A nonprofit that got its start more than five years ago continues to work to identify John and Jane Does using investigative genealogy, and in one case has identified eastern North Carolina ties to a body found under a bridge in California nearly 30 years ago.
The DNA Doe Project works to identify unnamed deceased people through the volunteer efforts of more than 60 experienced genetic genealogists. One of those volunteers is Lisa Needler, who is working to help identify a man known as the Wohler Bridge John Doe.
“The body was found, it was skeletal remains, found in 1994,” she said, “It says that subjects were hiking to a fishing hole and discovered the skeleton.”
On New Year’s Eve 1994, officials in Sonoma County say hikers discovered the body near Wohler Bridge in Forestville, California. The coroner said the man had suffered fractures to both sides of his skull and stab wounds to the scapula. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head.
Not much else is known about the man. Officials say he was wearing a motorcycle jacket and boots when he died and had a Prince Albert piercing.
DNA matches to distant cousins have come from Craven, Jones, New Hanover, Brunswick and many other North Carolina counties.
“There's actually a large connection. A good majority of his relatives appear to be coming from about one-third of the state,” Needler explained.
She said there haven’t been matches as close as aunts, uncles or first cousins, but from more genetically distant relatives like second, third, fourth cousins and beyond.
Needler is hoping more people from the region will add their information to one of two databases the DNA Doe project uses to try to track down the family of the unidentified.
“So, if they have tested with Ancestry or 23andMe, if they could upload their DNA to GEDmatch, or family tree DNA, or both,” she said. “When they upload, it helps us out because it helps us build a better genetic network to look at.”
In addition, Needler said it’s never too late to report someone missing, even if it’s been as long as 30 years.
Please share this post in North Carolina to reach more potential relatives of John Doe!
— DNA Doe Project (@DnaDoeProject) April 1, 2023
Upload to GEDmatch and submit to our featured case form here to find out if you're a DNA cousin of John Doe: https://t.co/aiRFXIgVIk
Some DNA Doe Project cases are solved quickly, while others may take years of detective work.
Five years ago this month, the organization announced its first successful identification of an unidentified person. Marcia King, previously known as Buckskin Girl, was found in Troy, Ohio in April, 1981. She was one of the first people to be identified through genetic genealogy.
Through the work of the DNA Doe project, around 80 people have been identified in the past five years – including one of the victims of the Chicago-area serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was discovered in the “Killer Clown’s” crawl space in 1978 and identified by Doe Project volunteers in 2021 as Francis Wayne Alexander.
He was born in North Carolina and was in his early 20s when he left to start a new life in New York and then Chicago and lost touch with his family.
Gacy was convicted in 1980 of murdering 33 people, ranging from ages 14 to 21. He was executed in 1994.
DNA submissions can be made to Family Tree HERE or to GEDMatch HERE.
