The victim, Ada Elizabeth Fritz. Credit: Intermountain Forensics/Moxxy
In a unique identification that may be the first of its kind, forensic, investigative and genealogical experts have given Ada Elizabeth Fritz her name back after 47 years.
On May 18, 1976, the police recovered the remains of an older female from Session’s Creek in Grand Bay, Alabama. She had a gunshot wound to the back of her head and her hands had been mutilated. With no identification, no teeth and unusable fingerprints, the case quickly went cold.
Then, in 2021, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office called in their genealogy analyst Olivia McCarter in a renewed push to solve the 1976 cold case murder.
However, McCarter and investigators quickly realized this case was not like others. As they searched for the body to extract DNA for analysis, investigators found that the remains had been cremated and buried in 1979 by the Anatomical Donations Program at the University of South Alabama.
No body, no DNA, no investigative genetic genealogy—right?
“I thought that was the end of the road,” McCarter told Fox10. “I mean, my work is with DNA and we didn’t have dentals because she had no teeth, and we didn’t have fingerprints because she had no hands. So, there was no way we could have identified her even if we had a missing person that we thought she could be.”
Then, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office got the most unexpected of breaks. Sgt. J.T. Thornton was doing the utmost due diligence on Jane Doe’s case file when he found a ceramic dental mold—even though the victim did not have any teeth when her body was recovered.
Apparently saved prior to cremation, the sheriff’s office sent the mold to Danny Hellwig and team at Intermountain Forensics, the non-profit that is leading the DNA and genetic genealogy portion of the 1921 Graves Investigation (Tulsa Race Massacre victims).
Given the age and circumstances of the dental mold, Hellwig’s lab turned to the M-Vac DNA collection device, known for its ability to collect nearly impossible DNA samples from tough surfaces. The M-Vac aggressively sprays a sterile solution onto a surface and simultaneously applies vacuum pressure to collect the solution and whatever DNA material is present on the surface. The solution and DNA material are then run through a filter or a microcentrifuge.
Applying the device—which M-Vac CEO Jared Bradley describes as “a mini-hurricane”—to the dental mold, the Intermountain Forensics experts were able to collect residual DNA that was left on the dental mold.
“Astonishingly, the sample yielded enough DNA to proceed with further testing, a testament to the ingenuity of the investigators and the power of the M-Vac collection device,” Hellwig said in a statement.
Not only was there enough sample to run more tests, but the DNA was completely uncompromised—pointing solely to the still-unidentified victim. That’s when it was time for McCarter, who co-founded Moxxy Forensic Investigations at 21 years old, to work her magic.
With DNA data files suitable for uploading to GEDMatch, McCarter tracked down a distant cousin of Jane Doe, and eventually a nephew she was close with who was able to provide a confirmatory sample and identify the victim as Ada Elizabeth Fritz.
After the disintegration of her second marriage, Fritz left the state of Oregon, traveling to the Gulf Coast. There, she met a man named Henderson Williams—and went missing shortly thereafter. Three years prior, Williams was convicted of murder in Virginia, but the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office says he only served 28 days in prison. The records do not indicate why he was freed after such a short time.
“This identification would not have been possible without the teamwork between Mobile County and Intermountain Forensics thinking outside of the box on how to identify remains of a cremated body. We believe this case is one of the first, if not the first, identification of its kind,” said Moxxy Forensic Investigations in a statement.