An unsuspecting family searching for seashells on a beach four years ago found human remains that have since been identified as a banker from California who had been missing for nearly three decades.
The remains belong to Walter Karl Kinney, a former banker who was 59 years old when he went missing in 1999 while living in Santa Rosa, according to the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit helping officials identify John and Jane Does.
This is the second time his remains have been identified, the DNA Doe Project said. Someone found the first set of partial remains belonging to Kinney the same year he went missing, according to the nonprofit's news release. The second set of partial remains was found 23 years later, in 2022.
Investigators identified the remains as Kinney’s using genetic genealogy and a news article about earlier remains found nearly 30 years ago.
As of Tuesday, March 31, Kinney's cause of death is undetermined. The case is closed, unless officials recover more of his body that can help investigators determine how he died, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office told USA TODAY.
