Summary

On January 2, 1994, 40-year-old Clive Bland, a resident of Clairemont, was found on the porch of a home in the 700 block of Tourmaline Street in Pacific Beach, California, which was a location with no known connection to him. Just before 5:00 a.m., a passerby driving to work noticed a white car with blood on it that had crashed into another vehicle. He then saw Bland on the porch and alerted authorities. Bland had been fatally stabbed.

The San Diego Police Department responded to the scene and began an investigation. Investigators determined that Bland had been stabbed on a nearby beach by Tourmaline Surf Park. It appeared that Bland got into his car and may have been trying to get help at the home where was found.

Evidence was collected at the crime scene, and an STR DNA profile was developed and entered into CODIS, but there no match to a known individual. Despite an exhaustive investigation that spanned decades, no suspect was identified and the case went cold.

In 2021, investigators teamed with Othram to leverage advanced DNA testing for identity inference, a process that assists investigators in the identification of individuals from DNA evidence, even when there is no known reference sample to initially compare against. Officials with the San Diego District Attorney's Office and San Diego Police Department worked together to submit forensic evidence to Othram's forensic laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas.

Othram scientists determined that advanced DNA testing could help identify the unknown suspect and used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to develop a comprehensive SNP profile. The profile was then searched using the Othram Multi-Dimensional Forensic Intelligence (MDFI) platform, enabling forensic genetic genealogy analysis that produced new investigative leads for law enforcement follow-up. The San Diego District Attorney's Office took the lead in the forensic genetic genealogy step.

A follow-up investigation led to the positive identification of the suspect as 50-year-old Jeffry Brandenburg. Brandenburg was arrested for murder on March 26, 2026, in Santa Cruz and is now in the custody of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office. At the time of Bland’s murder, Brandenburg, born in August 1975, would have been 18 years old.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

This case is a reminder that every piece of preserved evidence has the potential to unlock long-awaited answers. If you would like to support efforts to solve more cases like this, consider contributing your DNA data to the DNASolves database which aids law enforcement in identifying suspects and giving families the answers they deserve.

This is the 77th publicly announced case in the State of California where officials leveraged Othram’s identity inference pipeline. Explore other cases on Othram’s website.