For more than five decades, he was just a John Doe — a hitchhiker who died in a fiery crash on Interstate 15 near Baker and was buried without a name. Now the man has been identified through genetic genealogy.
The crash happened on November 8, 1974, when a van and a truck collided on Interstate 15 near Baker, California, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department
. The van caught fire in the collision, killing its driver and one of three passengers — a hitchhiker who carried no identification. At the time, investigators estimated the man was between 20 and 30 years old, and he reportedly went by the name Terrance or the nickname Lee, though his full identity remained a mystery for 52 years.
The case remained unresolved for decades.
Genetic Genealogy Leads to Identification
Investigative genetic genealogy played a role in the identification.
The unidentified man was reportedly picked up as a hitchhiker in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Part of a Growing Pattern in Cold Case Work
This identification fits into a broader wave of identifications made possible by investigative genetic genealogy, a method that combines DNA analysis with traditional paper-trail research to reverse-engineer a person's identity, as CNN has reported. The technique first drew national attention with the 2018 identification of the Golden State Killer, and it has since been used to crack cases that sat cold for decades, including the identification of Tiffany Bradley as Chelsea Jane Doe after nearly 26 years and the identification of Cheryl Lynn Edwards, whose body was found in the Mississippi River back in 1975.
The scale of the unsolved-case backlog nationwide remains large. CNN reported more than 15,000 active cases still unsolved in the NamUs database, while American Press has reported that more than 50,000 bodies remain unidentified across the country. The DNA Doe Project advises partnering agencies to budget up to $10,900 per case for the genealogy work.
San Bernardino County has seen this kind of breakthrough before. In a separate case, two homicide victims found in a desert grave in November 1980 were identified in December 2020 as Pamela Dianne Duffy and William Everette Lane through forensic genetic genealogy work credited to Deputy Peter Headley and Barbara Rae-Venter, according to DNA Solves; the California Department of Justice later confirmed those findings through traditional STR testing in April 2021. Nearby in Riverside County, authorities used DNA testing and dental-record comparisons to identify Thelma Jeanette Gaston more than 44 years after her remains were found in the San Bernardino County mountains, per Patch.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department can be reached at 909-387-2978; its Public Affairs Division can be reached at 909-387-3700.
