Credit: DDP
Almost 50 years after he died in a traffic collision on the I-95, Ashland John Doe has been identified as 20-year-old Peter Adams. Though he was a native of Illinois, Adams was living in Pennsylvania at the time of his disappearance, hundreds of miles away from the stretch of Virginia highway where he was struck and killed.
At 2 am on March 23, 1977, a young man was struck and killed by a truck on the I-95 near Ashland, Virginia. Despite having a recognizable face, he could not be identified. He was determined to be a Caucasian man between 20-25 years old and he wore blue jeans, a western-style shirt, and a jean jacket.
The Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later brought this case to the DNA Doe Project, whose expert volunteer investigative genetic genealogists work pro bono to identify John and Jane Does. At the outset of the genealogy research on this case, it was clear that the unidentified man had deep roots in Peoria County, Illinois, as well as recent Polish heritage.
“The family tree in this case was complex,” said team co-leader Eryk Jan Grzeszkowiak. “In addition to dealing with pedigree collapse, we ended up needing to build family trees back to Poland, Germany and Switzerland amongst others.”
In spite of these challenges, the team made swift progress. After just over a week of research, they identified a husband and wife who both had familial connections to Ashland John Doe’s DNA matches. This couple had six children, but the oldest - Peter Adams - seemed to have dropped off the radar in the 1970s.
While records showed that Adams had attended high school in the Chicago suburbs in the early 1970s, there was no evidence of him being alive past 1977. The team presented this lead to the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and investigators then discovered that Adams had gone missing on March 17, 1977 - six days before the unidentified man had died. Further DNA testing facilitated by the Virginia State Police later confirmed that Peter Adams was indeed Ashland John Doe.
“We are honored that the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner came to the DNA Doe Project to help uncover Peter’s identity,” said team leader Traci Onders. “While this case was not without its challenges, we were able to resolve a mystery that’s lasted nearly half a century in a matter of days thanks to the hard work and expertise of our team.”
“I want to recognize the extraordinary investigative efforts undertaken by Trooper Ed Ryder and the agents who worked tirelessly in the late 1970s to identify Peter Adams,” said Capt. Brien Frey of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Richmond Field Office. Although an identification was not possible at that time, their diligence, investigative methods, and commitment to this case were commendable and laid the groundwork for the answers we have today."
"Mr. Adams’ identification is the result of a strong collaborative partnership between the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the DNA Doe Project, and a family who never forgot their brother. I also want to personally thank Cold Case Special Agent Jonathan Johnson for his continued dedication and leadership in bringing this case to a resolution. This partnership, combined with advancements in DNA technology, has finally provided long-awaited answers in a case that remained unresolved for nearly 50 years.”
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups and individuals who helped solve this case: the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; the Virginia State Police, for their support; Genologue for DNA extraction and sequencing; Kevin Lord of Astrea Forensics for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro for providing their database; Audiochuck for the funding they provided for this case; our generous donors who joined our mission and contributed to this case; and the DNA Doe Project’s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring all our John and Jane Does home.
Republished courtesy of DNA Doe Project