Massachusetts man killed in Boardman crash identified after over 40 years
A Massachusetts man killed over 40 years ago in a Boardman-area crash has been identified by a volunteer-driven non-profit, aiming to identify Jane and John Does.
According to a news release, the DNA Doe Project identified Charles Joseph Nunnenman III, originally known as Western Reserve Road John Doe, as the individual involved in a traffic collision on August 12, 1982, along Western Reserve Road in Boardman.
Nunnenman was walking westbound on Western Reserve Road when, just before midnight, he was struck and killed by a car traveling the same direction.
No identification was found on the man at the time and the case went cold. The Mahoning County Sheriff's Office later brought the case to the DNA Doe Project.
The DNA Doe Project, according to the release, is made up of genetic genealogists who work pro bono to identify unknown persons, also known as Jane and John Does.
Additionally, it is noted that the Porchlight Project, a non-profit that aims to resolve cold cases in Ohio, helped to fund the lab work and database upload costs for this specific case.
Experts with the DNA Doe Project uploaded Western Reserve Road John Doe's DNA profile to the GEDmatch database with results returning to distant relatives, along with recent European ancestry and, more specifically, roots to Ireland.
Once the man's DNA profile was uploaded to the FamilyTreeDNA database, a closer match was made between him and a woman who shared nearly 2% of her DNA with the unidentified man.
That match, according to the release, allowed the team to identify a man born in Ireland in 1836 as a likely ancestor of Western Reserve Road John Doe. Building out the family tree, the team discovered that some of his descendants had moved to Massachusetts.
This is when investigators came across Nunnenman. The team was able to determine that Nunnenman was born in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1941 and grew up in the Boston area. From there, investigators found that he later moves to Los Angeles.
No connection between Nunnenman and what he could of been doing in Ohio at the time of the accident is known.
The team presented the possible lead between Nunnenman and Western Reserve Road John Doe to the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office, who was able to contact Nunnenman's niece.
Comparing the DNA profiles of Western Reserve Road John Doe and Nunnenman's niece were able to allow investigators to confirm that the unidentified man was Charles Nunnenman III.
According to the release, the DNA Doe Project has helped resolve more than 150 cases of unidentified persons in the nine years the organization has been operating.
