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Students from Ramapo College in New Jersey help solve a missing person case in Missouri

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In October 2021, foot and leg bones, with the shoe still on, were found in a creek in St. Louis County, Missouri. The case has since been named St. Louis John Doe.

The identity of the St. Louis John Doe remained unknown for about three years until students at Ramapo College in New Jersey, working with St. Louis County authorities, succeeded in identifying the deceased this spring using a technique known as investigative genetic genealogy.

In this way, Ramapo students and faculty helped solve the case of the St. Louis John Doe.

Investigative genetic genealogy

According to Cairenn Binder, assistant director of the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College, investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) is a combination of advanced DNA testing and public records research.

IGG can be used to identify suspects in violent crimes and to identify human remains.

According to Binder, IGG uses a newer type of test that is similar to the test people use in commercial DNA tests such as AncestryDNA or 23andMe.

Researchers and investigators can then use public DNA databases such as Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch to reverse engineer the family tree of the person they want to identify.

The John Doe from St. Louis

In February, Dr. Lindsay Trammell, a forensic anthropologist with the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office, contacted the IGG Center at Ramapo College to assist in the St. Louis John Doe case.

Binder said the victim had already undergone a traditional DNA test, but the center provided funding for an enhanced DNA test. In May, a usable profile was created and uploaded to GEDmatch Pro.

Soon after, students of the IGG certificate program, largely led by Binder, began working on the genealogy.

“There were a couple of fairly close cousins, a second cousin and a third cousin of the deceased, and the team was able to very quickly figure out the person's family tree and find an individual for whom there are no current public records,” Binder said. “They believed he was the missing person that matched these unidentified remains.”

She continued, “And in fact, they turned the investigative tip over to the St. Louis County Coroner's Office, who immediately checked with his family and confirmed that he was missing.”

The family agreed to have a DNA reference sample taken and on July 26, after further DNA testing, it was confirmed that the missing person was the person the Ramapo students had identified.

At the request of the family, the identity of the deceased will not be disclosed publicly, according to a statement from Ramapo College of New Jersey.

The Ramapo College IGG Center

The Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College has three missions, according to Professor David Gurney, director of the IGG Center.

The first is to handle cases free of charge.

“We do all the IGG exams we receive here for free, and that saves the authorities a huge amount of money because it is an expensive procedure,” Gurney said. “It can cost up to $10,000 to process a case, and we are able to cover that cost thanks to the generous donors we have for the center.”

The second mission is to provide quality training at IGG. According to Gurney, Ramapo's program is only the second training program at IGG and the only one that allows students to work on real cases and learn how to conduct them.

The school offers several programs to students, one of which is an in-person course that Gurney teaches to matriculated Ramapo students where they learn how to conduct IGG on campus.

The second is the IGG Certificate Program, a 15-week program where students learn how to do IGG remotely. According to Binder, this program is primarily aimed at adult learners and is available to anyone anywhere in the world.

“Most of them have other careers. We have a lot of law enforcement officers who take the course, and their goal is to apply what they've learned to their own cases that they're working on,” Binder said. “We also have crime scene investigators and intelligence analysts who take the course, private investigators, and then we have housewives and retirees who just want to do this for fun and who take the course as well.”

Students in the IGG certificate program were the ones who worked on identifying the St. Louis John Doe.

According to Binder, solving such a case means a lot not only to her, but also to her students and, in this case, to the family to whom they were able to provide some answers.

“I think for any student, especially adult learners, it's like, you go back to class as an adult and you're not sure if you have the same ability to learn that you did when you were younger. I think if they solve the case, it means a lot to them because it shows that they not only learned the skills, but they were able to apply them to a real case and solve it,” Binder said. “And of course, in this particular case, like all of our unidentified remains cases, this solves a missing person case for the family. The family is looking for their lost loved one and this provides answers to what happened to them.”

Trammell, of Missouri, expressed similar sentiments in a statement to Ramapo College: “My experience working with the staff and students at Ramapo has been exceptional, not only because the identification process has provided the family with answers to what happened to their loved one, but also because they are generally committed and interested in their work.”

Ramapo also offers an IGG Boot Camp, a five-day program available during the summer for individuals who have already completed another program or otherwise have the skills needed to “hit the ground running” on an IGG case.

Finally, the third mission of the IGG Center is to research and work on the advancement of IGG.

Both Binder and Gurney are convinced that IGG technology will be a key technology for quickly solving cases in the future and helping to ensure that violent criminals do not reoffend sooner or later.

“IGG has traditionally been used as a last resort in investigations, especially in unsolved cases where no other investigative avenues exist,” Binder said in a statement from Ramapo. “Because this relatively new technology has actually given new hope to thousands of DNA investigations, it should be considered earlier in investigations to help solve cases more quickly before they remain unsolved.”

Gurney calls IGG “the most powerful investigative tool ever developed.”

With traditional DNA testing, Gurney said, you have to have already committed another crime and be on a database to get caught. With IGG, you can be caught without a criminal record if you leave behind even the “tiniest nanogram of DNA.”

Gurney hopes that the public and lawmakers will invest more in IGG in the future, stressing that thousands of cases are unsolved or remain unsolved each year.

“With enough money and personnel, almost all of these cases could be solved, and we could prevent repeat violent crimes basically forever,” Gurney said. “I really want to get the word out about this and make people realize that this is not a niche technology. This is the tool that could make people's lives safer and lead to a solution for victims.”

Since opening in December 2022, the IGG Center has been supporting law enforcement agencies across the country, offering pro bono work on cases not only in New Jersey, but also in several other states.

According to Binder, the St. Louis John Doe case is the sixth case solved and publicly disclosed by the IGG Center, but so far students have provided tips on more than 15 cases.

Gurney also encourages the public to take DNA tests, upload them to Family Tree DNA or GEDmatch and join law enforcement's search, saying, “There really may be one person who can solve a case, and that could be you.”

For more information about the work at the Ramapo College IGG Center, visit ramapo.edu/IGG.

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