Image: University of Puget Sound Yearbook, 1960.

[June 2023] “Nogales John Doe 2002” has been successfully identified as Donald Hadland, Jr.

Hadland’s remains were found in a hotel room in Nogales, Arizona in 2002, where he had registered for a room under a false identity just prior to his death. Although a fingerprint match was found revealing a possible identity as Hadland, questions regarding his identity remained unanswered due to conflicting identifying information. The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME) called him “Nogales John Doe” and his remains were interred in 2003 in Nogales.

This case is the first announced successful identification for the IGG Center at Ramapo College of New Jersey. “The teamwork and diligence of our IGG students’ work on this case is a great and consequential example of how the IGG Center at Ramapo College, the first of its kind nationally, contributes meaningfully to our society,” said Ramapo College President Cindy Jebb. “The hands-on learning, research, and investigative casework taking place at the Center helps our law enforcement partners locally and across the nation, as well as those in our communities who long for closure on the loss of loved ones.”

Read more about his identification here.

Image courtesy of the Pierce Family

[October 2023] “Saint Louis John Doe 2012” has been successfully identified as Joseph Daniel Pierce.

Joseph Pierce was 23 years old when his remains were found in 2012. The St. Louis City Medical Examiner’s Office attempted to identify him with traditional means but his name remained a mystery.

Pierce, from Texas, was loved and missed by his family without any idea about his whereabouts or whether he was alive or dead for more than a decade. St. Louis City MEO Executive Director of Operations Tara Rick could not give up on this case and shared, “Over the past eleven years, the family and what they must be going through never left my mind. I’m honored to have been part of the team able to restore Joseph’s name. I am thankful to the RCNJ IGG Center for their partnership and collaboration with Intermountain Forensics to resolve this case.”

Pierce’s mother also hopes sharing this story encourages others to upload DNA to databases to help solve cases like her son’s. “The genetic genealogy in this case was straightforward due to the presence of one of John Doe’s relatives in the GEDmatch database. Thanks to that family member, we were able to quickly provide an investigative lead and ultimately restore Mr. Pierce’s name,” said Binder.

More details about this identification are available here.

Image: Gordon Technical High School Yearbook, Chicago, IL, 1966

[December 15, 2023] “Rhinelander John Doe 1980” has been successfully identified as Norman “Norm” Grasser of Chicago, IL

On March 19, 1980, the Oneida County Medical Examiner’s Office along with the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call about a body found in the snow in a field in the Town of Pine Lake, WI approximately 46 yards off of Highway 17. No identification was found on the body. A forensic autopsy performed at the University of Wisconsin determined that the male died from cold exposure due to hypothermia. Fingerprints sent to the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory and Federal Bureau of Investigation did not confirm an identity. The case continued to be investigated through missing persons reports and press releases through the years.

In January 2023, the Ramapo College IGG Center was enlisted by the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office in Rhinelander, WI to assist with identifying “Rhinelander John Doe.”

In May, students in the Ramapo College IGG Certificate Program investigated genetic matches of “Rhinelander John Doe” and identified Norman Grasser as a candidate. Mr.Grasser’s brother had been searching for him for over 40 years and even created a FindAGrave page noting that the date of Mr. Grasser’s death was the day he was reported missing, January 20, 1980, in Chicago, IL.

Read more about his identification here.

Image courtesy of the Jacobsen Family

[January 31, 2024] “Beaver Creek John Doe” has been successfully identified as David Emil Jacobsen.

In 2011, the deceased body of a male subject was discovered near a hiking area in Beaver Creek, Yavapai County, Arizona. This decedent had no wallet or identification on his person to aid with his identification, which hampered the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office investigation. More than 12 years passed while hoping for a match through NamUs or the Cogent Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which both yielded unsuccessful results to help identify Beaver Creek John Doe.

Students in the Ramapo College Investigative Genetic Genealogy Certificate Program discovered the most likely candidate to be David Emil Jacobsen. The discovery of a candidate was brought about by the combination of family tree research and the presence of unique circumstantial details observed by the students.

More details about this identification are available here.

The Palmyra Spectator, Palmyra, Missouri – Wednesday, December 20, 1944

[April 16, 2024] “Rock Collection John Doe” has been successfully identified as Captain Everett Leland Yager.

In 2002, a human jaw bone containing several teeth was submitted to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office in Northern Arizona. The bone, collected by a child as he added to his rock collection, had likely been picked up in the county – but the boy’s parents were not sure exactly where or when. Traditional DNA testing was performed, but there was no match in government databases to “Rock Collection John Doe”.

More than 20 years later, students in the IGG Bootcamp at Ramapo College Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center used IGG to identify Captain Everett Leland Yager as a likely candidate for Rock Collection John Doe in Summer of 2023. A reference sample was collected from Captain Yager’s daughter, and he was positively identified in March of 2024.

Captain Yager had perished as the result of a tragic airplane accident during a military training exercise in 1951. Although his remains were thought to have been recovered at the scene of the accident in California, Captain Yager’s jawbone somehow ended up in a child’s rock collection 50 years later. This part of the story remains a mystery, but you can read more about his identification here.

[August 27, 2024] “The RCNJ IGG Center successfully identifies St. Louis John Doe in its first “hot” case”

In October 2021, foot and leg bones, with the shoe still on, were found in Florissant, St. Louis, Missouri in Coldwater Creek.

