Lay Them to Rest: On the Road with the Cold Case Investigators Who Identify the Nameless

by Laurah Norton

“for teeth formed after 1965, enamel radiocarbon content predicted year of birth within 1.5 years.”

postcrania

Hefner’s macromorphoscopic

Many famous faces were captured in death: Dante Alighieri, Mary Queen of Scots, Ludwig van Beethoven, John Keats, William Blake, Napoleon Bonaparte, and even Charles Dickens were all cast in wax or plaster.

That’s what happened in 2019, when a John Doe the GBI called “ACE” or “The Riverdale John Doe” was struck by a car in Riverdale, Georgia, near the intersection of Valley Hill Road and Mockingbird Trail. The nickname came from the word ACE tattooed on the victim’s forearm. He was a Black male under twenty years old, most likely between fourteen and nineteen. The person who hit him was charged with vehicular homicide, but investigators still had no knowledge of his identity.

Dywimas Autman

Donald Nyden,

Ina Jane Doe,

Genealogists like CeCe Moore, Dr. Barbara Rae-Venter, Dr. Margaret Press, and Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick had all recognized the value of home DNA tests when they hit the market.

The Genetic Detective.2 CeCe talked with me about the inception of investigative genetic genealogy—then mostly called forensic genealogy—and how she and her colleagues saw the potential to use this new technology to solve crimes. The shift to “investigative” over the past few years has been made to differentiate investigative genetic genealogy from both traditional genealogy and from the established field of forensic genealogy, which predates DNA-based work and focuses on tracing heirs in legal cases.

One of the other early and important figures in investigative genetic genealogy was Dr. Margaret Press. Margaret is one of the co-founders of DNA Doe Project.

Sue Grafton

Joseph Chandler Newton.

Robert Ivan Nichols.

“Buckskin Girl”

“Buckskin Girl”

Marcia King,