DNA testing confirmed bones found on Salmon Creek beach belonged to Walter Karl Kinney, a man last seen in 1999
Human remains discovered in the summer of 2022 on a beach in California recently were identified as those of a former banker who disappeared in 1999.
The DNA Doe Project (DDP) on Thursday announced that bones found on Salmon Creek state beach in northern California in June 2022 – by a family searching for seashells – belonged to 59-year-old Walter Karl Kinney, a former banker who lived in nearby Santa Rosa.
According to the DDP, the family came across a bone in the sand that contained surgical hardware. A pathology exam suggested it was a tibia – however, a search of the surrounding area uncovered no additional remains, leaving investigators initially unable to determine its identity.
After the Sonoma county sheriff’s office brought the case to the DDP, the group’s investigative genealogists began working pro bono to identify the remains. They developed a DNA profile and uploaded it to GEDmatch, a public genealogy database, in January 2026.
