DNA proof and genealogical information have lastly led investigators to positively determine a skeleton discovered off the interstate close to Fairhaven as a Rhode Island man who went lacking in 1981, the Bristol County DA’s Office introduced.
“After connecting this individual to a family tree, investigators were able to positively identify the recovered remains as Keith Olson of Cranston, RI,” the DA’s Office said. “Mr. Olson was last seen in April of 1981 and had been reported missing from Cranston.”
The identification comes practically 40 years after Olson’s stays have been discovered on April 8, 1985. That day, a driver touring on Interstate 195 stopped within the breakdown lane in Fairhaven, simply over the Mattapoisett border.
In the comb about 45 toes from the roadway, the discharge states, the driving force noticed a human skeleton.
Police have been notified and searched the realm, the DA continued, discovering no info on the id of the physique.
The FBI judged that the sufferer was a 5’9″ Caucasian male killed inside just a few years of the invention, the DA’s workplace mentioned. His sneakers have been made in 1981. There was proof of trauma to the physique, main investigators to rule the case a murder.
Through the years, investigators unsuccessfully used dental file to check to different lacking individual circumstances, made a facial reconstruction primarily based on the person’s cranium and broadcast info by way of the media.
Investigators lastly made the breakthrough as part of the Bristol DA’s Unidentified Bodies Project, an initiative to make use of new expertise to determine all our bodies or skeletal stays discovered within the final 40 years. The undertaking cracked the 17-year-old case of a physique present in a Fall River landfill in fall 2022.
Through the initiative, investigators partnered with the Othram personal laboratory in Texas and the FBI to kind a genetic profile of the person, use forensic genetic family tree to check the profile to hundreds of individuals and develop a household tree, the discharge mentioned.
These efforts narrowed in on Keith Olson.
Olson was reported lacking from his house in Cranston, Rhode Island, final seen in April 1981. A Rhode Island native, he was 27 years outdated on the time of his disappearance.
Olson had been relationship a girl on the time, stirring friction along with her ex North Providence resident John Broccoli.
Broccoli, also referred to as “Michael Corleone,” made “cryptic statements” to the girl on the day of Olson’s disappearance. These statements “suggested Broccoli’s possible involvement,” the DA launch mentioned. Broccoli died in 2019 on the age of 63.
A witness to Olson’s disappearance beforehand described two males escorting the sufferer from his condominium.
The DA’s Office famous investigators are looking for any info associated to Olson’s disappearance and homicide.
“Police have strong reason to believe that the crime was committed by at least two people and believe that there are individuals who could provide helpful information to solve this crime,” the DA’s launch mentioned, calling for anybody with info to contact Massachusetts State Police.
Cold circumstances like Olson’s have proven there’s “much work to be done coordinating cases of Missing Persons and Unidentified Bodies between counties and even states,” the DA said.
Anyone with a lacking relative is inspired to contact State Police Det. Lt. Ann Marie Robertson and supply a DNA pattern to the National Missing and Unidentified Person System, which can be utilized for DNA comparisons nationwide.
“With the advances in technology and cooperation of many agencies across the country, it is our hope that these efforts will help identify previously unidentified human remains and provide answers in missing person cases,” the discharge mentioned.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”