Warren Kuchinsky. Credit: DDP
Forty years after human remains were discovered in New Hampshire, the DNA Doe Project and their agency partners have identified New Hampshire Cranium Doe as Warren Kuchinsky. Kuchinsky had last been seen in the mid-1970s, ten years before his skull was found. A transnational team of over forty volunteers worked intensively to restore his identity, ultimately identifying him in less than 24 hours.
In 1986, a skull was located in a wooded area of Bristol, New Hampshire. An examination the next year revealed that the skull belonged to an adult male, who had likely died 2-10 years prior. However, the identity of the man could not be determined, and he remained unidentified.
The New Hampshire Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, in partnership with the New Hampshire State Police, later brought this case to the DNA Doe Project, whose expert investigative genetic genealogists work pro bono to identify John and Jane Does. A DNA profile was developed for the unidentified man and uploaded to the GEDmatch database, but all of his DNA matches there turned out to be distant relatives. The closest match shared just 1% of his DNA with New Hampshire Cranium Doe.
Hoping to overcome the obstacle of these distant DNA matches, the DNA Doe Project selected this case to be worked on at a virtual ‘retreat’ that took place in May 2025. More than forty genealogists from the United States, Canada, England, and Scotland came together virtually to spend a weekend working solely on this case.
“Our retreats often act as a catalyst for solving a case,” said team member Matthew Waterfield. “When you have that many people working together simultaneously, you tend to make progress remarkably quickly.”
The case was launched on a Friday evening, and the team soon made multiple breakthroughs. Numerous connections were made within the first few hours, and it was soon apparent that the unidentified man had roots in both New Hampshire and Quebec. The next day, the team made further headway, and by the afternoon they had zeroed in on a person of interest.
This person was a man named Warren Kuchinsky. Kuchinsky was born in 1952 and had attended school in the town of Plymouth, about 10 miles from where the skull was found. The last proof of life the team could find for him was from 1970 – after that, there was seemingly no trace of him.
With the team unable to find any proof that Kuchinsky was still alive, they presented this lead to the New Hampshire State Police. NHSP investigators followed up on this and collected a DNA sample from one of Warren’s surviving family members. Further testing later confirmed that the man formerly known as New Hampshire Cranium Doe was, in fact, Warren Kuchinsky.
“We are honored to have partnered with the State of New Hampshire on this case,” said team leader Lisa Ivany. “Through the power of investigative genetic genealogy and the dedication of our volunteer genealogists, we were able to develop a critical lead in less than 24 hours. We truly hope that this identification brings long-awaited answers to Mr. Kuchinsky’s family.”
“This identification reflects the power of partnership and scientific advancement,” said Attorney General John Formella. “The dedication of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the investigative support of the New Hampshire State Police, and the extraordinary work of the DNA Doe Project have restored a name to an individual who had been unidentified for nearly 40 years. We are grateful for their professionalism and commitment.”
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups who we worked with to solve this case: the New Hampshire State Police and the New Hampshire Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; the University of New Hampshire’s F.A.I.R. Lab, for their support; Astrea Forensics for DNA extraction and bioinformatics; Azenta Life Sciences for sequencing; GEDmatch Pro for providing their database; 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.
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Republished courtesy of DNA Doe Project.