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NBC News
5 days ago
- Science
- NBC News
Skeletal remains found at Jersey Shore identified as 19th century boat captain
There's been a break in 30-year-old cold case mystery at the Jersey Shore after experts confirmed skeletal remains found on three beaches belonged to a 19th-century boat captain. The bones from a leg, arm and fragments of a cranium discovered on the beaches of Ocean City, Margate and Longport between 1995 and 2013 had yielded no answers until now. Authorities said the remains belong to 29-year-old Captain Henry Goodsell, who died at sea 181 years ago. Advances in DNA technology first tied the bones to the same person after cold case detectives with the state police turned to the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College of New Jersey last year. 'Our job was to figure out who that individual was that the bones belonged to,' Cairenn Binder of the college's IGG Center said. Initially, experts weren't even sure how old the bones were. 'We kind of kept going back and forth between, are they historic? Are they not historic?' New Jersey State Police Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Anna Delaney said. 'This is absolutely amazing because after all of this time, Henry has his name.' Students at the school launched a search for genetic relatives and built out family trees that revealed ancestral ties to Connecticut. They also started looking into records of shipwrecks. It was that creative step that really helped them narrow in on the person's identity. 'Delving into those they identified this ship, which then led to the ship captain,' Ramapo's IGG Center Director David Gurney explained. Goodsell was the captain of the Oriental which was a schooner that was transporting marble from Connecticut to Philadelphia for Girard College in 1844. But, on that voyage, the Oriental went down just off of the coast of Brigantine and the entire crew was killed. Investigators were able to track down Goodsell's great-great-granddaughter in Maryland. She provided a DNA sample that did confirm the captain's identity. 'To our knowledge, this is the oldest case that's ever been solved with investigative genetic genealogy,' Binder said.
Fox News
6 days ago
- Health
- Fox News
Mysterious bones that washed up on Jersey Shore finally identified 180 years after tragedy
Bones that mysteriously washed up on the Jersey Shore over the past three decades were recently identified, thanks to cutting-edge technology and diligent students. Ramapo College announced the discovery in a May 21 press release. The remains were identified as belonging to Henry Goodsell, a captain who died in an 1844 shipwreck off the coast of South Jersey's Brigantine Shoal. (See the video at the top of this article.) The ship was carrying 60 tons of marble for Girard College, a preparatory school, when it sprung a leak and sank. Goodsell's bones didn't wash up until over a century later, when they were found on various beaches in the Garden State. "A skull washed ashore in Longport in 1995, and more bones were found in Margate in 1999, both in Atlantic County," Ramapo College's statement noted. "In 2013, additional remains were found in Ocean City, Cape May County." "Scattered Man John Doe went without a name for 30 years since traditional methods of investigation could not deliver an identification." Cairenn Binder, assistant director of the Ramapo College Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) Center, told Fox News Digital that her team conducted traditional DNA testing to find a matching profile in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a national DNA profile database. "More identifications like these will be made now that we have advances in technology." "While there was no missing person sample on file that matched with the profiles from the bones, the bones all matched one another, so that's how [the New Jersey State Police] learned they were all connected before we began working on the case," she said. Over the past several months, Ramapo students have gleaned various details about Goodsell's life from old newspapers. He was 29 years old when he died, and his ancestors were among the earliest settlers in Connecticut. "Capt. Goodsell's ancestors lived in Litchfield and Fairfield Counties in Connecticut and had all been there since the 1600s – some of the earliest European Americans," Binder said. "He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, but lived in Boston from at least the late 1830s." Goodsell also left behind a wife and two children when he perished; his family was financially devastated by the shipwreck. "The news reported that his family was left in 'very embarrassed' circumstances after the captain's death," Binder said. "There was a fundraiser held for Capt. Goodsell's widow a year after his death," she also said. Reports were that "she was destitute." Five or six other crew members were on the vessel, Binder noted, and all of them are believed to have died. One was found and buried while the others were lost at sea. Binder described the discovery as "extremely rare," noting that Ramapo researchers have not been able to find an older case where IGG was used to successfully identify remains. "There are a handful of cases where remains more than 100 years old have been identified with IGG, but this is the oldest we have been able to find," she said. "We believe that more identifications like these will be made now that we have the advances in technology to make them happen," she added. Authorities from various New Jersey law enforcement offices were also involved in the research. In a statement, Cape May County prosecutor Jeffrey Sutherland said the same technology is used to "bring offenders to justice." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP" "The hard work of Ramapo College's IGG Center and working with the New Jersey State Police Cold Case Unit has demonstrated the power and accuracy of this new technology combined with classic detective work in solving complex cold cases that will bring offenders to justice and provide closure to victims' families," he noted.
