Free Republic

The Madison Police and DNA Doe Project have identified skeletal remains found in a chimney in a music store in 1989. The remains were identified as Ronnie Joe Kirk from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Kirk according to investigators, was born in 1942, was adopted and raised by family members and attended high school in Tulsa. He was married and divorced twice, and fathered children. He had ties to Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, Alabama and Wisconsin. Kirk's remains were found on September 3, 1989. Speaking to Madison Magazine's Doug Moe in 2022, Good n' Loud Music owner Steve Liethen said he was working in...

The Jane Doe, known only as "Blue Pacheco" by authorities, has now been identified as Patricia Skiple of Colton, Oregon. On June 3, 1993, Skiple's body was found on the side of California state Route 152 in unincorporated Gilroy. She was 45 years old at the time of her death. In 2019, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office partnered with the DNA Doe Project to attempt to identify the body via investigative genetic genealogy. “This case was exceptionally challenging due to recent Norwegian ancestry which resulted in very distant DNA matches on GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA,” said DNA Doe Project team...

The body of a woman found in Missouri in 1981 has been identified via DNA match exactly 40 years later, sheriff officials said. Karen Kay Knippers, whose body was discovered at a low river crossing near Dixon on May 25, 1981, was later buried as a “Jane Doe” at Waynesville Cemetery after authorities were unable to identify the apparent homicide victim, the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday. The unidentified remains were exhumed in 2015 in hopes of getting DNA evidence after a detective became interested in the case and requested approval to take another look, sheriff officials said.

Loveless likely died around 1916 at age 46, the organization said. He appears to have been killed and dismembered. Before his death, Loveless had been arrested at least twice for bootlegging and escaped custody by sawing through jail bars, the organization said Around that time Clark County Sheriff Bart May said Loveless killed his wife with an ax and was incarcerated in what was then Freemont County. He escaped again, this time using a saw he hid in his shoe, the organization said. He was never seen again. About 12 years later, a mummified hand was found, along with an...

DNA and genetic genealogy have helped investigators solve a century-old Idaho mystery. Outlaw Joseph Henry Loveless was killed and dismembered in 1916 and buried in a shallow grave in Buffalo Cave outside Dubois. At the time, Loveless was wanted for escaping from a jail where he was being held for killing his wife with an ax. Loveless’ remains were found in the cave four decades ago—but not his head--and they remained unidentified until just recently. Lee Bingham Redgrave, a genealogist with the nonprofit DNA Doe Project, determined the remains belonged to Loveless after painstaking research that included constructing an elaborate...