The DNA Doe Project announced the identification of two men in two separate cases hailing from Tucson, Arizona. Through genetic genealogy work, the non-profit has identified James “Mark” Chaparro and Tommy Gayle Pool, Jr., whose bodies were both found in 2019.
On July 28, 2019, a man was found unresponsive in the parking lot of a shopping center in Tucson, Arizona with no identification and keys to a car that was not in the lot. After three years, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner and the DNA Doe Project have confirmed his identity as James “Mark” Chaparro, who lived less than half a mile away from the place where he was found.
Chaparro was 64-years old when he died, and had been raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Researchers located records from October, 2019 of an eviction for non-payment of rent at his home near where he died. It’s thought that he had walked to the store and simply never made it home. According to family members, they believed he was living in China so they never filed a missing persons report in Tucson.
Bruce Anderson, Forensic Anthropologist with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner brought the case to the DNA Doe Project in the spring of this year. Four expert volunteer investigative genetic genealogists from the non-profit organization began work on this case in June of this year, and were able to place John Doe in a family tree that was complicated with adoption, misattributed parentage, and Hispanic ancestry – notoriously hard to trace as that ethnicity is underrepresented in the public database at GEDmatch.
The team built a family tree going back to Chaparro’s great-great-great-grandparents in order to fit matches they found in GEDmatch into the tree.
“We had a first cousin once removed that shared 153 centimorgans with our Doe, and another first cousin once removed who shared 21 centimorgans with him,” said Christina Lauritsen, co-team leader. Centimorgans are a measure of how much DNA is shared between two people. While it’s unusual to see that kind of discrepancy, it’s not unknown.
“This case demonstrated how instrumental investigative genetic genealogy can be to solving cold cases,” said Karen McDermott. “Within two weeks, our team had identified a potential candidate, who was later confirmed through medical records.”
Tommy Gayle Pool
On Feb/ 26, 2019, a man’s body found in a homeless encampment in Tucson without any identification among his belongings. Investigators estimated his age to be between 32 and 50 years old, but he was actually 61 years old at the time of his death.
Again, Anderson brought the case to the DNA Doe Project to tryto determine an identity. The Medical Examiner had collected a blood sample that was used to develop a DNA profile that was then uploaded to the GEDmatch Pro database.
“We were lucky to find two relatively close DNA matches after uploading John Doe’s DNA to GEDmatch Pro, both of whom turned out to be second cousins,” said DNA Doe Project Team Leader Matthew Waterfield. “Less than 18 hours after we started work on the case, our wonderful team was able to identify the Doe.”
The DNA Doe Project is a non-profit organization that partners with law enforcement to solve cases of unidentified Jane and John Doe remains. Many cases, including Pool’s case, are fully funded by the project’s donors.
“This case is an excellent example of how the teams work together at DDP,” said Gwen Knapp, co-Team Leader. “The investigative work involved a variety of avenues including property record searches, obituaries, encyclopedia entries, and traditional genealogical records and the team worked to flesh out each important record that led to our discovery of the identity of Pool.”
The DNA Doe Project wishes to acknowledge the contributions of the groups and individuals who helped solve this case: Bruce Anderson and the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; Genologue for extraction and sequencing of DNA; Kevin Lord of Saber Investigations for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro and FTDNA for providing their databases; our generous donors who contributed to this case; and DDP’s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring victims home.
Republished courtesy of DNA Doe Project. Donations accepted here.