a phone number to call if he needs something, Most likely the Witness protection people would not even know he is dead for some time after he has finished with his court cases and has just started living his new life.

[shygrneyzs]

If he is or was in the Witness Protection Program, he has a new identity. Who would know to call his previous family? Not the coroner or the funeral home. The police are supposed to know that this person is in the WPP but are they going to track down the original family? Maybe and maybe not. If he died of natural causes, why would the police be involved anyway?

You are not sure your brother was even in the WPP. Could be he just disappeared on his own and is living a new life. Some people do that.

[hammers girl]

Thanks for your reply, my bro disappeared one day a few years ago out of the blue, cutting a long story short , I had the red cross on the case to look for him,they said they would always look, but a year later they said they were able to have correspondances forwarded to him through the curtesy of a government department, which leads me to believe he is on a programme, what other answer is there? What do you think

[shygrneyzs]

I find it strange that the Red Cross can forward mail to him via some government agency but anything is possible. What would happen if this mail were seen by someone else and that person put two and two together? People who enter the Witness Protection Program are not angels - often they are criminals themselves who have testified for leniency or new identity. So one disappears - whoever that person was associated with would have the ability to track and would watch.

I just do not want you to have some false hope about your brother and I do not mean to sound cold about it either. If he is in protection, there is a good reason.