Human remains in Washington identified as missing Hawaii man decades later

News admin June 12, 2026 0 Comments

Human remains in Washington identified as missing Hawaii man decades later

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A decades-long mystery has been solved.

26 years after human remains were discovered in a park in Washington State, law enforcement was able to identify the victim as Joseph Louis Serrao Jr., from Hawaii.

Serrao’s family said their last known contact with him was in 1998, and they had not heard from him since.

“This case remained unresolved for nearly 30 years, but investigators never lost sight of the goal of identifying this individual and finding answers for his family,” said Deputy Chief Debra Flowers, of the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch.

In July of 2000, a researcher came across skeletal remains in a sleeping bag inside a tent in a remote area of Olympic National Park.

Figuring out his identity took a large-scale collaborative effort between the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office and advanced genetic testing conducted by forensic genealogy lab Othram.

Forensic genealogy is a method that analyzes DNA to identify potential relatives and eventually deduce the identity of the person behind the DNA sample.

The remains were initially sent to a pathologist, who was able to determine that the body was likely a man, between the ages of 30 and 50, who had been dead for about six months to four years.

Items were recovered from the scene where they found the remains, however, investigators were unable to get any usable fingerprints.

In 2024, a forensic anthropologist with the King County Medical Examiner’s Office submitted a DNA sample from the decedent to Othram, who were able to use a range of DNA markers to identify potential relatives.

By 2025, the laboratory had identified possible family connections.

Investigators were then able to reach out to Serrao’s relatives in Hawaii to interview them and collect reference DNA samples for comparison.

Serrao was positively identified through a combination of genetic, genealogical, and circumstantial evidence.

According to family, Serrao was originally from Hawaii and had been in Washington before going missing.

“I’m proud of the persistence and collaboration that made this identification possible, and I hope it brings some measure of closure to those who have spent so many years wondering what happened to Joseph,” Flowers said.