On Nov. 19, 1983, investigators began piecing together an identity.
Human remains were found in a wooded area at the end of Happy Acres Road in Chesapeake.
Examiners guessed the bones belonged to a man in his 20s, who stood a max of 5’9” and weighed at most 150 pounds. They guessed he had brown hair and was white, American Indian, Alaskan Native or a combination.
He was wearing a pair of tan corduroy pants that were frayed below the knees over a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt and a brown coat, according to his case file. A prayer card in his pocket could be one of the few clues that could shed light on who he was.
How he died is still unknown. Without soft tissue, examiners can’t tell if he died of natural causes, such as a heart attack, stroke or cancer, or if he was wounded or attacked, said Lara Newell, the Long Term Unidentified Coordinator for the Virginia Medical Examiner's Office.
“Many times people can undergo a violent death, and it doesn't show on the bones at all,” she said.
For more than 40 years, the man’s identity has eluded investigators. The case remained unresolved, without leads.
But that changed this year. For the first time, a lab was able to extract enough DNA from one of the bones and trace it back to his biological mother and father, said Detective Alison Robare with the Chesapeake Police Department.
The man’s biological father is deceased and his relatives were unaware he had a son. The man’s biological mother is in her 80s. She told Robare she had a son that she put up for adoption as an infant. Officials are still talking with her, Robare said.
“It's a very shocking thing to bring up again at this stage in her life, so we're kind of trying to work through some of those emotions to get the information we need,” Robare said.
The detective said she’s hopeful the man’s identity will be revealed through birth records and information about his adoption. His biological mother was able to confirm he was born in Maryland, raising questions about how and why he ended up in Virginia, Robare said.
The prayer card found in his pocket might be key, she said.
“Did he grow up either with a church-sponsored or religious orphanage or foster home or foster family?” she said. “He didn't have a lot of possessions or belongings on him, so it must have had some type of significance to him.”
But adults who would have taken him in or cared for him as a child are aging or may have already passed, she said.
“The biggest struggle now is just that there is kind of a race against time,” Robare said.
It’s not uncommon for cases like these to go decades before they’re resolved, said Newell with the medical examiner office.
It could be that someone wasn’t ready to provide information then but is now. It could be that someone wasn’t watching the news in 1983 or didn’t realize a family member was missing, Newell said.
“People go missing all the time, and I feel like families and friends may try to explain it away to kind of protect themselves from the possibility that they may be deceased somewhere,” she said.
Sometimes, it takes years — decades, even — for families and friends to accept that possibility, she added.
Anyone with information about this case can contact the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner at (804) 786-3174 or Chesapeake Detective Alison Robare at (757) 382-6161.