The Park County Coroner’s Office (PCCO) in Colorado and the DNA Doe Project (DDP) announce the identity of a man whose remains were found in a mountainous region outside of Grant, Colorado in February 1974 as Anthony John Armbrust, Jr., born in 1929 in Ohio.
On February 11, 1974, the Park County Sheriff's Office, Posse and Park County Coroner's Office hiked into a scene found by hikers. They recovered the male in a state of decomposition with no identification of any kind. After a month of investigation with no leads, the case went cold and the male was buried. The case was officially re-opened in 2011 and the males was exhumed by the Park County Coroners Office for modern X-rays to be taken and DNA to be collected. After DNA testing yielded no results, the Park County Coroner’s Office contracted DNA Doe Project in the summer of 2019 to investigate any possible leads through forensic genealogy.
According to DDP team leaders, the case was challenging, involving approximately 800 hours of volunteer genetic research. The assistance of a family member discovered during research was invaluable to making the final identification.
Armbrust, Jr. was an aeronautical engineer and the leader of a metaphysical church in San Diego. He and his wife, Renee, moved from California to Colorado. Shortly after that, they send a letter to members of the church asking if they could come retrieve their puppy and belongings. They were never reported missing, and Renee is missing to this day. Armbrust’s daughter lives in Arizona and has been notified of her father’s identification.
DDP wishes to acknowledge the contributions of those groups and individuals who helped solve this case: Park County Coroner David E. Kintz, Jr. for entrusting the case to us; Astrea Forensics for extraction; HudsonAlpha Discovery for sequencing; Kevin Lord of Saber Investigations for bioinformatics; GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA for providing their databases; and DDP’s dedicated team of volunteer genealogists who provided PCSO with an identification. We also want to thank our generous donors who contributed funding for the testing to help us solve this case.
Republished courtesy of DDP/Park County Coroner's Office. Photo credit: DDP