30-year mystery of bone fragments washing up on US beaches is finally solved
A decades-long mystery has finally been cracked after bone fragments were found washed up on US beaches.
It all began in 1995 when skeletal remains started washing up on numerous beaches in South Jersey - shockingly, this continued to happen until 2013, with people scratching their heads over where they were coming from.
The bone fragments brought up a lot of questions, including who the bones belonged to, how they came to land on the beaches and what happened to the person in question.
However, none of those would be answered until a group of students solved the case this year.
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The first instance of one of the bones washing up was when a skull was found in Longport in 1995, followed by more bones in Margate in 1999.
In 2013, even more bones were found in Ocean City, leading to the creation of the 'Scattered Man John Doe' nickname.
As traditional methods of investigation could not deliver an identification on the person who was being ‘scattered’ around the coast, the case would go on to remain unsolved.
But then the New Jersey State Police and Ramapo College of New Jersey Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center (IGG) students decided to take another look - leading to a breakthrough attached to a very interesting piece of history.
In 2023, the NJSP teamed up with the IGG centre to see if they could use investigative genetic genealogy to solve the case.
In November, a sample of the remains was sent off to Intermountain Forensics, who then went on to upload it to GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA in February 2024.
From there, Ramapo College undergraduate students, who were conducting field studies, and IGG students, began to dig a little deeper.
They attempted to see if they could solve the mystery and actually found ancestry which dated back to the 1600s, showing that there were genetic relatives of the unnamed man that were from Litchfield and Fairfield counties in Connecticut.
From February 2024 until February 2025, the students from IGG’s certificate programme volunteered to continue finding ancestral ties to that same area and looked into shipwrecks which happened off the coast of New Jersey.
That’s when they found two newspaper articles dated 20 December and 24 December 1844.
According to those reports, five crew members perished on the Oriental ship, which departed from Connecticut as it sailed to Philadelphia to deliver 60 tons of marble that would be used to open Girard College, a boarding school that eventually opened in 1848.
However, on the way to their destination, the ship sank off the coast of Brigantine Shoal in 1844, with a leak being the likely culprit.
As it sank just one mile from the shoreline, they wondered if the person who the bones belonged to was on the boat.
As it turns out he was.
The captain of the ship was 29-year-old Henry Goodsell, and he seemed like a likely person of interest in the case.
With that, the students handed the police their information and on 7 March of this year, the NJSP collected a family reference sample from a great-great grandchild of Goodsell, confirming the genetic match on 8 April.
“Identifying human remains is one of the most solemn and challenging responsibilities law enforcement is charged with,” said Chief of County Detectives Patrick Snyder at the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office as per the college’s website.
“Law enforcement works hard knowing that behind every case is a promise: that no one will be forgotten, and that we will pursue the truth until families have the answers they deserve.”
“Using modern genealogy testing to identify bone fragments from the 19th century is a powerful reminder of our unwavering commitment to resolving cases no matter how old,” said Colonel Patrick J. Callahan, NJSP superintendent.
“The ability to bring answers to families—even generations later—shows how far science and dedication can take us. Our partnership with Ramapo College has been instrumental in making this possible, and we are incredibly proud of the meaningful progress we continue to make together.”
Britt Jones