Skeletal remains found in Arizona in 1980 identified as man born in 1881

Seventy years after an Arizona man disappeared, his family finally has answers.

Investigators have identified skeletal remains found in Flagstaff in 1980 as those of a man who vanished in 1956.

The name of the 75-year-old is not being released, according to a Monday announcement from the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit that uses genetic genealogy to identify unknown remains.

That puts his birth year as 1881.

Skeletal remains identified after a decades-long mystery

For decades, investigators knew him only as Flagstaff Kowboy John Doe.

Hikers found human remains beneath fallen trees near the Kowboy Kountry Club in July 1980. Based on his clothing and belongings, investigators believe he had been dead for more than 20 years.

Not only was a rusted revolver found nearby, but his remains also showed evidence of a gunshot wound, according to the DNA Doe Project.

The announcement did not specify how investigators classified his death.

How did investigators identify the man found near Kowboy Kountry Club?

Now investigators know the man was an Arizona resident.

The investigation landed in the hands of the DNA Doe Project after the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office reached out. The project’s volunteer team started investigating early this year.

Their search traced family connections through the American South, English parish records and 19th-century newspapers. Those clues eventually led to a family that had settled in the Idaho Territory.

According to Rebecca Somerhalder, the primary team leader for the case, this led to a major breakthrough.

“This family had a son who was born nearly a century before Flagstaff Kowboy John Doe was discovered,” Somerhalder said in the announcement. “But we soon found evidence that he had disappeared in 1956 and that his family had searched for him to no avail.”

The missing man’s grandchildren searched for him throughout the 1950s and ’60s. Investigators reached out to surviving family, and further DNA testing confirmed that the missing grandfather was Flagstaff Kowboy John Doe.

Related

Authorities ask for help finding car involved in fatal hit-and-run in west PhoenixMan found dead in Phoenix canal was driver in nearby crash, police sayDave Ramsey says: The more things change, the more they stay the sameSAFE Alert canceled after 73-year-old Chandler man returns homeNew Nancy Guthrie ransom text deemed not credible, investigators sayMatthew Mayich’s family thanks ASU hockey players for disputing initial review