In 1999, two fishermen in Kentucky discovered human stays wrapped in heavy tire chains and anchored with a hydraulic jack in a lake.
With assistance from superior DNA expertise, state police on Monday recognized the stays as these of Roger D. Parham, an FBI fugitive who was 53 when he fled a federal arrest warrant in Arkansas in reference to the alleged rape of a minor in 1998, in line with bureau records.
Kentucky State Police mentioned Parham’s demise is being investigated as a murder.
Authorities consider Parham fled Arkansas and was probably headed for Mexico after he was launched on bond with situations to seem in court docket at a later date on the rape cost, in line with the FBI.
The bond was revoked when he failed to seem, and a federal arrest warrant was issued on a cost of illegal flight to keep away from prosecution.
Kentucky State Police mentioned a number of makes an attempt have been made through the years to establish the stays present in Lake Barkley, about 200 miles southwest of Louisville. Conventional investigative methods have been used when the stays have been found in 1999, and the physique elements have been exhumed in 2016 for additional examination.
“Regardless of in depth efforts utilizing DNA expertise, dental examinations, forensic pathology, and different superior forensic testing, the sufferer remained unidentified,” Kentucky State Police mentioned in a information launch.
Kentucky State Police mentioned it started working earlier this 12 months with a personal laboratory specializing in forensic family tree. The lab, Othram Inc., gained notoriety for serving to to establish “the girl with the scorpion tattoo,” who washed up overwhelmed and strangled on a seashore in Staten Island, a borough of New York Metropolis, 30 years in the past, and a pair of human legs discovered on the facet of a highway in Montana, amongst quite a few different chilly instances.
Family tree testing examines individuals’s genomes to search out their ancestral roots and hyperlink them to relations, in line with Othram’s web site. Testing of the Lake Barkley stays led to an individual who was associated to Parham, Kentucky State Police mentioned.
“A relative had submitted their DNA in a kind of store-bought kits,” Dean Patterson, an investigative lieutenant with the state police submit in Mayfield, mentioned. “The loopy factor is it’s possible you’ll do family tree testing in the present day and never get something, then six months from now if any individual submits a kind of kits on their very own, you may get successful. It is actually by likelihood.”
Patterson mentioned Parham’s DNA was entered within the Nationwide Lacking and Unidentified Individuals System (NAMUS) in 2016, which helped Othram labs discover the match.
Parham’s relations in Oklahoma have since been notified that his physique was discovered.
This text was initially revealed on NBCNews.com
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