Through cooperation with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences Office in Montgomery , Cherokee County Coroner’s Office investigators – are working with the Penn Yan, New York Police Department to potentially solve and bring to a resolution a ‘70’s-era missing persons cold case.

Through the use of a National centralized repository and their resource center for missing, unidentified and unclaimed person cases across the United States – “NamUs” helps investigators to match long-term missing persons with unidentified remains, to resolve cases and bring resolution to families.

On Wednesday August 16th, a potential match was made using NamUs – in a New York missing persons case and also Cherokee County found skeletal remains case.

Coroner Investigator Rhonda McDonald – managed to locate the old 16 page written report and also located the needed physical evidence in the 50 year old case.

“This is an on-going investigation – and, we’re hopeful our work will result in a positive match.”

~Paul McDonald,
Cherokee County Coroner-MDI.