Posted on 02/19/2023 5:27:18 PM PST by nickcarraway
In June 1986, the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office (Oregon) responded to the Quartz Creek area regarding human skeletal remains being located on a homeowner’s property. The homeowner was in the process of putting in a new septic system when the owner discovered the remains in the ground approximately 4 feet deep and notified law enforcement. The homeowner had only owned the property for approximately 10 years.
With the remains, other items were located within the gravesite such as, fabric believed to be from a dress, a worn set of dentures and two rubber implements, believed to be from a walker or crutches.
At that time, law enforcement was unable to identify the decedent and forwarded the remains to the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office for further examination and DNA processing. It was believed based on the condition of the remains that the decedent may have been in the ground for approximately 15 to 25 years.
Between 1986 and 2016, investigation into the identification of the remains was attempted multiple times by detectives and forensic examiners. No leads were ever discovered.
Ultimately, due to the poor condition of the remains, in 2018 the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office was awarded a grant allowing the office to send the remains to Parabon NanoLabs for further DNA and genetic genealogy processing. With Parabon NanoLabs’ assistance, it was discovered that the remains may be of a missing person from 1959 named Elsie Baker, who went missing under suspicious circumstances.
The circumstances were deemed suspicious after law enforcement learned that family and friends of Baker had not heard from her for a period of time. Law enforcement responded to Baker’s home and found her wheelchair but no sign of her. An investigation between 1959 and 1960 was started and numerous individuals were interviewed. It was discovered that Baker was being treated for cancer and would have needed assistance to leave her home as she was mainly wheelchair-bound. It was also discovered that approximately $10,000 was missing from the home. Unfortunately, law enforcement was unable to come up with any leads regarding the missing person case.
In 2022, Parabon NanoLabs suggested that through combining genetic genealogy, DNA phenotyping and kinship analysis, if the remains were Baker, she may have a living grandson who was believed to be in the Utah area. If this were true, the grandson would be the closest genetic match and would possibly solve the missing person case, identifying the remains.
Josephine County Detectives contacted the grandson and explained the case and circumstances leading law enforcement to contact him. With consent from the grandson and assistance from Emery County Sheriff’s Office, Utah, the grandson provided an oral DNA swab sample for comparison , which was submitted for review.
In early January, 2023, Parabon NanoLabs and the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office were able to positively identify the decedent as Baker based on matching DNA from the grandson.
Republished courtesy of Josephine County Sheriff's Office.
wow! now any leads as to who killed her?
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Josephine County Sheriff’s Office and the Oregon State Medical Examiner use investigative genetic genealogy to identify human remains discovered in 1986
“The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office is honored and humbled to have worked with Josephine County Sheriff’s Office and Parabon NanoLabs to resolve this decades-old mystery. Time and again we see the power of IGG to assist in solving cold cases. We will continue our efforts to partner with Parabon NanoLabs and bring answers to families with this remarkable technology. Our condolences go out to the family members of Elsie Baker.”
Dr. Nici Vance, Human Identification Program Coordinator
Hope is why we are here.
On June 19, 1986, the remains of a fully skeletonized elderly female were discovered buried in a shallow grave on a rural piece of private property outside of Grant Pass, Oregon in Josephine County. The discovery was made as the homeowner was excavating a portion of the property for a septic system. The homeowner stated that when he purchased the property 12 years prior (in 1974), there had always been a depression in the ground where the grave was located, and he had dug to a depth of approximately 4 feet before encountering the remains.
Along with the human skeletal elements discovered, fabric thought to be from a dress, a worn set of dentures, and two rubber stopper-like implements (determined to be the ends of crutches or a walker) were found within the gravesite. The remains were recovered and transferred to the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office, where then-anthropologist Dr. John Lundy examined the remains.
Dr. Lundy determined the body was that of a Caucasian female having a living stature of 62” to 63”. He also concluded that she was of advanced age due to the wear on the dentures and the degenerative joint disease observed on the skeletal remains. Dr. Lundy further estimated that the body had been in that location for 15 to 25 years before being discovered.
Based on the documentation, Josephine County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case for several years and followed up on potential leads. The dentures were examined extensively by several dentists in the area and by the dental school at Oregon Health Sciences University but did not produce any viable investigative leads.
From 1986 through 2015 (29 years), numerous Josephine County SO detectives worked and re-worked aspects of the case but found no additional leads to the identity of the elderly female. The remains (which had been sent back to Josephine County for storage) were then transferred back to Clackamas, Oregon to be re-analyzed and stored properly at the Oregon State Medical Examiner facility.
In 2016, a sample of bone was sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for processing and upload into the national DNA database, CODIS. The sample was determined to be too degraded with bacteria to be successfully processed and uploaded into CODIS. No conventional forensic DNA testing was possible on the remains at that time.
DNA processing on a second sample in 2018 was moderately successful, and a partial STR DNA profile was entered into CODIS. This profile was searched weekly against potential matches to family reference standards, convicted offender profiles, and forensic evidence. Unfortunately, no genetic associations were discovered.
In 2018, the Oregon State Police Medical Examiner’s Office was awarded an NIJ grant to perform innovative DNA techniques on unsolved unidentified skeletal remains cases. This case was recognized as one that could potentially be resolved by DNA Phenotyping and Investigative Genetic Genealogy provided by OSP’s vendor lab, Parabon Nanolabs.
An additional bone sample was submitted for DNA extraction, and in October 2020 the SNP DNA profile was successfully produced and analyzed.
