No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!
Clallam County Sheriff’s Office Teams with Othram to Identify a 2008 Doe (DNASolves – 3/08/2025)
On August 5, 2008, a beachgoer walking near the former Silver King Resort, west of Port Angeles, Washington, discovered a shoe containing a sock and what appeared to be human remains. Detectives from the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene, and forensic experts at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office later determined that the remains consisted of a human foot. Despite efforts to identify the individual through conventional forensic methods, the case remained unsolved for years, with no definitive leads as to the identity of the person or the circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
In 2023, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office partnered with Othram, a forensic laboratory specializing in forensic genetic genealogy, to leverage the latest advancements in forensic DNA analysis to establish the decedent’s identity. Utilizing Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing®, Othram’s scientists were able to extract and sequence DNA from the skeletal remains, generating a comprehensive genetic profile. A DNASolves crowdfunding campaign was launched to support the casework, allowing members of the public to contribute to the effort. With funding secured, Othram conducted a forensic genetic genealogy investigation, which ultimately led to the identification of Jeff Surtel.
Surtel was last seen on April 29, 2007, when he departed from his home in Mission, British Columbia, at approximately midnight, riding his bicycle. His family subsequently reported him missing, prompting an extensive search effort that continued for years without success. While details surrounding his disappearance and how he arrived in Washington remain unclear, his identification provides a critical breakthrough for his family, who had sought answers for nearly two decades.
How a Small Human ID Lab Built a Global Reputation (Forensic – 3/10/2025)
Rain threatened under a gray sky as the all-terrain vehicles splashed through a shallow crossing of the Eel River. Two days earlier, a family kayaking in Mendocino County had stumbled across two tennis shoes emerging from the waterway’s muddy banks and reported it to law enforcement, which summoned Chico State’s Human Identification Lab (HIL) to aid with recovery of a body and identification.
As the team approached the site that Halloween morning in 2012, all they could see were feet protruding from the sodden soil, Pro Wings sneakers pointing skyward.
They spent days processing the body and providing as much forensic analysis as possible, concluding the decapitated victim was a white male, likely in his 20s, wearing shoes popular in the 1980s. Yet, no leads came forward and the “Skeleton in Sneakers” was one of several cases the HIL has assisted on that remained unresolved.
Twelve years later, the forensic anthropologists had not forgotten the case. In late 2024, genome-sequencing and genetic genealogy technology confirmed a match and identified the victim as a Washington man, ending a mystery disappearance that had spanned nearly 40 years.
Murder Victim ID’ed as Formerly Incarcerated Washington Man (Forensic – 3/10/2025)
The Arkansas State Police (ASP) Cold Case Unit has successfully identified a homicide victim from 1984 as Earl James McDaniel, a 53-year-old man originally from Kansas City, Missouri. The victim’s body was discovered on Oct. 30, 1984, by Arkansas Department of Transportation workers mowing grass along Interstate 40, about 4½ miles west of Carlisle in Lonoke County.
The deceased was sent to the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory for an autopsy that revealed the cause of death was strangulation, and the manner of death classified as a homicide. Unable to identify the man, the investigation remained stagnant for 40 years.
The ASP Cold Case Unit began reviewing the cold case in March 2024. In September of that year, they submitted remains to Othram, a specialized DNA and genealogy testing facility in Texas. On Jan. 27, 2025, Othram provided a tentative identification of the victim as McDaniel and identified a potential relative in Washington state.
Working with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit, ASP investigators located McDaniel’s daughter in Washington. Her DNA sample was submitted to Othram in early February, and on Feb. 24, 2025, the lab confirmed McDaniel’s identity.
The investigation revealed that McDaniel had been incarcerated in Washington state during the 1960s. He was paroled in Oklahoma in the early 1980s and had numerous arrests throughout the United States. McDaniel’s last contact with law enforcement occurred on Sept. 11, 1984, when the Oskaloosa, Iowa, Police Department arrested him for operating a vehicle while intoxicated. The circumstances surrounding McDaniel’s homicide remain under investigation by the ASP CCU.
County Attorney’s Office Forms New Cold Case Unit (Forensic – 3/10/2025)
The Coconino County Attorney’s Office (Arizona) is pleased to announce the formation of a new Cold Case Unit, a collaborative effort with the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, the Flagstaff Police Department, and local police agencies.
