Remains found by hiker in 2014 ID’d as man last seen years before, WA officials say
_fitted.png "Randall Reed Priborsky’s remains were found in 2014 near Newport, Washington. DNA testing helped identify them nine years later.")
A hiker stumbled upon human remains in a wooded area in 2014, officials in Washington said.
DNA testing identified them as Randall Reed Priborsky, the Pend Oreille County Prosecutor’s Office said in an Aug. 7 news release.
The remains were found Dec. 2, 2014, near a railroad track where people experiencing homelessness often passed through. The man’s body indicated he was also homeless, officials said.
An autopsy was done by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. The coroner determined the remains belonged to a white, middle-aged man who likely had arthritis or a significant degenerative disease.
Dental information was also submitted to the Washington State Patrol’s Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit and the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, but no matches were made.
In 2015, a DNA profile was extracted from the remains and sent to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, but again there wasn’t a match.
The case was added to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, which holds information on missing and unidentified people.
Officials continued to work on ruling out missing people.
Forensic genetic genealogy helps solve case
Then in 2022, an advanced DNA profile was sent to Othram, a lab in The Woodlands, Texas, that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy.
Othram genealogists and the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office found a potential relative to DNA reference test.
The remains were officially identified as Priborsky’s on July 28 by the Pend Oreille County Coroner.
Priborsky’s family last heard from him in 2003, but authorities discovered he was last seen in 2008 in Oldtown, Idaho.
He was born in Sioux City, lowa, and liked to read.
This story was originally published August 9, 2023 at 12:32 PM with the headline "Remains found by hiker in 2014 ID’d as man last seen years before, WA officials say."
