For nearly 45 years, the identity of human remains found along a rural road north of Toronto remained a mystery.

It was on July 16, 1980, when a Markham, Ont. resident made the discovery near a wooded area on Eleventh Concession between 14th and Steeles avenues. Unbeknownst to them, the remains belonged to them William Joseph Pennella convict who escaped from a Kingston prison a month earlier.

York Regional Police previously announced that investigators identified the remains in 2023 after the case went cold for decades. They said investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) held the key to linking the body to Pennell after investigators positively identified his relatives.

But how did they do it? CTV News Toronto spoke with Othram, a Texas-based forensics company that assisted police in making the identification, to learn more about the process.

Evidence collection

Pennell’s remains were first exhumed in 2007 by cold case investigators in an attempt to create a facial reconstruction and obtain DNA, police said. A year later, a DNA profile was drawn up and uploaded to the national DNA database, but there were no matches.

Investigators then turned to the IGG in 2021 and contacted Othram of The Woodlands, Texas in 2022 for help with the case.

“Othram received evidence of the skeleton and the first thing we need to do is extract DNA from the bones. And that’s how we did it,” the company’s chief of staff, Colby Lasyone, told CTV News Toronto in an interview earlier this week.

Lasyone said the team then worked to develop a new DNA profile that York Regional Police used to upload to a database and cross-reference with profiles on specific family tree websites, before finally finding a match.

“If you have taken a genealogy test with a consumer genealogy testing company, you must upload your DNA profile to a database. There are specific databases where law enforcement can query those databases. And so, for forensic genetic genealogy to be done on a case, we can only compare to databases where individuals have specifically given consent for law enforcement to do so,” Lasyone explained.

This is not the first time Othram has been involved in solving a cold case in the Greater Toronto Area. In 2019the company helped Toronto police identify Joseph George Sutherland as a suspect in the 1983 murders of Erin Gilmour, the daughter of a wealthy Toronto businessman, and Susan Tice, a mother of four. Both women were murdered in their homes and both cases remained cold for nearly 40 years. Sutherland was jailed for life earlier this year.

“Genealogy was once a hobby, if you will, and then it was used to help locate adoptive families. And now, this application of genealogy, from a forensic perspective, allows the identification of relatives which ultimately helps to narrow down the names of people who have died without their identity being known, or even people who are suspected of a crime .”

“A great benefit to the police”

Chris Lewis is the former commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, and he said recent advances in genetic genealogy for the purpose of solving cold cases mark a turning point in the way these cases are investigated.

“Years ago, in the 80s and 90s, in the early days of DNA, you had to have a crime scene sample and then of course a suspect sample to try to match them in some way ”, Lewis. , who is a public safety analyst for CTV News, said in an interview. He was not involved in the identification of Pennell’s remains.

“But now, you have the ability to identify people, unidentified human remains, etc., through this genetic approach and ultimately through a huge database that has been developed since then,” Lewis said, calling the investigative tool “a huge benefit to the police”.

He said there are likely to be more cold cases, especially in situations where no suspect or suspects are identified at the scene. But in cases where police can establish a forensic link to someone who was at the scene other than the victim, or when the human remains are unidentified, there lies a big advantage for investigators.

“Police services across Canada have been looking at those old cases, so to speak, to see if the technology has developed to the point where we can now use it … and a lot of old, previously unsolved cases are being taken care of because of science.”

Who was William Joseph Pennell?

Pennell spent time in several correctional institutions for a variety of crimes and was arrested for armed robbery and attempted murder on June 30, 1979, while on parole, police said in a news release issued early this month.

After being charged, Pennell was sent to Collins Bay Institution in Kingston.

Police said Pennell admitted his role in the crime and said there were at least two other people involved. However, he refused to involve them as he believed his life was in danger.

Pennell was convicted of robbery in April 1980. Two months later, he escaped from prison. To date, no detailed records of the escape have been found.

Although the details of his escape remain unclear, police said Pennell told a friend he planned to flee to South America. Police believe this was the last contact Pennell had before his death.

The cause of Pennell’s death has never been determined, but investigators believe foul play was involved.

The investigation into Pennell’s death is ongoing, and police say they are looking to speak to additional friends and associates of the 26-year-old to understand what happened after his 1980 prison break.