Detective details how DNA, genealogy and police solved eight-year mystery

Article content

His name was Garnet Michael Nelson. His long way home is finally over.

It’s taken eight years to confirm the homeless drifter’s identity and to end a nagging mystery about the body found on the beach at Port Albert, north of Goderich in October 2016.

At the time the body was found, police had a recent photograph of him walking along a highway near Espanola, an inkling about his background and a name he was using. But, even after a broad public appeal for help, no other family could be found to ultimately close the books on the case.

Article content

Instead, Nelson, 56, was added to the tragic list of discovered unknown human remains. It wasn’t until earlier this summer that Ontario Provincial Police got a strong and definitive lead about who he was using a relatively new investigative technique.

Unsurprisingly, it involves science and DNA.

Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) was only added to the Ontario police investigation toolbox in 2019. DNA comparison has become a staple used to solve crimes for decades, and it’s a popular commercial product for ancestry exploration through companies like Ancesory.com or 23AndMe. But the procedures and protocols for police use in unknown human remains cases are only considered once all other avenues are exhausted.

Nelson’s body was discovered washed up on the beach on Oct. 15, 2016. At the time, the OPP reported he was a white male, balding with grey hair and a thin moustache, wearing a life jacket, a black fleece pullover, white-and-black Nike running shoes and black wind pants with a logo for a power-skating company.

Foul play was not suspected, but the cause of death was listed as undetermined.

Article content

Article content

Just month earlier, a man wearing those same distinctive pants was spotted near Espanola, not far from Sudbury. He was pushing a blue bicycle he had pulled from the trash. It was hauling a large green canoe strapped to a homemade trailer, jerry-rigged together using a baby’s bicycle trailer and an old golf cart.

He was interviewed by a reporter at Soo Today. He said that his name was Mitchell Nelson, he was originally from London, but he had been living in Edmonton for the last eight years.

He said he was homeless by choice and that he worked and biked across Alberta and British Columbia for years doing odd jobs. But times were tough in the oil patch and he decided to come back to Ontario. The plan was to visit family in London and then head east to the Ottawa area.

He had been on the road for a couple months when he spoke to the reporter, telling him that on Canada Day 2016, he pushed his canoe into the North Saskatchewan River at a spot in downtown Edmonton and worked his way down the river to North Battleford, Sask.

Article content

He said he wanted to paddle the Great Lakes, but the currents proved to be too strong. Instead, he was walking and biking – mostly walking – from Thunder Bay onwards. He wanted to canoe from Manitoulin Island, across Georgian Bay to Lake Huron.

When his body was found, Huron County OPP made a public appeal for information and included photographs of the man interviewed for the news story.

But the case went nowhere. OPP Det. Randy Gaynor of the criminal investigations branch said they would eventually find out that Nelson’s family didn’t recognize him in the photos.

“In this particular case, this gentleman hadn’t been in Ontario for many, many, many years,” he said. Nelson had changed his appearance and “they didn’t recognize his picture and he was using an assumed name.”

IGG can’t be used without extensive consultation with the attorney-general, the Centre for Forensic  Sciences, the chief coroner and forensic pathology services. Eligible cases include unidentified human remains, sexual assaults, homicides and other violent crimes.

If a case is green-lit for IGG, a DNA sample is forwarded to the Toronto police, who oversee the program and send the sample to a private lab for analysis. In January 2023, a sample of Nelson’s DNA was submitted.

Article content

Police can only use the publicly accessible DNA databases where people have accepted law enforcement use and there are only two of them – GedMatch and FamilytreeDNA. There won’t be any leads unless a family member of a loved one has uploaded their geneology results to one of those sites.

“We can submit the DNA but if there is nobody in the family on it, we’re never going to get a hit,” Gaynor said. “It’s all incumbent upon whether the family has put something in.”

But there have been some remarkable successes achieved through the program. The most notable Ontario case was the identification of the Nation River Lady, whose body was pulled out of the Nation River near Casselman, southeast of Ottawa, in May 1975. She was identified last year as Jewell “Lalla” Langford, 48, from Tennessee, who travelled to Montreal that year and vanished.

An 81-year-old man from Florida was extradited to Canada and charged with murder.

In Nelson’s case, the OPP were told it had a “match,” or a presumptive identification, this summer. Gaynor said police went to the family and requested a DNA sample that was sent to the Centre for Forensic Sciences. A final confirmation made on July 15.

Article content

That sample not only confirmed Nelson’s identity, but the OPP ultimately confirmed definitively that it was Nelson who spoke to the reporter along the highway near Espanola.

Gaynor would not point to where Nelson’s family lives, only to say they were “not too far” from London. While the case was closed, “any time you deliver a message that you’ve identified a loved one who is deceased, it’s shock,” he said.

And, the OPP are so encouraged by the program, they’re starting their own IGG unit “to be able to do a little more in-house,” Gaynor said.

“Our business is to identify them and bring them back to their loved ones,” he said.

jsims@postmedia.com

Article content