Human remains found twice on Bay Area beaches have been identified as those of a California banker who disappeared in 1999.
The person was identified as a 59-year-old man walter carl kinneyA former banker who lived in Santa Rosa, according to a news release from the nonprofit DNA Doe Project. Kinney disappeared in 1999 and on June 17, 2022, a family searching for sea shells at Salmon Creek State Beach found a bone stuck to the sand. It was later determined to be a human tibia.
A search of the area did not turn up any more human remains and it was unknown whose they belonged to.
According to the release, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office brought the case to the DNA Doe Project, which developed a DNA profile and uploaded it to the GEDmatch database in January. A team of volunteers began working on the case.
DNA from the bone pointed the team to Kinney’s family, who had moved to San Diego from the East Coast. According to the release, Kinney was born in San Diego in 1940 and later moved to Santa Rosa.
According to the release, the team found a news article in 1999 about other human remains washing up a few miles south of Bodega Bay, about four miles from Salmon Creek State Beach. Another clue was found when a woman contacted investigators in 2003 about her father, who was last seen on August 10, 1999.
Using X-ray records, investigators were able to confirm that the partial remains found in 1999 and 2022 were those of Kinney, according to the release. The cause of death was not confirmed.
The DNA Doe Project presented the lead to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office and investigators confirmed that “Salmon Creek John Doe” was Kinney.
“This case was unusual – it’s not often that we see someone named John Doe twice,” project team leader Tracy Onders said in the release. “But thanks to investigative genetic genealogy, we were able to solve this mystery and provide some answers to everyone involved in this case.”
