The suspect, Henry "Hoss" Wise. Credit: GBI
As announced Tuesday by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and the FBI, forensic genetic genealogy has hit yet another significant milestone. They used genetic genealogy to identify both the victim and the killer in the same case. While the FBI and GBI say this is the first time the technology has been used to identify the killer and victim in the same case, there have been at least three other cases to do so. The first was the case of Mary Silvani in 2018/2019.
In March of this year, the GBI and FBI partnered with DNA and genetic genealogy experts Othram to identify Rising Fawn Jane Doe as Stacy Lyn Chahorski, who was reported missing on Sept. 15, 1988. Now, five months later, investigators have used genetic genealogy again—this time to identify her killer as Henry “Hoss” Wise.
Wise was a truck driver for Western Carolina Trucking, who’s frequent route comprised a 150-mile trip down I-59 south from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Birmingham, Alabama. About 30 miles into the route is the town of Rising Fawn in Dade County, Georgia—where Chahorski’s body was found 34 years ago.
In December 1988, the Dade County Sheriff’s Office and the GBI responded to the scene of a body located about five miles from the Alabama Stateline on the I-59 northbound lane near Rising Fawn. The investigators quickly deduced the body belonged to a female homicide victim, but there was no identifying information or clues as to her name.
However, investigators did find what they believed to the killer’s DNA at the scene, but at the time, they could not link it to a person. More than 30 years later, this evidence would turn out to be crucial.
In 2015, the case was reassigned, and GBI contacted the FBI about the possibility of using advanced DNA testing to build a genealogical profile that might be able to generate new leads in the case.
With Othram’s help, investigators identified distant relatives that traced back to the female homicide victim finally being identified as Stacy Lyn Chahorski. Chahorski’s body was reunited with her family, and the search for her killer continued.
Using the DNA left at the crime scene, investigators traced it back to a living relative of Wise who was interviewed, cooperated and provided a DNA sample that did indeed match Wise. Wise himself was killed in a stunt car accident at Myrtle Beach Speedway in 1999.
“We thought it was a truck driver all along,” said GBI Special Agent Joe Montgomery. “We did feel something was wrong because there was a 10-year gap with no activity; we thought he passed away or was incarcerated.”
Wise had a criminal history in the southeast, but his crimes predated mandatory DNA collection for felony crimes.
Although not technically a break in the case, Montgomery said the pathway to both identifications started when a GBI special agent attended a seminar given by the FBI about the use of genetic genealogy in the Golden State Killer case.
“That became the driving force behind how we got to this today,” said Montgomery.
The special agent left the door open on whether he thinks Wise, who we know made very frequent trips through the Tennessee/Georgia corridor of I-59, could be tied to other unsolved murders in the area.
“It’s possible,” said Montgomery. “His DNA is now in CODIS so it should come to light now.”