Skeletal remains found in a train coal car at a Berkeley County power-plant yard in June 2024 now have a name. Officials identified the man as Stephen Anthony Williams, 47, whose last known residence was in Georgia.
The Berkeley County Coroner’s Office said investigative genetic genealogy scientifically identified Williams after a two-year investigation, in what it described as its first case of this kind, WCBD News 2 reported. Officials said the identification was made possible through Waypoint Investigative Genetic Genealogy and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department Forensic Science Laboratory.
A 911 call at the coal yard
The remains were found June 2, 2024, inside a train coal car at the Santee Cooper Cross Generations Station coal yard. The Post and Courier reported that a 911 call about possible human remains there was received around 3:15 p.m. that day.
Coroner Darnell Hartwell said the remains were recovered and determined to be human. An autopsy was performed June 6, 2024. In a later WCBD report, the manner of death still had not been released.
Named, but not explained
A year after the discovery, the case was still stuck on identity. In June 2025, the Berkeley Observer reported that forensic examinations, including an autopsy and DNA analysis, had confirmed the remains were human, while efforts to identify them had been unsuccessful.
Genealogy eventually supplied the name that earlier DNA work had not. It did not supply an account of the death. The coroner’s office says the cause and manner of Williams’ death remain unknown. Officials have not said how he came to be inside the coal car or when he died.
The Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office, the coroner’s office and the South Carolina Public Service Authority of Santee Cooper are still investigating.
A longer clock than the published average
A review in Forensic Science International: Genetics found that forensic genetic genealogy cleared the cases it examined in an average of 12.1 months. That figure describes the study’s cases, not Berkeley County’s. This investigation ran two years, and the coroner’s office called it a first.
What the public record now holds is a name, an age, a last known residence in Georgia, and an open investigation into a death that still has no stated cause or manner.
