Officials identified the homicide victim as Jerry Harrison last week whose skeletal remains were found along an abandoned and isolated trail in 1986.
Man Remains Found On Abandoned Tennessee Trail In 1986 And Identified As Jerry Harrison (PHOTO: Newsbreak)
Body Found In 1986 Identified As Jerry Harrison
Tennessee officials said that a body has been identified after remaining a mystery for almost four decades. on August 24, 1986, a group of hunters discovered remains around Caney Valley in an isolated and abandoned trail according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
TBI agents and the Claiborne County Sheriff’s Office determined the skeletal remains was belonging to a white male, between 30 and 40 years old who had been fatally shot and classified the body as a homicide.
The University of Tennessee Anthropology Department reportedly concluded the victim had been dead for around six months to a year before the remains were found.
Law enforcement followed the leads it had, but after hitting dead ends, the case went cold and the body remained a “John Doe.”
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Via Forensic Genetic Genealogical DNA Testing The Victim Was Identified
In September 2015, the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center submitted a DNA sample of the victim’s remains to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. Scientists uploaded the DNA profile into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, according to officials.
In December 2022, the TBI claimed that agents transmitted a sample of the remains to Othram Inc., a private Texas company, for genealogical DNA testing to perform the testing in the hope to identify the victim’s remains.
Through this testing, officials reportedly found potential living relatives connected to the unidentified victim in Arkansas. According to the TBI, agents “made contact with two of those individuals and confirmed they had a brother they had not heard from in more than four decades.”
Agents obtained “familial DNA standards for possible siblings of the man,” and those were “submitted to the TBI Crime Lab in Knoxville for entry into CODIS.”
Last week, the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification center identified the victim as Jerry Harrison who was born in 1957 in Little Rock Arkansas.
The TBI claimed that since 1982 Harrison’s family had not heard from him after he began to travel around the country and they had no idea what happened to him.
TBI agents are anticipating the public to support by just proving information that may solve the murder of Jerry Harrison because officials have not yet identified any possible suspect in Harrison’s killing, and the investigation is ongoing.
Law enforcement is encouraging everyone who may have known who Harrison was with before his death to call 1-800-TBI-FIND.
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