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The Ramapo College of New Jersey's Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center (IGG) worked in collaboration with authorities in St. Louis County, MI, to successfully identify “St. Louis John Doe,” who had been missing since 2021.
"This was a hot case, which generally refers to the presence of active, investigative leads," reads a release from Ramapo College's IGG. "The use of IGG in hot cases is a fairly new and growing concept."
IGG's assistant director, Cairenn Binder, said IGG has traditionally been used as a "last ditch" investigative effort, "primarily in cold cases where there are no other investigative avenues to pursue."
"Seeing as how this relatively new technology has effectively given new hope in thousands of DNA investigations, it should be looked at earlier in investigations to more quickly resolve cases before they go cold."
In violent crime, IGG can help prevent violent criminals from reoffending sooner or ever again, Binder said.
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.
Within a month, extract from previous DNA testing was sent to Genologue in Tucker, GA, for whole genome sequencing to create a DNA profile for the unidentified person. Bioinformatics was performed by Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City, Utah. In May 2024, a usable profile was generated and uploaded to GEDmatch Pro.
The IGG Certificate Program students 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.
A relative of the decedent was contacted, confirming that St. Louis John Doe was missing and not heard from since 2021, and the family agreed to have a DNA reference sample collected.
On July 16, 2024, the identification put forward by the IGG Center was confirmed by the Bureau of Crimes Against Persons unit in the St. Louis County Police Department. At the family’s request, the identity of the decedent will not be shared publicly.
There are additional benefits of employing the use of IGG earlier in unidentified cases. One is the likelihood of more usable DNA for recent cases, as DNA swabs were not routinely collected prior to the 1990s. A second is how social media can help provide information, IGG's release said.
“If a person recently went missing, we can sometimes find clues they left behind on the Internet,” said Binder.
To date, the work of IGG Center students and staff led to the confirmation and announcement of six cases, with another eight awaiting positive identification, as part of a caseload of 65 cases in just two short years.
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