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A bag of bones could have been sitting at the bottom of an embankment in the Royal National Park in Sydney for decades before it was found “by sheer luck”.
Two years after the male human remains were found, police have revealed they have turned to emerging DNA technologies to determine what the unidentified victim may have looked like.
A bushwalker who stopped for a break in the Royal National Park spotted the chequered plastic bag in a remote spot at the bottom of a cliff on Saturday September 22, 2018.
“By sheer luck someone has happened to have a comfort break and go down an embankment and whilst there contemplating life has seen these bones,” Homicide Squad Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said on Friday.
“That’s by chance we have managed to locate these bones.
“In those circumstances, it’s being treated as suspicious and that’s why the Homicide Squad has carriage of the investigation.”
A post-mortem couldn’t determine how the victim died and some of the bones had been degraded after years exposed to the elements, including bushfire.
A forensic anthropologist determined the bones belonged to the same skeleton and a man who was about 175 cm tall and aged between 25 and 40 when he died.
Bomb pulse carbon dating tests were carried out at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and determined the man died sometime between 1985 and 2005.
In a bid to narrow the pool of potential victims, NSW Police and Pathology have turned to DNA phenotyping – a scarcely used technique that can determine a person’s ancestry, hair and eye colour from a DNA profile.
Phenotyping has only been used in 10 forensic cases in NSW.
Forensic Evidence & Technical Services Command Dr Jennifer Raymond said phenotyping as a “niche technique” that is used as a last resort after other DNA testing.
That includes comparing DNA profiles against databases, like the National Criminal Investigation DNA Database
“Where we go through all our current methods that are available to us and if we still don’t have a result there, that’s when we apply these novel techniques,” she said.
In this case, the testing, which can take up to five days after a profile is extracted from bones, suggested the victim was of Asian descent with brown eyes and black hair.
The description has allowed police to come up with a list of potential victims from the long-term missing person list in NSW.
Supt Doherty said the Missing Persons Registry came up with a list of 565 cases and that was eventually narrowed down to 20 or 30 missing men.
Police are speaking with the families of those people in the hope of obtaining DNA samples to compare against the Royal National Park victim.
“We are hopeful we can get a match, some DNA from the family but if we don’t we are back to square one,” Supt Doherty said.
“Then we have to look at someone who hasn’t been reported missing yet or we may have to go overseas to a broader database.”
He appealed for anyone with a missing loved one who might fit the criteria but who hadn’t been reported missing to contact police.
The bones were discovered by a member of the public shortly before 4.45pm on September 22, 2018, and police were called.
At the time detectives believed the death was more likely to have been suspicious than not.
Authorities are now launching a fresh push for information after DNA testing revealed the likely description of the man.
Police said an examination by a forensic anthropologist confirmed all of the bones found belonged to the same skeleton.
DNA testing determined the man was about 175cm tall and aged between 25 and 40 at the time of his death.
There’s a “high probability” the man was of Asian descent, with brown eyes and black hair.
He died sometime between 1985 to 2005, according to bomb pulse carbon dating tests which were undertaken by the University of Waikato, New Zealand.
Homicide Squad Commander, Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty, said technology advancements had been crucial in unlocking several mysteries.
“It has been a hugely collaborative effort with our partnering agencies to get us to this point, where we know the likely age, ethnicity and select details of this man’s physical description,” he said.
“We realise that we are casting a broad net in relation to identifying this man, but we would strongly encourage anyone who has a loved one that is missing that fits this description to contact police.”
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000.
Originally published as Bag of bones found by ‘sheer luck’
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