A decade after 9/11, a family learns the truth about loved one

Randy Scott's family was certain he died instantly in the attacks on the twin towers in 2001. Now, five words, two numbers and a DNA blood sample have confirmed the family was wrong about how, and when, Scott died.

"84th floor

West Office

12 people trapped"

Scott wrote those words and tossed the note out the window.

The other content on the note is a dark spot, about the size of a thumbprint. It is Randy's blood, and the clue that eventually enabled the medical examiner's office to trace the source of the note through DNA tests and deliver it to his family a decade after he apparently tossed it from the 84th floor.

Not long before writing the note, after the first plane hit One World Trade Center, Randy Scott, 48, called his wife Denise at Springdale School. She was in class with her first-grade students, so someone picked up the school line and passed along the message. Thinking the first crash was minor incident, he just wanted her to know he was fine. The full news of the terrorist attacks would not reach Denise until later that morning, when their daughter, Rebecca, called her from Ohio, where she was attending college.

The Houston Chronicle has more on this story.