Jaw Bone in Child’s Rock Collection Belonged to Marine Who Died in 1951
A jawbone found in a child’s rock collection in Arizona more than two decades ago belonged to a Marine who died in California in 1951 and was buried in Missouri, the authorities said on Friday.
Everett Leland Yager, a U.S. Marine Corps captain, was 30 years old when his plane crashed during a military training exercise on July 31, 1951, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona said in a statement.
Captain Yager’s remains were recovered in Riverside County, Calif., and he was buried in Palmyra, Mo.
More than 50 years later, a mother, who was not named by the authorities, found what she believed to be human remains in her son’s old rock collection, the sheriff’s office said. Her son had been an avid rock collector as a child and had inherited the collection from his grandfather.
The mother contacted the sheriff’s office in 2002, but the mystery of the unidentified person was not resolved until this year, after researchers at the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College in Mahwah, N.J., got involved.
Cairenn Binder, assistant director of the center, said that officials at the sheriff’s office had told researchers they were unsure when and where the child had collected the bone.