https://www.foxnews.com/lifest...-in-unexpected-place
Marine Corps Captain Everett Leland Yager died during a military exercise over seven decades ago

By Andrea Vacchiano | Fox News
Published April 18, 2024 7:13pm EDT | Updated April 18, 2024 7:14pm EDT

New Jersey researchers recently announced that a U.S. Marine's partial remains had been sitting in a child's rock collection for an unknown number of years.

According to officials, the story begins with the death of Marine Corps Captain Everett Leland Yager in July 1951. He was flying over Riverside County, California, when an accident occurred during a military training exercise.

The young man hailed from Palmyra, Missouri. All of his remains were thought to have been taken there, according to a press release published by Ramapo College on Monday.

"All of his remains were recovered in the Riverside County, California area and buried in Palmyra, Missouri, or at least thought to have been," Ramapo College officials said in a statement.

"Fast forward years later to a child who wanted to build a rock collection, and increased said collection by one during a scavenging exploration, presumably in Arizona."

Eventually, it was discovered that the rock was really a human bone – a jaw bone, it would later turn out. The skeletal remains were handed over to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.

The office, along with the Yavapai County Medical Examiner, referred the case to the Ramapo College Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center in January 2023.

Researchers used DNA analysis to link the bone to Yager, having obtained a sample from Yager's daughter.

His daughter may be Yager's last living child, as an online obituary indicates that his son Richard passed away in 2022. He was six years old when his father died.

"It was not until March 2024 that the DNA sample from Capt. Yager's daughter confirmed a parent/child relationship, resolving the case and confirming that Rock Collection John Doe was indeed Capt. Everett Leland Yager," Ramapo College's press release read.

But why exactly the jawbone was found in Arizona, when the accident took place in California, had stumped university researchers.

"One theory is that a scavenger, such as a bird, picked it up and eventually deposited it during its travels over Arizona," Ramapo College said in a statement.

The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office later told FOX 10 Phoenix that the "rock" belonged to the boy's grandfather, who found it in California and brought it back to Arizona.

"This case was a lesson in expecting the unexpected, and a testament to the power of IGG education at Ramapo College of New Jersey," Ramapo College IGG Center assistant director Cairenn Binder said in a statement.

"The team that worked on this case at our IGG bootcamp included some truly outstanding researchers, and we are so proud of them for helping to repatriate Captain Yager's remains and return them to his family."

Semper fidelis, Captain.

Glad you’re once again whole, and home.

My question is how did they know to track down the daughter of Captain Yager? It could have been anybody's jaw bone.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
My question is how did they know to track down the daughter of Captain Yager? It could have been anybody's jaw bone.

I assume they narrowed the bone as being related to a group of families using dna database, then from those families, who came up missing or whose death was unaccounted for. The accident story may have been the only one that stood as as being plausible. They just needed the daughter for final confirmation like those Murray shows that concluded "John Q, you are the baby's father!"

ETA: I found more info at Jawbone of U.S. Marine killed in 1951 found in boy's rock collection, experts say

quote:

The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office conducted basic DNA testing on the bone, officials said, although the initial tests did not yield any clues as to whom the remains may have belonged. Because there were no samples in government databases that matched the bone, their investigation into the remains tagged "Rock Collection John Doe" entered a hiatus that would last another 20 years or so.

Sheriff's investigators and the Yavapai County Medical Examiner referred the unsolved case to the genetic genealogy center at Ramapo College in January 2023. With help from a Texas laboratory specializing in missing and unidentified people and a forensics lab in Utah, the jawbone was given a genetic profile that could then be added to genealogy databases online.

In July of that year, students participating in a bootcamp at the college, which focused on investigative genetic genealogy, were given the chance to work the case as part of their course. Along with an intern at the center who was still in high school, the group of college students developed a lead and sent their findings back to the sheriff's office in Arizona. Finally, this past March, testing on a DNA sample from Yager's daughter was compared with the sample from jawbone, confirming the former Marine's identity.

"No one is quite sure how the jawbone ended up in Arizona since the accident took place in the air over California. One theory is that a scavenger, such as a bird, picked it up and eventually deposited it during its travels over Arizona," Ramapo College officials said in this week's news release.

The intern who assisted last summer's student cohort, Ethan Schwartz, may be the youngest person to help resolve an investigative genetic genealogy case, according to the release.