A skull found in the Alaskan wilderness has been linked to an venturer from New York who went missing in 1976 . In a ghastly surprise , investigators believe that the man most likely died after being mauled by a bear .
Gary Frank Sotherden , then 25 , journey to the Arctic Circle in the mid-1970s to go hunting , but he never returned home . His whereabouts remain a mystery until just a few weeks ago when a skull found in the 90s was linked to the missing man with the assistance of DNA depth psychology and family tree , grant to theState of Alaska Department of Public Safety .
In the summer of 1997 , a hunter set up a human skull along the Porcupine River in north - easternAlaska , around 12 kilometers ( 8 mile ) from the Canadian mete . It was collected by Alaska State Troopers and sent to the State Medical Examiner ’s Office as unidentified human stiff .
A discovery come in April 2022 when DNA was pull from the bone . Cold type investigators used genic genealogy to tentatively tie in the remains to Gary Frank Sotherden of New York .
In other words , a relative of Sotherden had submitted their DNA to a family tree internet site to retrace their class tree diagram . This deoxyribonucleic acid was then entered into a public databank , which detective notice had notable similarity to the desoxyribonucleic acid of the lack man . It ’s a similar tactic that ’s recentlybeen used to solvea number of cold case murders , most notably Joseph James DeAngelo – the“Golden State Killer ” – in 2018 .
After finding the clue on the genealogy internet site , the team contacted a potential relative who was felicitous to supply a deoxyribonucleic acid sample . Just as the investigators hoped , it reassert that the skull belonged to Sotherden . The relative explicate how Sotherden was overlook off near Porcupine River where his corpse were found .
State cavalryman said the suspected cause of death was abear mauling , but they explain how they strain this ending .
Speaking toThe New York Times(NYT ) , his brother Stephen Sotherden report Gary as a spare tone . After he went missing , aerial hunt for the body were launched but break to feel anything of any banker’s bill .
His parents later paid a spate guide to look the Porcupine River in 1977 . No remains were discovered , but they did incur his smashed specs . While he ’s happy that Gary ’s story has an end , Stephen suggests some expression of his death were coloured than the family had expect .
“ We ’ve been work on it for 45 year , and it ’s prissy that things came to a conclusion , ” Stephen say the NYT . “ It was a picayune more brutish than I was hoping for . ”
