SPD needs your help to solve 2017 mystery of human remains found near Seattle park

Seattle Police seek help putting mystery of remains at Discovery Park to rest

Seattle Police are hoping to crowdsource a solution to a years-long mystery—the identity of the person whose remains washed up in pieces near Discovery Park in 2017.

SEATTLE - Seattle Police are hoping to crowdsource a solution to a years-long mystery—the identity of the person whose remains washed up in pieces near Discovery Park in 2017 and 2018.

Though the body parts were very distinctive, detectives have been unable to move this cold case forward.

They’re hoping advances in DNA identification, and genetic genealogy in particular, can finally give a family out there some closure over what happened to their missing loved one. But the problem has been finding the money to pay for it.

"So the first recovery was a hand, and then a month later a torso and a leg washed up—very distinctive shoes, black and gold Air Jordans," said Det. Rolf Norton. "And then three days later on Jan. 25, a foot washed up with the other matching shoe."

The shoe is a size 10, but that hasn't helped investigators zero in on the person's identity.

The multiple body parts washed ashore in 2017 and 2018 near 4-Mile Rock at Discovery Park.

"We scoured a missing persons reports," said Norton. "It’s a mystery—we don’t know who this person is, we do not know what happened to this person, we don’t know where they came from, we don’t know how they ended up in the water."

Detective Norton says that one avenue that is available now that wasn’t five or 10 years ago, is the use of forensics genealogy,

"That’s where we take a DNA profile and search it through publicly-available genealogy websites in hopes of getting a link to a relative of the person that we’re trying to identify," explained Norton.

But it costs money to run the tests. It’s expected to be at least $15,000. So, the department’s hoping that public interest in solving cold cases might translate to cold hard cash.

"For the Seattle Police Department, we haven’t used this strategy just in identifying unidentified human remains in the past, we’ve only used it for criminal investigations," said Norton. "There’s hopefully a family out there who has unanswered questions, but just getting to the bottom of this mystery."

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The crowdsourcing campaign is being run by the Seattle Police Foundation.