Donald Hadland, Jr. in 1960 University of Puget Sound yearbook photo. Credit: DDP
After 21 years, the mystery surrounding the identification of a man who died in a Nogales hotel room has been resolved. Donald Hadland, Jr. was found on September 8, 2002 by the hotel manager, apparently having died hours earlier. He had registered for the room as “Edward C.” of St Petersburg, Florida, but that name led authorities to records of identity theft and fraud. A fingerprint search came back with the name Donald Hadland, Jr, but investigators questioned whether or not this was also a stolen identity.
This year, the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office brought the case to the DNA Doe Project as part of a collaboration with Ramapo College of New Jersey’s new Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center, an undergraduate certificate program offering practical experience on real cases to its students. With funding from the Ramapo IGG Center, a blood sample taken from the body was sent for DNA analysis and development into the profile that was uploaded to GEDmatch Pro. Then, the students got to work - building a family tree of the DNA relatives of the John Doe in order to try to determine his true identity.
Right away, they started finding the Hadland name in their research.
“This case was unique as there was an investigative lead to the identity of Donald Hadland Jr. to begin with,” said Ramapo IGG Certificate Program Director Cairenn Binder. “Our students at Ramapo College of New Jersey were able to compile additional supporting information using investigative genetic genealogy to demonstrate how Nogales John Doe’s genetic matches were consistent with Donald Hadland Jr.”
After providing authorities with genealogical evidence of Mr Hadland’s identity, confirmation was obtained by a comparison with the DNA of a close family member.
“Being part of a multidisciplinary team working to establish the identity of an individual in a 20-year-old cold case was very rewarding,” said Ramapo student Dr. Brad Combs. “The team worked efficiently and effectively together to help identify this individual and bring closure for the family.”
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups and individuals who helped resolve this case: the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project and the Ramapo Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center; Genologue for DNA extraction from blood and sequencing; Kevin Lord of Saber Investigations for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro for providing their database; and students participating in Ramapo College’s IGG Certificate Program for their hard work and deployment of investigative genetic genealogy techniques.
Republished courtesy of DDP.