Unidentified: Could new technology identify a murder victim from more than 20 years ago?

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - The skeletal remains of a man were found more than 20 years ago in Stark County.

His name and what happened to him is still a mystery, but investigators believe this was a murder.

The identity of more than 100 people who have died over the past several decades is still unknown across Ohio.

But your help could bring their families answers.

We’re profiling some of these cases in our series Unidentified.

What we know

Just before Christmas back in 2001, a man’s skeleton was found near an oil well road off Trump Ave in Canton.

It was in a remote area, full of rolling hills and farmland, but just five miles from downtown.

The coroner suspected he may have been there for several years.

But there weren’t too many clues to identify him.

This John Doe was African American, 21 to 44 years old, between 5′4″ and 6″ tall.

His weight, hair and eye colors are all unknown.

Over time, leads ran dry.

But hope for answers hasn’t faded.

“So we’re still working it and that’s important for our community to know, we have not give up,” said Stark County Sheriff George Maier.

Maier reached out to Ohio BCI for help on the case, which led to a public unveiling of a new facial reconstruction and 3D images of their John Doe last month.

“This person had people that loved him, this person had family,” Maier said.

“So that’s our goal. Make some of these reconnections, start to work these cases backwards from the perspective of, let’s find somebody that knew this person, and work backwards to what actually happened,” he said.

We learned this John Doe died tragically.

“The evidence shows it may have been a gunshot. What does that mean? We may have a murderer out there. We don’t know if he’s doing other other crimes, it kind of keeps me up at night,” said Attorney General Dave Yost.

New technology

Before investigators can solve this crime, they need to uncover who the victim was.

That’s where Samantha Molnar comes in.

She’s a criminal intelligence analyst and forensic artist.

She created the life-like reconstruction from John Doe’s skull.

“Underneath here is just a plastic copy of the skull, and then I start with the muscle structure,” she said.

She looks for something unique to highlight in every case.

“The thing that I thought was most interesting was how soft of a brow ridge he had,” she said.

But now, a finished reconstruction isn’t the last step.

“With new technology, we’re actually able to just take pictures with an iPhone and then all those pictures are uploaded into a software that can generate that 3D object, which is really neat, and it happens really quickly. And so it speeds up the process,” Molnar said.

This is the first case Ohio BCI highlighted using new technology called photogrammetry, with help from Ohio State University.

They can change unknown details like skin tone, eye color, hair style and even their age.

“I think it just makes it more human and more real, and I think it draws more people’s attention, and I think it kind of draws their hearts in a little bit more and they want to, to share it and, you know, help get this person identified,” Molnar said.

It may not be exactly what this man looked like, but it could be just enough for someone out there to recognize this man 22 years later.

“I’m just amazed with the work they can do, and the quality of the work,” Maier said.

“My plea is to the community. Please, if you think you know this individual, or you know somebody that knows this individual, call us, reach out to us. We’ll follow up every lead, we will leave no stone unturned in this case, in solving this mystery,” he said.

Ohio BCI extracted DNA from this John Doe, but they didn’t get a hit in several databases for a match.

You can look up his profile on NamUs here.

This isn’t Stark County’s only John Doe case, they’re also trying to identify another man found dead back in 2020.

If you know who this man was, call the Stark County Sheriff’s office at 330-430-3800.

Watch for our next Unidentified case next Friday.

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