A decade-old cold case in Yavapai County has finally warmed up, as sleuthing college students from New Jersey have cracked the identity of a man only known as the 'Beaver Creek John Doe' until now. The remains of the mystery man was found in a well-trafficked hiking area in 2011, with no ID to his name, and entered into national databases where he remained an enigma. abc15.com reported that the corpse bore no wallet, and despite fingerprint database entries, no match could be made.
This cold case heated up after students from the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Certificate Program at Ramapo College teamed up with the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, their work led to the identification of 'Beaver Creek John Doe' as David Emil Jacobsen, the students who were only ten in number worked with tenacity until they cracked the case generating a DNA profile from familial DNA and "unique circumstantial details" FOX 10 Phoenix detailed that the match came after many years of dead ends, including hopes pegged on NamUs and the Cogent Automated Fingerprint Identification System eventually proving unfruitful.
The breakthrough was a collaborative effort as Cairenn Binder from Ramapo college, in a statement obtained by FOX 10 Phoenix, elaborated on the persistence of the students: "They came up with the candidate, David Emil Jacobsen, as a candidate, and they were able to match details from David's life, to details in the case." This accurate match was subsequently confirmed by the Yavapai County Medical Examiner thanks to a DNA sample from one of Jacobsen's siblings.
Identified posthumously, Jacobsen's cause of death was attributed to natural causes due to heart complications, sealing a more than ten-year mystery that nagged at local law enforcement and the hiking community who stumbled upon the grim discovery, experts involved successfully leveraged investigative genetic genealogy, a formidable tool within their arsenal that connects the threads of DNA to the rich tapestry of human lineage, bringing solace to a family after 13 years of not knowing what had happened to their kin, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office said "The Jacobsen family is very grateful to everyone for their efforts to bring closure to this 13-year painful experience."