The Cold Case Unit at the Coconino County Attorney’s Office comprises a veteran prosecutor, a paralegal and a legal assistant. The unit will focus on reviewing, analyzing, and prosecuting previously unsolved criminal cases, working closely with investigators and detectives at our local law enforcement agencies.
“We are determined to ensure that every case, regardless of how long ago it happened, deserves justice,” said Coconino County Attorney Ammon Barker. “Our Cold Case Unit reflects our unwavering commitment to work as a team with partners at the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, the Flagstaff Police Department, and other local law enforcement agencies to solve cases and bring violent criminals to justice. Our law enforcement partners at the Sheriff’s Office and Police Department are using modern forensic techniques to solve cold cases, and when that happens, it is time for my office to bring charges and prosecute the case in court. Through our collaborative efforts, we are confident that we can deliver justice for victims and their families who have sought accountability for so long.”
The Cold Case Unit is already reviewing cases for potential charges and working closely with detectives and investigators who are reexamining case files, utilizing advanced forensic tools, and pursuing new leads to uncover critical evidence. Through a proactive and team-oriented approach to cold cases, the County Attorney’s Office, the Sheriff’s Office, the Flagstaff Police Department, and other local law enforcement agencies can work together to bring closure to victims’ families and to the community at large.
Medical Forensic Examiner Reflects on How Care has Improved (Forensic – 3/10/2025)
An estimated one in five women and one in 16 men in Australia have experienced sexual violence.
After such a traumatic experience, it’s understandable many are unsure if they want to report it to the police. In fact, less than 10% of Australian women who experience sexual assault ever make a police report.
In Australia there is no time limit on reporting sexual assault to police. However, there are tight time frames for collecting forensic evidence, which can sometimes be an important part of the police investigation, whether it’s commenced at the time or later.
This means the decision of whether or not to undergo a medical forensic examination needs to be made quite quickly after an assault.
I work as a medical forensic examiner. Here’s what you can expect if you present for a medical forensic examination after a sexual assault.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Teams with Othram to Identify a 1986 Homicide Victim (DNASolves – 3/13/2025)
In October 1986, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office was alerted to skeletal remains in a wooded lot on Lewis Avenue in Ida, Michigan. Ida is an unincorporated community in Monroe County, southwest of Detroit. A citizen directed detectives to partially decomposed human remains in the woods. Detectives treated this incident as a homicide and the remains were sent for an autopsy. The Monroe County Medical Examiner determined the remains belonged to a white male between the ages of 35 and 45 years old. The cause of death was ruled blunt force trauma to the head and the manner was homicide.
Despite an exhaustive investigation detectives were unable to identify the remains and details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP8379. Detectives with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Detective Bureau sent samples of the remains for traditional DNA analysis and upload to CODIS, but a familial match could not be confirmed.
In 2024, the Monroe County Sheriff Detective Bureau teamed with Othram to determine if advanced DNA testing could assist with identifying the unknown man. Evidence was submitted to Othram’s laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas. Othram scientists successfully developed a DNA extract from the forensic evidence and used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown man. During the course of the investigation a potential relative was identifed. The comprehensive profile for the John Doe was then compared to the potential relative using KinSNP® Rapid Relationship Testing. The KinSNP® analysis confirmed the relationship and helped investigators confirm the identity of the man as Shaun Daniel Brauner, of Detroit, MI.
Detectives later learned that Brauner was believed to have been a victim of a homicide in Wayne County, Michigan. The homicide case was adjudicated in Wayne County in the summer of 1990. Due to the outcome of the criminal adjudication in 1990, Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough is announcing that the Monroe County Sheriff’s Homicide investigation is closed. Brauner’s remains were returned to his family for a memorial service.
American Biotech Company Parabon Recreates Images of Fallen Ukrainian Soldiers using DNA so That Relatives Can Identify Them (Dev.ua – 3/14/2025)
Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. is an American company (Reston, Virginia) that provides DNA phenotyping services to law enforcement agencies. The company has begun cooperation with Ukrainian organizations to help find relatives of Ukrainians who died during the Russian military aggression.
How Police Around Australia are Cracking Cold Cases using Investigative Genetic Genealogy (ABC.net – 3/16/2025)
Thanks to a spike in the popularity of ancestry websites as people look to learn more about their family history, police have access to more DNA data, which they can use to identify familial matches.
“This is not necessarily a development in DNA technology, these ancestry websites and the DNA analysis has been around for a really long time, it’s just a totally different way of looking at the DNA,” Dr Berry said.
