YAVAPAI COUNTY, AZ — Genealogy experts around the country have been able to identify a man who was found dead in Yavapai County more than a decade ago.
“Beaver Creek John Doe” was found near a hiking area in 2011. His body was found with no wallet and his identity remained a mystery despite being entered into a national missing person and fingerprint database.
The Ramapo College of New Jersey’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center recently partnered with YCSO and a forensic facility in Utah, and they were able to generate a DNA profile.
Family tree research and “unique circumstantial details” put together by students in the program led them to a possible match of a man named David Emil Jacobsen.
A medical examiner used the DNA profile and DNA from one of Jacobsen’s siblings, which confirmed “Beaver Creek John Doe’s” true identity.
Experts say Jacobsen died of natural causes due to heart complications.
