Teton County Sheriff's Office Sends 1998 John Doe Bones to DNA Doe Project
Investigators are using forensic genealogy to find relatives after the FBI database failed to identify the man found in 1998.
By Allison Rojas ·
The Teton County Sheriff's Office sent a tibia bone from an unidentified man to the DNA Doe Project on Thursday. Sergeant Robert Osmond, the current lead investigator, confirmed the bone arrived at the Georgia laboratory in good condition. The office is using forensic investigative genealogy to trace family trees and locate distant relatives. This new approach follows a previous DNA test that produced a viable genetic profile but yielded no matches in the FBI's CODIS database.
The investigation began in the summer of 1998 when a hiker found a human skull off a trail near Cache Creek on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Two weeks later, search dogs helped volunteers recover the rest of the remains 250 feet downhill. The body included a foot in a Velcro-strapped tennis shoe, a backpack, and a faded blue T-shirt. Investigators also found a penny dated 1990 and an IV setup consisting of a tube, bag, and needle hanging from a tree limb five feet above the arm. Eight glass vials with cloudy liquid were recovered but proved too degraded for chemical analysis.
Authorities estimate the man was between 20 and 65 years old and of European ancestry. He likely died between 1990 and 1995. His height was estimated at 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, and his weight between 140 and 170 pounds. The case was officially reopened in 2020 when evidence technicians reorganized stored materials and discovered untested skeletal remains. The sheriff's office then shipped the tibia to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. That lab extracted a DNA profile in 2020, but the profile did not match any existing records in CODIS.
The IV setup remains the most confusing element of the case. Osmond noted that the equipment suggested the man might have been a diabetic administering insulin or treating another ailment. However, the vial contents were inconclusive due to chemical degradation over nearly 30 years. Scott McWilliams, deputy director of the DCI crime lab, stated in an email that modern technology offers only slight advantages against such extensive sample degradation. Investigators also searched for a suicide note reported in 1998, but the tipster could not be verified and the note was lost.
Volunteer genealogists Ashley Kroner and Megan McWilliams have also searched databases in surrounding states without finding a match. Kroner suggested the timeline might require looking further back than the 1990s. The sheriff's office is also appealing to the public to recognize the man or his defunct TwoGeneration brand T-shirt. They hope the SilverSeries shoe design might trigger memories from vintage clothing shoppers. The office continues to hold the skull and other bones as evidence while awaiting the results from the DNA Doe Project.
Prior to the recent DNA work, a facial reconstruction created in 2000 failed to generate any tips from the public. Early leads included Robert Schnelker, who disappeared in 1979, but he was ruled out due to the death date estimate. Other missing persons, including Amy Wroe Bechtel and Ivan Schaeffer, were considered but not confirmed. The case remains open with the primary focus now on the genetic genealogy results expected from the Georgia lab.