“What they’re really looking for is familial relationships, links to other people in a suspect’s family tree that they can then use to start their genetic search.
“And then finding those links to people in that family tree that could then potentially be a suspect for these cases.”
But the method requires a remarkable amount of time and resources, which the Tate case illustrates.
It involved going through the profiles of more than 10,000 people, all the way back to the 1600s.
Jane Doe Identified after 36 Years DNA Doe Project Identifies Transgender Woman (DNA Doe Project – 2/27/2025)
On September 25, 1988 a passerby looking for cypress wood to build lawn furniture discovered the body of a woman in a wooded area in the vicinity of Hwy 474 west of Orlando, Florida. Authorities at the time suspected she had been sexually assaulted and murdered. She became known as Julie Doe. After more than 36 years, Pamela Leigh Walton has been identified through investigative genetic genealogy by the DNA Doe Project.
Her initial autopsy in 1988 discovered she had healed fractures of her cheekbone and nose, along with a rib. She had breast implants that dated from before 1985. This autopsy concluded that she was female, and had given birth to at least one child. Later DNA testing revealed that she had been born biologically male, with both X and Y chromosomes.
In 2019, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office reached out to the DNA Doe Project to try a novel technique – investigative genetic genealogy – to find her identity. They connected with volunteers who were also part of an initiative called the Trans Doe Task Force, who began the work on the case before leaving to focus full time on that group. It would take five years of diligence and persistence by a team of expert volunteers to narrow Pamela’s family tree to the correct branch to find her name.
“The team faced just about every possible hurdle, from unknown parentage, matches who were adopted, to endogamy,” said team co-leader Eric Hendershott. “Even up to the end, when we suspected that she was adopted, the team was stuck.”
Adoption records are not accessible to genetic genealogists, and adoption presents a brick wall to investigators because the child is often removed from their community of birth and their name is changed. Pamela had been adopted at the age of 5, which left a few breadcrumbs for researchers to follow.
“It was clear from the start that our Doe had strong family ties to Kentucky, but we didn’t know for sure if she was born there or if she ever lived there,” said Lance Daly, investigative genetic genealogist. “While searching Fayette County records, we discovered the names of two key relatives who were crucial to unraveling the mystery.”
Pamela had grown up with her adopted family in Kentucky, and had officially changed her name before she was in her mid-20s, likely around the time she underwent sex reassignment surgery and therapy.
“Pamela’s story includes many common themes that trans people face,” said Pam Lauritzen, Executive Director of Media and Communications. “From derogatory notations left in high school yearbooks about her to a headstone pre-carved with her former male name, it’s heartbreaking to know that the community was not willing to accept her and the identity she chose.”
In 2024, DNA Doe Project conducted a media outreach campaign to try to get tips from the public who might have known the then Julie Doe. Facebook posts boosted into Kentucky and Florida received multiple reports as “misleading” and “spam”, causing Meta to remove the posts and cancel the ads before they could run. After review, the posts were reinstated, only to be removed again after a few hours.
“This went on for weeks,” Lauritzen explained. “The support person acknowledged that it was because we were boosting a transgender case into places where anti-trans sentiment runs high. Eventually, Meta just stopped responding to my requests for review.”
Julie Doe’s story was featured in a handful of publications, but in the end it was genealogy research that resolved the case.
“Pamela Walton’s identification is the result of over five years of work by nearly 50 volunteers,” said Emily Bill, investigative genetic genealogist. “Their efforts laid the foundation for a series of recent discoveries that finally led us to her name.”
Unit Identifies 7 Cold Case Rapists in 5 Months (Forensic – 3/17/2025)
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office’s G.O.L.D. Unit (Genetic Operations Linking DNA) has identified seven cold case sexual assault offenders through familial DNA searching and forensic genetic genealogy since November 2024.
In all these cases, a unique male DNA profile was successfully developed from a victim’s sexual assault kit. However, at the time, the profile but did not produce any leads from the offender DNA database. As a result, prosecutors obtained a “John Doe” indictment against the DNA profile to ensure that the statute of limitations did not expire before authorities were able to identify the man associated with the profile.
Through familial DNA searching and forensic genetic genealogy, DNA results over the last five months have now identified seven of these “John Does”. Arrests have been made where possible, with two of the suspects already deceased. A second suspect from one of the below cases is still unidentified.
