A man found dead in a suburban Chicago canal has remained unidentified for more than 20 years, and investigators are now asking the public for help putting a name to him. They are hoping new technology can finally break open a case that has sat cold for two decades.
The case was detailed in a report from FOX 32 Chicago, which described it simply as a Chicago cold case centered on a man whose body was discovered in a suburban canal and who has never been identified. The station’s report frames the search for his identity as an active effort, with investigators hoping that newer forensic tools can succeed where earlier methods could not.
A Name That Technology Could Finally Uncover
Investigators hope to use new technology to solve the case, according to the same report, though the specifics of which tools they plan to apply have not been detailed publicly. That approach mirrors a broader shift happening across Illinois and the Midwest, where cold-case units have increasingly turned to forensic genetic genealogy to identify people who died without ever being named.
In Will County, for example, the coroner’s office partnered with the DNA lab Othram in 2021 specifically to apply forensic genetic genealogy techniques to identify victims and suspects, according to WJOL. That partnership followed funding that Will County Coroner Laurie Summers approved in 2020, making it a priority to bring emerging technology into cold-case work, the outlet reported.
How Similar Cold Cases Have Been Cracked
The Will County partnership eventually paid off: investigators identified a man whose body had been found on July 30, 1980, in a wooden crate at the Lockport locks powerplant beside the Chicago Water Reclamation Canal, WJOL reported. Representatives of Othram contacted the coroner’s office on March 15, 2023, confirming the man was Webster Fisher, after investigators tracked down possible relatives and obtained a DNA standard from someone close to him.
Detroit has seen comparable breakthroughs. Detroit police teamed up with Othram and the FBI’s forensic genetic genealogy team in March 2022 to develop new leads in long-stalled cases, according to CBS News Detroit. That work led to the identification of a man whose partial remains were found in a vacant Detroit apartment building in 1998 as Robert Booker Jr., and of a murder victim found in downtown Detroit in 1981 as Jerry Tate. The DNASolves database listed Booker and Tate as the 12th and 13th Michigan cases solved using Othram’s laboratory resources, per the same report. Funding for that advanced DNA testing came through the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the station noted.
Why Public Tips Still Matter
Even as DNA technology advances, agencies continue to lean on public recognition to close these cases. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office has said it encourages the public and law enforcement agencies to view enhanced postmortem photographs of unidentified people, acknowledging the material can be distressing but expressing hope that someone will recognize the person and bring closure to a family, according to information from the Cook County government. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known as NamUs, similarly describes its mission as helping investigators match long-term missing persons with unidentified remains to resolve cases and bring resolution to families.
For now, the man found in the suburban Chicago canal remains nameless, and the FOX 32 Chicago report does not identify the investigating agency, the exact location, or how the public can submit tips. What is clear is that investigators are hoping new technology, combined with public memory, can finally answer a question that has lingered for more than two decades.
