The DNA Doe Project and the Hardin County Coroner’s Office have identified a man discovered in 2006 on the side of the road along northbound Interstate 65 east of Elizabethtown, Kentucky as Rickey Allen Leslie. He was believed to have died of natural causes weeks prior to being found without any identification.
"Cases like his are hard to prioritize for small jurisdictions whose funding is stretched thin. While the Department of Justice and the FBI can help with cases that involve foul play, those resources are not available when an unidentified person's cause of death is unknown, natural, or accidental," said the DNA Doe Project in a Facebook post about the case.
In 2021, the Hardin County Coroner’s Office contacted the DNA Doe Project to request help identifying the man and a biological sample from his remains was sent to the lab for processing. After seven months of complex, specialized laboratory testing, volunteer investigative genetic genealogists began the work to identify the man by analyzing his genetic matches and building his family tree.
“We had some challenges in this case–a bit of pedigree collapse–but we had a great team that came together to overcome them.” said team leader Rhonda Kevorkian. “There were some good clues to follow that brought everything together in just the right way.”
“We had a male DNA match who was also a good sized X-match, and since two males can only match through the X-path on their maternal lines, this was a huge help in this case,” said team leader Tracie Boyle. “Once we had a candidate and could confirm that the X-path lined up, that helped solidify our findings.”
Despite the challenges, the team was able to identify Ricky Allen Leslie as a potential candidate by mid-July, and his identity was confirmed by local authorities using a DNA match to a family member. Leslie, whose previous address was near where his body was found, had been living in Elizabethtown prior to his death.
The DNA Doe Project wishes to acknowledge the contributions of the groups and individuals who helped solve this case: the Hardin County Coroner’s Office, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; HudsonAlpha Discovery for DNA extraction, enrichment, and sequencing; Kevin Lord of Saber Investigations for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro and FTDNA for providing their databases; our generous donors who support our work; and DDP’s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring victims home.
Republished courtesy of DDP. View cases in need of funding here.