Inside a lab at Ramapo College, bright minds solve the unsolvable. But even this case felt like a long shot.
“This is the first time I’ve come across a case like this,” said Cairenn Binder, assistant director of the College’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy, or IGG, Center.
World War II veteran and U.S. Marine Captain Everett Yager died in a plane crash in California in 1951 while in a training exercise. His remains were all thought to have been in Missouri until years later when authorities in Arizona received what was believed to be a rock in a boy’s collection that turned out to be a human jawbone.
“We use a combination of advanced DNA testing and family history research and public records to identify humans,” said Binder.
Ramapo’s IGG Center takes on dozens of cases at once. The Center has a summer boot camp, and when students got their hands on the case last July, one student theorized that the jawbone belonged to Yager.
“It was unforgettable because it was just an out-there theory that one of the students threw out,” said Binder, “and it turned out to be the correct one.”
Last month, police confirmed a DNA match to Yager’s daughter, solving the case.
“We certainly second-guessed ourselves,” said Dr. David Gurney, Director of the IGG Center, “but after putting all the genetic and genealogical evidence together, we were quite confident.”
Ethan Schwartz, a student at nearby Suffern High School, was part of the investigation as an intern. He is thought to be the youngest person ever to have contributed to a genetic genealogy case’s resolution.
“In these types of cases, it definitely feels good, not only that you solved the crime or whatever you’re looking at, but that you also are able to help individuals,” said Schwartz.