Credit: DDP
Nearly four decades after he was murdered and buried in a shallow grave, the DNA Doe Project and their agency partners have identified Three Points John Doe as Rogelio Morales Caudillo. Rogelio was just 17 years old when he vanished from Tucson in 1986, and it would be another two years before his body was found in a remote desert area of the city.
On April 5, 1988, partial skeletal remains were discovered buried in a remote desert wash area in Tucson, Arizona. The area is located south of Valencia Road near Ryan Airfield. Investigators determined that he was male and that he died 1-2 years before his body was discovered. They also estimated that he was just 17-18 years old at the time of his death.
The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner later brought this case to the DNA Doe Project, whose expert investigative genetic genealogists work pro bono to identify John and Jane Does. Once a DNA profile had been generated, it became immediately clear to the team assigned to the case that the unidentified male was of Mexican descent.
“Although we had no close DNA matches, our research indicated that Three Points John Doe had roots in Sonora, Mexico,” said team leader Lance Daly. “We identified a family of interest and eventually began finding descendants of theirs who had moved from Sonora to Arizona, so we focused on the branches that ended up in the Tucson area.”
A team worked on this case for five months, using Mexican birth records and American obituaries to construct a family tree for the unidentified male. Eventually, they narrowed in on a particular branch of the family and contact was made with a potential relative. This relative didn’t know of any missing family members but she promised to ask around, which led to a crucial revelation – the disappearance of Rogelio Morales Caudillo, a cousin of hers who’d vanished in 1986.
“Although this relative was not aware of anyone missing, her decision to ask some of the older members of her family led to someone who did know of a missing cousin,” said team co-leader Emily Bill. “Thanks to a single question, Rogelio’s family finally has the answers they’ve been seeking for nearly 40 years.”
Shortly afterwards, with the genealogical evidence and the timing of his disappearance lining up, Rogelio was presented to the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner as a possible candidate. Further DNA testing facilitated by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department later confirmed that Rogerlio Morales Caudillo was, in fact, the boy formerly known only as Three Points John Doe.
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups and individuals who helped solve this case: the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, who entrusted us with this case; the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, for their assistance in confirming the identification; the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, for the support they provided; Bode Technology for DNA extraction; Genologue for sequencing; Kevin Lord for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro, DNA Justice and FamilyTreeDNA for providing their databases; 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