Teton County Tests DNA Again

The Teton County Sheriff’s Office is attempting to identify a male hiker whose remains were recovered in 1998 using forensic investigative genealogy.

Sergeant Robert Osmond, the current lead investigator, confirmed that the victim’s tibia arrived at the DNA Doe Project lab in Georgia on Thursday. The bone arrived in good condition for testing. This new approach aims to build a family tree from the genetic material to locate distant relatives. Those relatives may then provide leads to identify the man’s immediate family.

The case began in the summer of 1998 when a hiker found a skull off-trail near Cache Creek on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Two weeks later, search dog volunteers recovered the rest of the body 250 feet downhill. The remains included a foot in a Velcro-strapped tennis shoe. Investigators also found an IV setup attached to a tree limb five feet above where the arm would have been. This setup included a tube, bag, and needle. Eight glass vials containing a cloudy liquid were found on the ground but proved too degraded for chemical analysis.

Osmond stated the IV setup is the most perplexing element of the case. He noted he has not encountered such a detail in more than a decade of law enforcement. Theories ranged from self-medicating for a condition to an accidental overdose. A 1998 report from the Jackson Hole News and Guide described the equipment as extensive IV paraphernalia. The sheriff’s office canvassed local hospitals for missing patients but found no records.

In 2020, the office officially reopened the case after reorganizing evidence. Technicians sent the tibia to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. They successfully extracted a viable genetic profile. However, entering the profile into the FBI’s CODIS database yielded no matches. The man is estimated to be between 20 and 65 years old at death, which likely occurred between 1990 and 1995. He was white of European ancestry. His height ranged from 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, and his weight from 140 to 170 pounds. He wore a faded blue TwoGeneration T-shirt, a brand that is now defunct.

Investigators previously relied on dental records. The victim had only one wisdom tooth remaining, an anomaly that narrowed a list of 100 potential matches to six. None of those six were a match. A facial reconstruction created in 2000 was published in media but generated no tips. Two volunteer genealogists, Ashley Kroner and Megan McWilliams of Genetics Uncovered, have also searched surrounding state databases without success. Kroner noted the circumstances do not align unless investigators look further back than the 1990s.

A tipster called the office a month after the discovery, claiming to have found a suicide note in the Cache Creek parking lot years earlier. The caller described the note as clearly a suicide note but said it was barely legible due to rain and vehicle traffic. The tipster moved away and lost the note. Osmond considers the report not credible due to the lack of identifying information, but he said the office would welcome the caller if he returns.

The sheriff’s office is also appealing to the public for recognition of the victim. Osmond hopes the man’s story will reach someone who knew him. The department is not relying solely on genetic results. They are simultaneously spreading the case details to increase public exposure. The next step is awaiting the genetic genealogy results from the Georgia lab.