Skeletal remains that washed up on a Washington beach almost 20 years ago have been identified as a former Oregon mayor who was declared dead in 2006, KOIN reported on Wednesday.
The Grays Harbor County Coroner's Office in Washington announced on Tuesday that the skeletal remains, which were found on a beach in the Washington village of Taholah in 2006, were identified as Clarence Edwin Asher, a former mayor of Fossil, Oregon.
When the remains were first discovered, the coroner's office said it carried out an investigation together with the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office and determined that they belonged to an adult man "likely aged 20 to 60 years old" and standing about 5 feet, 9 inches tall.
However, they were unable to identify the remains at the time, and the case was labeled as "Grays Harbor County John Doe (2006)."
Last year, officials in both Washington and Oregon submitted their evidence to a lab operated by the Texas forensics service Othram.
The Grays Harbor County Coroner's Office announced that "Othram scientists successfully developed a DNA extract from the provided evidence."
The announcement continued that the Othram team then built a profile for the deceased and used it to compile a "genealogy search to develop new investigative leads that were returned to law enforcement."
It was through this process that the skeletal remains were ultimately identified as Asher, who had been declared dead in 2006 after going missing the year before.
Asher, 72, was "presumed to have drowned while crabbing in Tillamook Bay on September 5, 2006," according to the coroner's office.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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