A forensic breakthrough has helped a family bury a First World War veteran almost a century after he disappeared.
On Christmas Day 2017, a diver discovered a human skull on a remote beach near Wilsons Prom on Victoria’s south Gippsland coast.
Under the water, police soon found a nearly intact skeleton.
But despite a coronial inquest, the remains, which came to be nicknamed the “Sandy Point skeleton”, could not be identified, other than they belonged to a Caucasian man aged between 21 and 37.
This year the investigation was reopened after a Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) researcher, Dr Dadna Hartman, attempted to use a “new and emerging forensic tool”.
A forensic breakthrough has helped a family bury a First World War veteran almost a century after he disappeared. The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine
“Around the time the infamous Golden State Killer case made the news for the use of forensic/investigative genetic genealogy (F/IGG) to identify the suspect, the lesser-known Buckskin Girl case was also solved using the same method “, said. she wrote in an article published by Monash University.
“This was a real lightbulb moment for me.
“How could we use this…particularly when we have exhausted all current avenues of research?”
Dr. Hartman’s team was able to extract DNA from the remains, which was then sent to a Texas laboratory that produced a DNA profile.
Using two ancestry databases, the skeleton’s DNA profile was checked against existing records before a living family member, Kathryn Hogan, was contacted in Victoria.
Providing a DNA sample to police, the skeleton was identified as Ms Hogan’s great-uncle Christopher Luke Moore (left), 29, who disappeared while swimming with his brother 95 years ago. Ancestry.com
Providing a DNA sample to police, the skeleton was identified as Ms Hogan’s great-uncle Christopher Luke Moore, 29, who disappeared while swimming with his brother 95 years ago.
A 1929 coronial inquest found that Mr Moore had drowned shortly after 5pm on 30 December 1928, in difficult conditions.
Walter Clarke, a witness at the time, said he saw Mr Moore “in a big wave” before “immediately disappearing” beneath the waves.
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The Gippsland farmer and young father enlisted at the age of 18 and served as a gunner in the 10th Field Artillery Brigade between 1917 and 1919.
Dr Hartman described Mr Moore’s identification as a “momentous occasion” for everyone who had worked tirelessly since 2017 to give the Sandy Point skeleton a name.
“While this was an extraordinary case of a man identified some 95 years after he drowned, every case of UHR (unidentified human remains) deserves all avenues to be explored to help identify them,” he wrote.
“The F/IGG method will now open avenues of research for many of them, and that’s why I love the work I do.”
He said this was possibly the first time the technology had been used to link unidentified human remains in a coronial inquest.
Ms Hogan, her great-niece, told ABC Radio Melbourne that a detective approached her this year asking for a sample of a “historic” case.
“I was amazed,” she said.
“We didn’t know the real story… they solved a family mystery for us.”
Dr Dadna Hartman, from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, and her team were able to extract DNA from the remains, which was then sent to a laboratory in Texas which produced a DNA profile. The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine
Relaying an updated finding that the skeleton was in fact Christopher Moore, State Coroner Judge John Cain said this was the “first time” forensic genetic genealogy had been used to assist in a coronial discovery in Victoria.
“Mr. Moore’s identity could only be determined through the work of VIFM’s highly qualified staff,” he said.
“His extensive experience in DNA comparison and utilization of forensic genetic genealogy is exceptional.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn