HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – The remains of a man were discovered on May 24, 1985, close to Adamsville Road in Gibsonton, in a forested area.
Little else was known about the deceased, despite the fact that it was established that he was male and that his age at the time of death was between 40 and 60 years old.
Other than a few articles of clothes and personal belongings, nothing at all that might have revealed his name was found at the scene. For nearly forty years, nobody would know who he was.
The unnamed man’s body lay in the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner’s Office for decades.
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The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database that enables law enforcement crime laboratories to electronically compare DNA profiles, was used to test a sample of the remains.
Additionally, a facial composite was made available to the public and listed on the county’s Unidentified Remains homepage. Nevertheless, the man’s remains were unclaimed for years.
Finally, late last year, a break was made in the case. With the help of emerging genetic genealogy technology, a relative of the deceased was found.
In 2023, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office partnered with a lab in Texas that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy. Using DNA extracted from a skeletal sample of the unidentified remains, the lab created a comprehensive genealogical profile for the unknown man.
That profile was then uploaded to GEDmatchPRO, a portal dedicated to supporting law enforcement and forensic teams with investigative comparisons to genetic data. From there, a family tree of the deceased individual began to take form.
Using the new leads from the family tree, investigators were able to identify and locate potential relatives of the unknown man. One such person was discovered in Knoxville, Tennessee, and turned out to be the deceased’s brother.
Thirty-nine years after his death, the identity of the unnamed man was uncovered.
Charles Ray Allen, an honorable veteran of the United States Navy who had been missing since the mid-1980s, had at last been found.
The Medical Examiner’s Office anticipates achieving a similar level of success in identifying the over fifty other people whose remains it has on file.
Law enforcement and medical examiners are forced to rely on the information on other platforms like GEDmatchPRO and FamilyTreeDNA since they cannot explore direct-to-consumer DNA genotyping databases (like 23andMe and AncestryDNA).
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These businesses enable users to upload DNA samples from other genotyping databases. By doing this, users can compare the results of their genetic kit to those of over a million other individuals, some of whom might not be included in the databases of the companies that generated their original DNA profiles.
Researchers, genealogists, and other interested parties can access more forensic data about ancestry and genetics by uploading DNA profiles to sites such as GEDmatchPRO and FamilyTreeDNA. This also gives authorities additional information to utilize in their efforts to identify offenders and remains belonging to unidentified persons.
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