After 40 years, a Minnesota mystery is solved thanks to a DNA website.
On February 7, 1985, the frozen remains of a man between 20 and 40-years old were found on the second floor of the abandoned J.J. Hill Building in St. Paul.
With no clues as to his identity, the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office brought this case to the DNA Doe Project, where Sara Hoffman who was the team's co-leader. She says they were able to locate a relative who had chosen to upload their DNA results to GEDmatch, a website for comparing your DNA test results with the most people worldwide.
"So we were very fortunate that we had a close first cousin, once-removed match on this case that led us to identifying the John Doe " Hoffman said.
Hoffman says when they have a result, they present it to law enforcement and then ultimately to the family. In this case, Hoffman says they identified the man as Frank Augenti, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1951 and was 33-years old at the time of his death.
A team began working on this case in May 2024 and, after just two days of research, they honed in on the identity of the John Doe.
“It was immediately clear from the DNA results that the unidentified man had Italian heritage,” said Hoffman. “When we came across Frank Augenti, we saw that all four of his grandparents had immigrated to America from Italy.”
Further research into Augenti revealed that he had dropped off the radar in the 1980s, and the team on this case found further evidence to suggest that he could be that Hill Building John Doe.
Hoffman says while solving a case like this is exciting, it comes with the knowledge that it can reopen old family wounds.
"It's exciting when you realize that you've found the correct person, certainly, but that's very quickly replaced by a deep sense of compassion and sorrow for the family," Hoffman explained. "Because this usually comes as a shock to these family members who haven't heard from someone in a decade, if not more decades."
Police now say the man was most likely homeless and had frozen to death.
"They basically treat this as a hint," Hoffman says about the process. "We don't ever treat it as, you know, this is definitely this person. Because DNA is a very good hint, and it's a very strong indicator that we would have the correct person. But there are all kinds of crazy circumstances in life where even though someone could fit that DNA, they may have been adopted or there may be other family members that aren't accounted for in public records."
“We were very fortunate that a cousin had chosen to upload their DNA results to GEDmatch,” said Lisa Ivany, team co-leader. “Without their DNA, this case would still be unsolved. Italian Americans are underrepresented on the DNA databases we have access to, but the more that people upload their DNA results to GEDmatch, FTDNA or DNA Justice, the more cases we’ll be able to solve.”