After nearly four decades of anonymity, a man buried as "Unknown Male" in 1985 has been identified, bringing closure to a case that has lingered in the corners of St. Paul's history. The DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit organization that leverages genetic genealogy to solve cases of unidentified remains, has used DNA analysis to determine that the man found in an abandoned building in St. Paul was Frank Nicholas Augenti, as reported on Tuesday by CBS News Minnesota.
The investigation was reignited when the BCA approached the owner of what is now Prairie Oaks Memorial Eco Gardens back in 2017, leading to the exhumation of Augenti's remains for DNA testing. This effort to finally identify the first person to be buried at the cemetery at that time, known then as Inver Hills Memorial Cemetery, allowed genealogists to eventually connect the genetic dots. "We got very lucky with this case," team member Sara Hoffman shared, according to a CBS News Minnesota interview. "We had a fairly close DNA match. I believe it was a second or third cousin."
The case, which invoked the community's compassion in 1985, saw contributions from two funeral directors and the involvement of various religious and community representatives, highlighted in a Twin Cities article. Augenti's identity unraveled from threads that stretched back to Italian birth records from the 1800s, where DNA evidence later pointed law enforcement toward a family that had no record of Augenti's whereabouts past the mid-1980s. Lisa Ivany, team co-leader, encapsulated the dual nature of such discoveries, saying, "It's very exciting to identify a John or Jane Doe, but you're instantly hit by how horrible it must be for them to receive this news."
Frank Augenti's life before his disappearance was pieced together through family obituaries and statements, painting a picture of a quiet and artistic man, fondly remembered as "Hogie" by his bandmates in his youth. He was born in Pennsylvania and had last been seen in New York City, carrying the heritage of his Italian immigrant grandparents. In a statement obtained by Twin Cities, the DNA Doe Project revealed that vital clues came from a first cousin, once removed, who had uploaded their DNA to a genetic genealogy database. "Without their DNA, this case would still be unsolved," Ivany said, underlining the importance of public DNA databanks in resolving such cases.
The identification of Frank Augenti as the unknown male of Prairie Oaks brings some solace, confirming the sentiment of Hoffman, who stated, "Everybody is born with a name and they deserve the dignity of being buried with their name." The reclamation of Augenti's identity is not just a victory for science but a poignant reminder of the human stories behind the numbers and data. Cemetery owner Jon Weber expressed intentions to reach out to the family, possibly to replace the headstone.