Genealogy Identifies Illinois Jane Doe after 23 Years (Forensic – 3/17/2025)
On March 28, 2002, a routine inspection by an Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) crew led to the discovery of human skeletal remains in a creek bed along Illinois Route 3 near Gall Road in Columbia, Illinois. The Columbia Police Department, in collaboration with the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, immediately launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the remains.
Based on preliminary findings, the deceased individual was identified as a black female between the ages of 33 and 49 years old. The woman was estimated to have been between 4″10″ and 5’4″ in height, with an approximate weight of 105 pounds. The deceased may have given birth to at least one child and possibly suffered a previous head injury, as indicated by a scar located in the center of her forehead. The remains were believed to have been at the location for approximately 6 to 12 months before their discovery.
For the past 23 years, many officers, detectives, and staff members of the Columbia Police Department, including several who are now retired, dedicated countless hours to following leads and piecing together the details of this case. Despite extensive efforts and collaboration with law enforcement agencies and local media outlets, the identity of the female, initially named Jane Doe, remained a mystery for over two decades until now.
Detective Sergeant Michael Barnett and Detective Lake Moravec of the Columbia Police Department began taking a new look at the investigation in recent years as advancements in DNA technology provided new opportunities for further analysis. In December 2022, the case received a significant boost when it was selected for a grant providing funding for forensic genetic genealogy testing.
A portion of the remains was sent to a lab at the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification (UNTCHI) for analysis. In late October 2024, the detectives received a crucial lab report which revealed a connection between the human remains and a male DNA sample belonging to Dale Howard. Further analysis confirmed that Dale Howard’s biological mother was identified as Carol Hemphill.
Innocence Project, NYU Law Join Forces for Post-conviction Clinic (Forensic – 3/17/2025)
The Innocence Project and NYU School of Law announced a new partnership that will deepen the capacity and impact of the Innocence Project and provide NYU students with invaluable hands-on exposure to wrongful conviction litigation and advocacy. NYU Law will offer a clinic that allows its law students to work on Innocence Project cases and learn about post-conviction wrongful conviction litigation.Further relationships between the Innocence Project and additional NYU graduate schools are also anticipated. Through the new partnership, NYU students will gain access to some of the country’s leading experts on wrongful conviction, and the Innocence Project will tap into NYU’s centers of academic excellence to advance the scope of its work.
The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Its mission is to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, equitable and compassionate systems of justice for everyone. The organization has helped to free or exonerate more than 250 people who, collectively, have spent nearly 4,000 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. It has also helped to pass more than 250 legislative reforms to help prevent wrongful conviction and provide compensation.
Philippines University Focusing on Disaster Victim Identification with New Program (Forensic – 3/17/2025)
The University of the Philippines Manila will begin offering its Forensic Medicine Master’s Program in the next academic year, focusing on a systematic approach to victim identification during disasters.
Experts from Australia’s Monash University and UP Manila’s college of medicine jointly developed the curriculum for the new master’s program after signing a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) in October 2024. The new postgraduate degree integrates existing forensic medicine courses from Monash University that were tailored to the Philippine context to address the country’s distinct forensic challenges. It is set to begin in August 2025.
“We’re conducting the training here in the Philippines and we’ll be sending forensic doctors from Australia and other countries around the world,” Richard Bassed, Deputy Director and Head of the Academic Programs of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine of Monash University said in a recent press briefing before a symposium on forensic medicine on March 7, 2025 at the College of Medicine at UP Manila.
“We’ll spend a month at a time here supervising and training the students as they go through the master’s program…and this program will deliver that to the Filipino doctors for the Philippine society in the hope that we can generate a death investigation pathway or system that provides independent and evidence-based reports and testimony to courts for the satisfaction of justice,” Bassed added.
Stephen Cordner, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Forensic Medicine of Monash University emphasized how forensic medicine could improve the country’s justice system and public safety by enhancing death investigations through accurate identification and evaluation of persons supposedly involved in crimes.
AAFS 2025: Heidi Eldridge Talks About Funding Issues in Forensic Science (Spectroscopy – 3/17/2025)
Whenever there is a change in leadership of Washington D.C., there is a certain degree of change that comes with it. Some of those changes go unnoticed in the daily lives of Americans, whereas some changes are noticeable quickly.
One change that has the forensic science field in a state of uncertainty is the pause or cutting of funding for scientific research (1). Funding has always been an issue in forensic science and other scientific disciplines, but it has become an even greater challenge as the federal government has cut or paused federal grants for scientific research (1). That has left agencies and laboratories unable to purchase the new equipment they want to conduct their research or find a way to conduct research without the latest equipment.
