Boston area native identified as victim in 1982 Ohio pedestrian crash

"The release states that Nunnenman, previously known as "Western Reserve John Doe," was walking on Western Reserve Road in Boardman, Ohio, on Aug. 12, 1982, when he was struck by a car traveling in the same direction. The 18-year-old driver left the scene but later turned herself in. No identification was found on the victim, and the case soon went cold."

"The case was reopened by Sheriff's Investigator James Ciotti in May 2022, and the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office later brought the case to the DNA Doe Project. Funded by the Porchlight Project, an Ohio nonprofit that funds research on cold cases involving missing persons, genealogists uploaded the victim's DNA profile to the GEDmatch database. The only matches were very distant relatives, but it was determined that the John Doe had recent ancestry in Ireland."

"Experts had better luck with the FamilyTreeDNA database, which found a woman who shared nearly 2% of her DNA with the man. From there, they identified a man born in Ireland in 1836 as a likely ancestor and mapped out his descendants, some of whom had immigrated to Massachusetts. This led them to Nunnenman, whose identity was confirmed by a DNA sample from his niece, Natalie Bauerle of Florida, obtained by the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office last fall."

Charles Joseph Nunnenman III was identified as the man killed in a pedestrian crash on Western Reserve Road in Boardman, Ohio, on Aug. 12, 1982. Nunnenman was born in Waltham in 1941 and was last known to live in Los Angeles; his connection to Ohio remains unknown. The cold case was reopened in May 2022 and submitted to the DNA Doe Project. Genealogists uploaded the DNA profile to GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA, which revealed distant Irish ancestry and a nearly 2% match. Researchers traced descendants to Massachusetts and confirmed Nunnenman's identity via a DNA sample from his niece, Natalie Bauerle.

Read at Boston.com