Case Solve: Owensboro KY Doe 1990
The Kentucky State Police shared information today about the identification of the Owensboro KY 1990 Doe as William Dennis Mathews. The Trans Doe Task Force worked with the Kentucky State Medical Examiners office and provided forensic genetic genealogical services to assist in his identification. Our thanks to these departments for entrusting us to assist, and our condolences to Mr. Mathews' loved ones.
While the Trans Doe Task Force aims to work on LGBTQ+ cases, when a victim is a Doe and we do not know their identity or how they identified, we can only rely on clues that a case might fall under our umbrella of services. Not every Doe we identify will turn out to be LGBTQ+ (please see the case of Bill Lewis). Regardless, we are very happy to have been able to provide information to assist with the identification of a person whose name was unknown for far too long.
We hope to share more details in the future as permitted. Below you will find a few links to current news articles as well as the original announcement from 2022 when we took on this case.
Media links:
The Trans Doe Task Force (TDTF) has partnered with the Kentucky State Medical Examiner’s Office to identify the remains of a white individual who was recovered from a wooded area off of Pleasant Valley Road in Owensboro, Kentucky on January 7, 1990 (NamUs #UP87). TDTF’s in-house team of LGBTQ+ and informed ally genealogists will provide free forensic genealogical services to identify this individual once the laboratory process is completed. The DNA extraction and sequencing will be provided by the Hubbard Center for Genomics at the University of New Hampshire and bioinformatics will be provided by Kevin Lord of Saber Investigations.
The victim had been shot multiple times and his hands had been removed. Due to other sensitive details, the TDTF has included this case in their LAMMP (LGBT+ Accountability for Missing and Murdered Persons) database. This individual had brown hair with some graying, about 8 inches long and brown eyes, and a pair of men’s gold toned prescription eyeglasses were recovered near his body. He was 5ft. tall and estimated to be 130lbs and is estimated to be between 25 and 40 years old. This forensic reconstruction was created by K. Pacheco in 2021. If you know someone who is missing who resembles this reconstruction, please contact Amy Burrows-Beckham at the Kentucky State Medical Examiner’s Office at (502)489-5209
If you know of other Doe cases in which the deceased may have been Trans or under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, or if you are working with law enforcement on a case in which a perpetrator left DNA behind at a crime scene in which the victim was known to be LGBTQ+, please reach out to us at admin@transdoetaskforce.org and/or use the case submission form on our website. Additionally, anyone can report missing LGBTQ+ persons to our LAMMP database at lammp.transdoetaskforce.org or email LAMMP@transdoetaskforce.org for assistance.