In February 2024, Dr. Lindsay Trammell, forensic anthropologist with the St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s Office, contacted the Ramapo College IGG Center with a request to work on this case. Trammell was encouraged to contact the center by a colleague in another local medical examiner’s office who found success partnering with the center on an unidentified case.

Students in the Ramapo College IGG Certificate Program began investigative genetic genealogy and, within days, identified a potential candidate for the identity of St. Louis John Doe. This candidate was presented to Dr. Trammell and detectives from the St. Louis County Police Department Bureau of Crimes Against Persons on May 23, 2024 and the identification was confirmed on July 16, 2024. At the family’s request, the identity of the decedent will not be shared publicly.

Because St. Louis John Doe went missing only three years ago, the confirmation of his death for the family is hard to process when holding onto hope of his return. The IGG Center respects the family’s wishes to keep the identity private.

Read more about this identification here.

[September 27, 2024] The RCNJ IGG Center is thrilled to announce that Robert and David Bintz have been exonerated of charges related to the 1987 homicide of Sandra Lison after the true perpetrator of this crime was identified through IGG.

Robert and David Bintz were wrongfully convicted of Ms. Lison’s murder in 2000, despite available DNA evidence of another man that did not match either Bintz brother.

In 2023, students at the Ramapo College IGG Bootcamp identified William Hendricks as the possible contributor of the DNA found on Ms. Lison’s body. Mr. Hendricks had been released from prison for another violent crime just eight months before Ms. Lison’s murder. In 2024, Mr. Hendricks’ remains were exhumed for testing. Bode Technology developed a DNA profile for Mr. Hendricks which was then compared to the crime scene DNA.

In September of 2024, the state of Wisconsin confirmed that the samples were a match. Weeks later, further supporting evidence was uncovered which proved that William Hendricks was the sole perpetrator in the murder of Sandra Lison. The state formally exonerated Robert and David Bintz on September 25, 2024 and the brothers were released from prison soon after.

We thank the Great North Innocence Project for entrusting our team to conduct IGG research in this case.

Read more about this case here.

[November 2024] On November 5, 2024, Jon K. Miller of Minnesota was arrested and charged with murder in relation to the 1974 homicide of 26-year-old Mary Schlais. This development in the case came after the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department collaborated with Ramapo College Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center to identify the contributor of DNA found at the scene of Mary’s murder.

This case was challenged by difficulties in the investigative genetic genealogy process, but through collaboration and teamwork the IGG team at Ramapo and investigators in Dunn County were able to bring this case to a resolution. Ultimately, Jon K. Miller confessed to murdering Mary Schlais and his DNA was found to be a direct match to the crime scene DNA sample. Mr. Miller pled no contest to the charge of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison in March of 2025.

More information is available in our press release here.

[January 2025] A human skull that was on display in a New Hampshire attorney’s office has been connected to a family line dating back more than 200 years ago. Students in the Ramapo College of New Jersey Investigative Genetic Genealogy Certificate Program provided information about the origin of the skull based on case research, bringing closure to the skull with unknown origins for decades.

The skull is believed to belong to a child of Samuel Matchette (1781-1854) and Sarah Shields (1800-1848), who both died in Quebec, Canada, a region with historic ties to Sullivan County in New Hampshire, where the town of Claremont is located.

Students in the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Certificate Program worked to determine the origins of the historic skull.

Photograph of Maria Quinones Garcia courtesy of her family

[March 25, 2025] “Warren County Foot Jane Doe” has been successfully identified as Maria Quinones Garcia.

In 2017, a single foot inside a sock and shoe were found in the Delaware River in Pohatcong Township, New Jersey. Authorities identified the remains as belonging to a female, but were unable to determine her age or identify her using traditional methods of investigation.

The New Jersey State Police Cold Case Unit referred this case for investigative genetic genealogy at Ramapo College IGG Center in 2023, and in Spring of 2024 students in the IGG Certificate Program performed research in an effort to identify Warren County Foot Jane Doe.

The students’ extensive research led to the candidate Maria Quinones Garcia, who had gone missing from Allentown, Pennsylvania in 2014. Confirmatory DNA testing of Maria’s children provided a positive identification, providing answers to her loved ones after more than ten years.

More information about this case can be found here.

[April 9, 2025] The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) and Ramapo College of New Jersey Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center (RCNJ IGG Center) collaborated to identify a woman whose remains were recovered in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1996 as Betty Jean Benton.

The remains of a woman believed to be 40-55 years old were found near the Bank of America stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1996. The woman had no identification on her person and traditional methods of investigation were unsuccessful in determining her identity.
In Fall of 2024, Ramapo College of New Jersey’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center
partnered with CMPD to perform investigative genetic genealogy research utilizing a genetic
profile developed by Othram forensic laboratory.

A family of interest was quickly identified, and Betty’s children shared information with CMPD
indicating that she had not been heard from since the early 1990s. A DNA sample from one of
Betty’s daughters later confirmed her identity.

Betty Jean Benton was born in 1954 in Louisiana and was raised in Chicago. It is unknown why
she was in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time of her death, and CMPD hope that individuals who knew Betty will come forward to provide more information that could help in the investigation of this homicide case. More information is available through CMPD’s press release here.