In Blount County, Tennessee, investigators are leveraging a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) initiative to identify partial skeletal remains discovered on April 4, 1981, in the East Miller’s Cove area. The remains, believed to belong to a man aged 18 to 35, were missing the head, one or more limbs, and at least one hand, and had likely been at the site for one to three years.

Assigned to a cold case investigator at the Blount County Sheriff’s Office, the case originally involved assistance from Dr. Bill Bass and the University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology. In March, the sheriff’s office contacted the TBI, which submitted a sample to Othram, Inc., a Texas-based lab specializing in forensic genetic genealogy (FGG).

Under the TBI’s 2023 Unidentified Human Remains Initiative, funded by the Tennessee General Assembly, FGG testing has already identified eight sets of remains statewide. Othram extracts DNA, builds profiles, and searches databases like FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch Pro for relatives who have opted into law enforcement use.

The process depends on the availability of matching family DNA and subsequent reference testing. Othram is also aiding other East Tennessee cases, including “Baby Wyatt” found in Melton Lake in 2020, Oak Ridge’s “Lady in the Lake,” and a woman’s remains discovered in Knoxville this year.