“The family, located through DNA matching, declined to take possession of the remains. They will stay in a state repository indefinitely.”
The family probably didn’t want to have to pay for cremation or burial. I wonder if for some legal reason the state needs to hold on to them - or can they just give them a pauper’s burial?
Probably be in a museum collection but not on display. It’s not unlikely that the family had never heard of the man and at age 29 he had no children, so, a collateral line at best. And some people just have no interest in genealogy.
Perhaps just hold onto them for studying. I’m sure they realized early on that these were very old bones, and the DNA stuff was just something to do and experiment with, rather than trying to solve a crime or cause some benefit.
These bones are obviously haunted if the guy kept washing up on shore. He wanted to be found. Like that movie ‘Stir of Echoes’ with Kevin Bacon. I would not want those bones either. Glad the guy can be laid to rest.