更新于：2026年3月30日 / 美国东部时间上午8:59 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
据当地当局及协助确认遗骸的非营利组织消息，2022年在加州一处海滩发现的一块人类骸骨，已确认属于二十多年前失踪的一名男子。
据DNA Doe Project（无名尸身份鉴定非营利组织）介绍，沃尔特·卡尔·金尼（Walter Karl Kinney）时年59岁，最后一次被人看到是在1999年8月10日。这位前银行家曾居住在北加州的圣罗莎市，距离发现其遗骸的鲑鱼溪州立海滩不远。该非营利组织表示，一家人在寻找贝壳时发现了这块骨头，后续检查显示其可能是胫骨。
这片海滩未发现其他遗骸，这块胫骨最初被归类为身份不明的“鲑鱼溪无名氏”。该组织称，DNA Doe Project的调查性遗传家谱学家通过法医检测并追踪其部分亲属，最终将这块骸骨与金尼的失踪案联系起来。
确认身份后，调查人员发现金尼此前曾牵涉另一具无名尸案件：他失踪数年后，在附近博德加湾被冲上岸的人类遗骸曾被认定属于他。
“这个案件不同寻常——我们很少见到一个人两次被列为无名氏，”领导DNA Doe Project该案件调查组的特蕾西·翁德斯（Traci Onders）在一份声明中说道。
沃尔特·卡尔·金尼1999年失踪。DNA Doe Project 配图说明
索诺玛县警长埃迪·恩格拉姆（Eddie Engram）的办公室与DNA Doe Project合作确认了金尼的身份，他在另一份声明中对该非营利组织表示感谢。
“感谢DNA Doe Project帮助我们为鲑鱼溪海滩发现的人类遗骸确定身份，”恩格拉姆说道。“我们珍视此次合作，将继续携手确认索诺玛县境内发现的遗骸身份。”
据DNA Doe Project介绍，金尼的女儿向调查人员形容父亲“聪明、敏感，甚至有些过头”，并称“这个世界对他来说太过残酷”。
调查性遗传家谱学是一项先进的法医技术，依靠DNA检测和亲属关系来协助侦破悬案，通常涉及失踪多年的人员。今年1月，该技术被用于确认一名前俄勒冈州市长的遗骸身份。该男子2006年被宣布死亡，当时当局推测他在俄勒冈海岸捕蟹时溺水身亡。其骸骨后来在华盛顿州的一处海滩被发现。
Human bone found by family looking for shells on beach traced back to banker missing since 1999
Updated on: March 30, 2026 / 8:59 AM EDT / CBS News
A human bone discovered on a California beach in 2022 has been traced back to a man who disappeared more than two decades ago, according to local authorities and the nonprofit organization that helped identify the remains.
Walter Karl Kinney, 59, was last seen on Aug. 10, 1999, according to the DNA Doe Project. The former banker had lived in Santa Rosa, a city in Northern California not far from Salmon Creek State Beach, where his remains were found. A family uncovered the bone while searching for sea shells, the nonprofit said, and a subsequent examination revealed it was possibly a tibia.
No other remains were unearthed from that beach, and the shin bone came to be associated with a then-unknown person dubbed Salmon Creek John Doe. Investigative genetic genealogists with the DNA Doe Project were eventually able to link the bone to Kinney’s missing person case, after conducting forensic tests and tracking down some of his relatives, the nonprofit said.
Once they did, investigators realized that Kinney had been connected with another John Doe case before, when human remains that washed ashore in nearby Bodega Bay were determined to belong to him several years after he went missing.
“This case was unusual – it’s not often we see someone end up as a John Doe twice,” said Traci Onders, who led the team that worked his case at the DNA Doe Project, in a statement.
Walter Karl Kinney disappeared in 1999. DNA Doe Project
Sonoma Sheriff Eddie Engram, whose office partnered with the DNA Doe Project to identify Kinney, thanked the nonprofit in a separate statement.
“Thank you to the DNA Doe Project for helping us put a name to the human remains found at Salmon Creek Beach,” Engram said. “We value this partnership as we continue working together to identify remains found in Sonoma County.”
Kinney’s daughter has described her father to investigators as “smart, sensitive, almost to a fault,” saying “this world was just too harsh a place for him,” according to the DNA Doe Project.
Investigative genetic genealogy is an advanced forensic technique that relies on DNA tests and family ties to help resolve unsolved cases, often involving people who have been missing for a long time. In January, the technique was used to identify the remains of a former Oregon mayor who was declared dead in 2006, when authorities presumed he drowned while crabbing along the Oregon coast. His skeletal remains were found on a beach in Washington state.
发表回复