At the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) Conference, Heidi Eldridge, who is a Certified Latent Print Examiner and the Director of Crime Scene Investigations at George Washington University, observed that these funding uncertainties led to talks getting canceled as funding issues prevented some from traveling to Baltimore for the AAFS Conference.
ASU Research is Helping Solve Crimes (Arizona State University – 3/17/2025)
On TV, detectives solve crimes in 43 minutes (plus commercial breaks). In real life, it takes much more time — and many more minds, including researchers discovering new ways to analyze evidence and look at crime scenes.
Their work can have wide-ranging effects, as the impact of crime is wide-ranging, affecting not just the individual victim but also community stability and even the economy.
Arizona State University is answering the call of justice with future-focused research coming out of the new School of Interdisciplinary Forensics at ASU’s West Valley campus in particular.
Here’s a look at how ASU’s forensic research is solving crimes, catching criminals and making communities safer.
DNA Doe Project Resolves Case of Historic Humans Remains Found in Ohio (DNA Doe Project – 3/17/2025)
Three years after a jawbone was found on the banks of the Scioto River, the Ross County Coroner’s Office has closed the case thanks to the work of the DNA Doe Project. In a surprising twist, DNA Doe Project researchers were able to determine that the jawbone belonged to one of a group of brothers, all of whom were born over 150 years ago.
On July 30, 2022, a man and his children were walking near a boat ramp alongside the Scioto River in Yoctangee Park in Chillicothe, Ohio, when they discovered a jawbone. No other bones or remains were located in the area. The jawbone, which did contain some teeth, was confirmed to belong to an adult man, but no other information related to his age or ethnicity could be ascertained.
The Ross County Coroner’s Office brought the case to the DNA Doe Project, whose expert investigative genetic genealogists volunteer their time to identify John and Jane Does. By January 2024, a DNA profile had been generated from a tooth and uploaded to GEDmatch. The results, however, suggested that this may not have been a recent death.
The case was assigned to the DNA Doe Project’s 2024 spring practicum program, in which six participants worked under the supervision of experienced team leaders to learn and practice the techniques used by the DNA Doe Project on an actual case. By the end of this program, the team working on the case had determined that the John Doe was likely a son of Salem Friend (1828-1917) and Mary Miller (1832-1918), a couple who’d both spent their entire lives living in Ohio. After the practicum ended, investigative genetic genealogists confirmed the findings.
“This was certainly an unusual case, which presented a different set of genealogical challenges,” said team co-leader, Rebecca Somerhalder. “But these challenges made it the perfect case for the practicum students to learn from, and their hard work contributed significantly to the eventual resolution of this case.”
Salem and Mary had five sons who lived till adulthood, but all of these men had death certificates. While it was clear that one of these five sons had to be Yoctangee Park John Doe, it appeared that the jawbone had likely been somehow disinterred after burial. None of the men died or were buried in Ross County, and it remains unclear as to how the jawbone ended up in the Scioto River.
Further DNA testing tentatively ruled out three of the brothers as candidates, which left two remaining men – Jacob and Amos Friend. Jacob Friend was born in 1852 and died in 1923 at the age of 71 in Toledo, Ohio. Amos Friend, born in 1861, led a shorter life, dying in 1898 at the age of 36 in Bucyrus, Ohio. Both men were supposedly buried in Bucyrus – 100 miles north of Yoctangee Park.
As neither Jacob nor Amos had any living descendants, figuring out who the jawbone found in Yoctangee Park belonged to would require the exhumation of their remains. As Yoctangee Park John Doe was now known to be a historical case, and with the prospect of exhumations further disturbing the remains of the Friend brothers, the Ross County Coroner’s Office decided that the case could be closed.
Prince George’s County Police Department and FBI Team with Othram to Identify Suspect in 1979 Murder (DNASolves – 3/17/2025)
On the evening of September 6, 1979, Kathryn Donohue was discovered murdered in her home. Law enforcement launched an immediate investigation and detectives collected forensic evidence from the crime scene, interviewed potential witnesses, and explored multiple leads. However, despite their efforts, the case grew cold due to the limitations of forensic technology at the time. Traditional DNA testing methods available in previous decades were unable to yield a viable suspect, leaving the case unsolved and Donohue’s family without answers.
