Identified: 59-Year-Old Banker's Remains from 1999

0:00On March 31st, bones washed up on a California beach, back in June 2022, turned out to be those of Walter Carl Kinney, a 59-year-old former banker from nearby Santa Rosa who vanished in 1999. A family hunting for seashells spotted a tibia bone with surgical hardware sticking out of the sand at Sam and Creek State Beach. No other remains showed up, so Sonoma County investigators called in the DNA Doe project for help. Those genealogists built a DNA profile, uploaded it to a public database, and in just over a week, traced it to Kinney's family line from the east, coast to San Diego and Santa Rosa. Kinney's daughter described her dad as smart and sensitive, saying the world was too harsh for him. She had reported him missing years ago, and now this closure hits hard after decades. Investigators noted it was rare for someone to go unidentified twice like this, but thanks to genetic genealogy, the mystery solved, bringing answers to everyone involved.