A jawbone discovered two decades ago in Arizona by a boy with a rock collection was positively identified as belonging to a U.S. Marine who died in a 1951 training accident decades later.
Last year, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office turned over the piece of bone to the Ramapo College Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center in New Jersey. It had come into the sheriff's position in 2002 after a boy's parents found it in his rock collection.
Traditional DNA testing yielded no results and the case remained dormant until the bone was turned over to the genealogy center.
According to a press release from Ramapo College this week, the jawbone belongs to Capt. Everett Leland Yager, who died in a training accident in California more than 70 years ago.
Yager's remains were collected from the accident site at the time and turned over to his family, who buried them in his hometown in Missouri. It's unclear how the jawbone made its way to Arizona, but experts believe a bird may have picked it up.
Cairenn Binder, assistant director of the Ramapo College IGG Center, said the school's summer bootcamp students worked with experienced researchers.
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"This case was a lesson in expecting the unexpected, and a testament to the power of IGG education at Ramapo College of New Jersey," Binder said.
A genetic profile was developed using genome sequencing and bioinformatics in May after a human identification center in Texas sent a sample to a forensics lab in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The bootcamp students took over the case in July and found a potential candidate within two days, turning over its case to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.
Yager’s daughter provided a DNA sample last month, which was found to have a parent/child match with the genetic profile. The remains will be turned over to Yager’s family.
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