Overview
- The DNA Doe Project, which announced the match in March 2026, identified the Salmon Creek John Doe as Walter Karl Kinney using investigative genetic genealogy.
- A family found a long leg bone with surgical hardware at Salmon Creek State Beach on June 17, 2022, and searches uncovered no other remains.
- Volunteers built a DNA profile and uploaded it in January 2026 to GEDmatch, a public genealogy database, then traced relatives to a family that moved to California from the East Coast.
- The identification tied the 2022 bone to Kinney, whose other leg washed ashore near Bodega Head in 1999 and was matched in 2003 through X-rays of his documented foot problems.
- The Sonoma County sheriff publicly thanked the nonprofit for its help, and officials have not determined the cause or manner of death or where Kinney died.