Chain of Custody & Physical Discovery
On July 31, 1988, a local homeowner clearing brush in a heavily wooded, undeveloped lot located on Lake Road near the southern shore of Lake Ontario in Irondequoit, Monroe County, New York, struck bone fragments with a shovel.
Deputies and crime scene technicians from the Irondequoit Police Department and the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office responded immediately. Forensic anthropologists meticulously excavated a clandestine shallow burial pit, recovering complete skeletal elements wrapped in white cloth or sheeting, buried approximately one to two feet below the surface.
Forensic Pathological & Anthropological Assessment
The autopsy was performed at the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office in Rochester, New York. The decedent was an adult White female, estimated between 15 and 20 years of age, of slender build, standing approximately 4 feet 10 inches to 5 feet 2 inches in height and weighing an estimated 90 to 110 pounds.
Taphonomic bone weathering, extensive root intrusion through cortical bone, and soil mineralization indicated a significant postmortem interval. Anthropologists estimated that the victim had been buried between ten and thirty years prior to recovery, placing her death between 1958 and 1978. No clothing, jewelry, or personal effects were recovered in the grave. The case was entered into NamUs as UP6207.
Active Genomic Sequencing by DNA Doe Project
In 2021, the Irondequoit Police Department partnered with the non-profit DNA Doe Project. Extracting usable genomic material from bone interred for decades in damp, acidic Lake Ontario shoreline soil required specialized laboratory preparation. Skeletal samples were submitted to HudsonAlpha Discovery for whole-genome sequencing, successfully generating an autosomal SNP profile uploaded to GEDmatch Pro to initiate kinship tracing.