In 2024, PGPD’s Cold Case Unit reexamined Donohue’s case and decided to submit forensic evidence for advanced DNA analysis. The evidence was sent to Othram, a forensic laboratory specializing in Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® and forensic genetic genealogy. Scientists at Othram were able to extract DNA from the evidence and develop a comprehensive genetic profile. The profile was delivered to the FBI’s forensic genetic genealogy team. The FBI’s team traced the DNA to potential relatives, which led investigators to Rodger Zodas Brown as a person of interest. After identifying Brown, PGPD investigators worked to obtain a reference DNA sample from him. When tested, his DNA matched the evidence collected from the crime scene, conclusively linking him to the murder of Kathryn Donohue.
Rodger Zodas Brown, now in his 80s, was arrested at his home in Pinehurst, North Carolina without incident. At the time of Donohue’s murder, Brown lived in the area, but he had not been considered a suspect during the original investigation. Authorities are now working to determine whether Brown may be connected to any other unsolved crimes from that time period. He is currently awaiting extradition to Virginia, where he faces charges of first-degree murder. His arrest marks a critical step toward justice for Kathryn Donohue and her family, and it also highlights the power of forensic genetic genealogy in solving cases once thought to be unsolvable.
DNA From Beethoven’s Hair Reveals Surprise Nearly 200 Years Later (ScienceAlert – 3/19/2025)
The composer would outlive his doctor by nearly two decades, yet close to two centuries after Beethoven’s death a team of researchers set out to fulfill his testament in ways he would never have dreamed possible, by genetically analyzing the DNA in authenticated samples of his hair.
“Our primary goal was to shed light on Beethoven’s health problems, which famously include progressive hearing loss, beginning in his mid- to late-20s and eventually leading to him being functionally deaf by 1818,” biochemist Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany explained in a press statement in 2023, when the results were unveiled.
The primary cause of that hearing loss has never been known, not even to his personal physician Dr Johann Adam Schmidt.
Marin County Sheriff-Coroner & California DOJ Team with Othram to Identify a 1966 Jane Doe (DNASolves – 3/19/2025)
On December 18, 1966, a woman’s body was found on a cliff near the edge of Paradise Drive in Tiburon, California. A hunter made the discovery and alerted authorities. The woman could not be identified and became known as Marin County Jane Doe. It was estimated that the woman was between 45 and 60 years old at the time of her death. She had auburn red hair, was 5’2” and weighed 105 pounds. She was wearing a red cotton dress and an off-white trench coat. The woman’s cause of death could not be determined.
Details of the case were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP12018. Over the years attempts were made to identify the woman to no avail. It was learned during the course of the initial investigation that a woman matching the description of the Jane Doe had been seen three months prior to her body being found at a fire station. At the station, the woman stated that she was stranded and had no money for a taxi. After asking if she could sleep at the fire station, firefighters refused, and the woman walked away.
In 2022, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, working in conjunction with the California Department of Justice, submitted forensic evidence to the case to Otham’s laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas where scientists worked to develop an ultra-sensitive DNA profile using Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing®. Funding for advanced DNA testing was provided by the Roads to Justice (RTJ) program. This profile was used in a forensic search, by Othram’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team, which led to relatives of the woman, who is now identified as Dorothy Jean Williams. Her married name was Dorothy Jean Vaillancourt. Originally from Tasmania, Dorothy was buried at Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery and Mortuary in San Rafael, California prior to her identification.
Claire Glynn Talks About Forensic Genealogy (Spectroscopy – 3/20/2025)
The American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) Annual Scientific Meeting took place from February 17th to 22nd, 2025, in Baltimore, Maryland (1). During the week, conference attendees gathered at the Baltimore Convention Center to learn about the latest advancements in forensic science, which covered many different application areas. Once the conference concluded, we spoke with Tom Metz, a Laboratory Fellow and Chief Science Officer of the Biological Sciences Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Heidi Eldridge, a Certified Latent Print Examiner and the Director of Crime Scene Investigations at George Washington University; and Claire Glynn, a professor of forensic science and director of the Graduate Certificate in Forensic Genetic Genealogy, about what happened at the conference and what topics were extensively discussed throughout the week (1).
One of the topics discussed at AAFS was the advancements that have been made in forensic genealogy. Forensic genealogy integrates two disciplines, forensics and genealogy, and applies them to legal problems and proceedings (2). Forensic genealogy investigates family lineages using DNA analysis to build out a genealogical record and identify matches in DNA databases that are available (2).