The first Parabon Nanolabs report to be completed was a DNA Phenotyping Report, where genetic material is used to determine eye color, hair color, skin color, and the ancestry of the deceased. The report predicted this individual was of Northern and Southeastern European descent, with very fair skin, hazel eyes, and brown to dark blonde hair. Parabon also gave the case a very high “solvability” rating, meaning they believed due to the circumstances their genealogy team would be successful in providing compelling investigative leads for the case.
The positive solvability rating proved to be true. The subsequent investigative genetic genealogy report given to law enforcement in June 2022 provided an abundance of compelling information and the strongest investigative lead in the now 36-year-old cold case. Genetically close relatives to the elderly female began to surface along with an extensive and well-documented family history, with genetic links to four distinct family lines, leading to a family of nine children raised in Nez Perce, Idaho. Six daughters belonged to this family, and five daughters (Alma, Ethel, Clara, Edith, and Lydia) all had documentation and record of their deaths. Elsie Marie Baker, born May 6, 1896, was the only daughter with no death certificate on record.
Research into Elsie Marie Baker quickly showed that public family trees reported Elsie as dying in Grants Pass, Oregon around 1955; further research led to the conclusion that she died under potentially suspicious circumstances, and her body had never been found.
Elsie and her husband Frank moved from Idaho to Jackson, Oregon by 1950 and are confirmed to have lived in Rogue River Precinct 77. Elsie disappeared at some point after May of 1955; no death record was found for Elsie and family trees list her date of death as ambiguous, “September or October 1955”. According to the Medford Mail Tribune, Frank filed for divorce from Elsie in May of 1955, and the divorce was granted in June of 1956. Frank went on to die in November 1958.
It was also reported that Elsie received treatment for cancer on June 13, 1959, at the Josephine General Hospital in Grants Pass, Oregon. If true, then her disappearance must have been shortly after June 13, 1959. That year, police interviewed a nurse assigned to Elsie’s care during that time; the nurse stated Elsie had gone to live with family out-of-state, leading investigators to believe she was still alive.
In 1960 a newspaper article was published regarding Elsie Baker, and the concern her friends had about the suspicious nature of her disappearance. There were no out-of-state relatives identified as being Elsie’s caregivers. The interviews of family and friends state that Elsie was last seen in 1959.
This front-page article in the Medford Mail Tribune reads in part:
“Mrs. Elsie Marie Campbell, a slight little woman with tinted red hair, was last seen around her home at 4890 South Pacific Highway, Grants Pass, sometime between June 6 and June 13, 1959. State police know she couldn’t have left unassisted, since she was unable to move without her wheelchair. Yet her wheelchair was found in her home.
Officers know, too, that about $10,000 she had in her home just before her disappearance is missing.”
The article also reports that Elsie’s niece came to Grants Pass to search for Elsie after she failed to visit the niece in Idaho in the summer of 1959, as had been planned, and had not been heard from since. The case was reopened after the niece reported Elsie’s disappearance to the Medford office of the Oregon State Police on September 1, 1960.
Elsie’s case was widely reported on, appearing in many Oregon newspapers, such as The Eugene Guard under the headline, “State Police Still Puzzled at Woman’s Disappearance” (9 Dec 1960, p.7) and on the front page of Coos Bay’s The World, “From Rogue River: Woman and $10,000 Missing a Year” (8 Dec 1960, p.1).
Elsie and Frank’s only known child had nine children of her own.
All nine of Elsie’s grandchildren were found through genealogy research, and appear to be living in Utah, New Mexico, and California areas.
Genetic testing and comparison to known relatives was the last piece in this identification puzzle. One of the grandchildren was contacted, as he appeared to have a full family tree online and could be open to genetic testing. Local authorities in Utah contacted this grandson and an oral swab standard was collected for kinship inference testing. If accurate, this individual should share both autosomal DNA and X-chromosome DNA with the decedent (since males only inherit their X-DNA from their mothers).
The Kinship Inference report was definitive. It states,
“(The kinship tester) was compared to the unknown Subject in this case, and they were found to share 1621.1 centimorgans of half identical autosomal DNA and 178 centimorgans of X-Chromosome DNA (X-DNA). The shared amount of 1621.1 autosomal DNA has a 100% probability of being a second-degree relationship. The shared X-DNA further supports the conclusion that they are related.”
Based on the totality of the evidence (both genetic and circumstantial) that Parabon Nanolabs provided, Oregon Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Sean Hurst has positively identified these remains.
At this time, no further information about the investigation is available.
Oregon State Police
https://www.facebook.com/OSPsocial/posts/249159767434257/
The grandson’s mitochondrial DNA should be virtually identical to Elsie’s since she was his maternal grandmother.
There are really only two suspects: the husband (divorced) and the nurse. The husband died before Elsie is known to’ve rec’d treatment for cancer, so the nurse did it — the same nurse who said Elsie had gone to live with family out-of-state.
Seems pretty obvious it was the nurse, but why was it not pursued?
Maybe she died naturally and was found by the nurse, who then buried her and helped herself to the 10k. Still bad but not murder bad.
Fauci and the vaxx, DUH!!!
Wrong thread?
Don’t make excuses for the nurse, she doesn’t deserve it.
Elsie Marie Baker, born May 6, 1896, was the only daughter with no death certificate on record.
So, at the time of death in 1959, she would have been approx. 63 years old.
That's "advanced age!"
Good to know!
Regards,
Interesting.. I guess more unknown good crime will be known. Prayers to her family...
You know for a fact it was the nurse? I’m just throwing out possible scenarios for discussion. Sounds like you already have her convicted and strapped in the chair.
My bad, I thought you already had her convicted and strapped in the chair.
It would have been nice if the article explained how the nurse was eliminated as the perp.
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