A human jawbone was discovered in a boy’s rock collection, and experts say that it belonged to a U.S. Marine who passed away over 70 years ago during a military exercise. This identification was achieved with the help of college students and a high school intern, possibly making the intern the youngest individual to contribute to solving a genetic genealogy case.
The Ramapo College in New Jersey announced that the remains belonged to Captain Everett Leland Yager of the U.S. Marine Corps, who died in July 1951 during a military training exercise that involved an airplane over California. Following the accident, it was believed that his remains were fully recovered and buried in Palmyra, Missouri. However, a jawbone with several teeth was later found under unusual circumstances in northern Arizona in 2002, and it is still a mystery how the jawbone ended up in the boy’s rock collection, as reported by CBS.
A DNA test conducted by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office yielded no matches in existing government databases, so the remains were named “Rock Collection John Doe.” The investigative trail went cold until January 2023, when the remains were sent to Ramapo College’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center. The college collaborated with a forensic lab in Utah and a Texas laboratory specializing in identifying missing and unidentified individuals. A detailed genetic profile was created for the jawbone and cross-referenced against online genealogy databases.
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Ramapo College students participated in a boot camp that focused on investigative genetic genealogy in July 2023 and were able to match the DNA thanks to their research and efforts from high school intern Ethan Swartz. Their findings were sent back to the Arizona sheriff’s office:
The following month, a DNA sample was taken from the daughter of Capt. Yager to directly compare to the jaw bone profile. It was not until March 2024 that the DNA sample from Capt. Yager’s daughter confirmed a parent/child relationship, resolving the case and confirming that Rock Collection John Doe was indeed Capt. Everett Leland Yager.”
it is unclear how the jawbone ended up in Arizona. Still, one theory believes that a scavenger, like a bird, could’ve picked it up and eventually deposited it during its travels. However, the remains are set to be returned to the WWII veteran’s family.