Summary
The Galveston County Medical Examiner’s office and Othram, the leading forensic sequencing laboratory for law enforcement, are working with the Galveston Police Department to help identify an unknown deceased black man found on a beach near Kahala Drive in Galveston, Texas. The decedent was found May 10 and the circumstances of death are unclear.
The Galveston Police Department has not been able to establish an ID from fingerprints and the decedent doesn’t match any record for missing persons. The decedent has been described as a male between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, with a height of five feet seven inches and a weight of about 150 pounds. He was wearing black shorts, grey Calvin Klein boxers, and his hands were fitted through white Under Armour sandals.
Galveston PD and The Galveston Medical Examiner’s Office are working with Othram to leverage forensic genealogy to establish an identification of, or to find nearest kin to the decedent. Anyone with information about the decedent is encouraged to contact the Galveston Medical Examiner’s office at 409-935-9274. A fund has been established to cover the costs of testing for this case. Those wishing to contribute can contact the Galveston Medical Examiner’s office or contribute here. This case is logged in NamUs as #UP69355.
Updates
Preliminary DNA Analysis
September 04, 2020
From initial DNA analysis we suspect a substantial part of the victim's ancestry is East African. Analysis suggests that genetically, this individual could be Somali Bantu or Kenyan Bantu.
Michael Vogen
Director of Case Management
Michael works with law enforcement agencies throughout the United States and Canada on “unsolvable“ cases that can benefit from advanced DNA testing methods. He helps these agencies use cutting edge DNA sequencing and new forensic techniques to develop investigative leads for their cases.