Answers Still Elusive in 127-year-old Kansas Mystery

Researchers trying to solve a 127-year-old mystery still don’t have a usable DNA sample to help them.

Two University of Colorado professors excavated a grave in Lawrence, Kan. in May supposed to belong to John Hillmon, a 31-year-old ranch hand who was, according to one story, accidentally shot and killed in 1879.

When Hillmon’s widow tried to collect her husband’s life insurance, the insurers argued Hillmon faked his death and substituted the body of a missing Iowa man. The researchers had hoped to extract DNA from the remains to help identify the body.

“The short term results have been discouraging,” Dennis Van Gerven, professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado, told The Kansas City Star. “We’re still in the hunt for DNA.”

Court cases involving the insurers and Hillmon’s widow spawned a key rule for trial evidence still taught in law schools. After teaching the story for years, Colorado law professor Mimi Wesson decided to try to solve the mystery and eventually received permission for a team to dig up Hillmon’s grave.

She enlisted Van Gerven, who has experience unearthing mummies. Van Gerven hoped to compare any usable DNA with the DNA of living relatives of Hillmon and the missing Iowa man.

But Van Gerven’s team found only a handful of bone fragments in the grave’s soil, because moisture had caused the body to decompose.

He said scientists are using sophisticated techniques for locating and isolating DNA, making it still possible for a usable sample to be extracted.

“I think we’re going to know one way or the other quite soon,” he said.