Skeletal Found in 1991 Identified as the Missing Person Since 1988 Thanks to Advance Technology 

Human remains were discovered 31 years ago in a remote private farm lane in Pickaway County, Ohio as a missing 21-year-old man.

 The Skeletal Remains were Found 31 Years Ago

Ohio Attorney General of Pickaway County Sheriff’s office announced the news about the discovery of skeletal remains buried in a shallow grave on a private farm lane near State Route 56 East by a skeletal hunter on Tuesday, Dec. 13.

Because the estimated height of the person was 5-foot-1 to 5-foot-4, Investigators assumed that the remains belong to an Indigenous American lady aged 25 years old. Anthropologists reportedly determined the remains had been buried for little more than three years.

In a report by CNN, Scientists at North Texas University studied the remains in 2012 and obtained some DNA, which enable them to conclude that the bones belong to a man. Nine years after, in 2021, Dr. John Ellis and Pickaway County Lt. Johnathan Strawser conduct additional testing, which helped create a DNA profile of the man and in January 2022, Strawser and Ellis gather an AdvanceDNA to help identify John Doe.

Scientists from AdvanceDNA input the profile into different genealogy systems, which concluded: “the man’s father would likely have connections to Virginia and his mother would be of English and Indian heritage, which is an immigrant in the United States.”

One Step Towards Robert Mullins

On Nov. 1, 2022, advancedDNA researcher met with the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office and said they had discovered a genetic match in the identity of the man as 21-year-old Robert A. Mullins.

Mullins’ relatives told the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office that he went missing in late 1988 and lived in Columbus. The family reportedly made several attempts to locate him but was never successful.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a press conference Mullins’ death “may have been a homicide.”