They hit a dead end until they turned to the specialized forensic technology group, Othram. The company is located out of Texas, they specializes in forensic-grade genome sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy.
"Our technology comes into play when you don't know who the person is, you don't have any leads, you're kind of stuck," the chief development officer for Othram, Dr. Kristen Mittelman said.
Mittelman, the chief development officer, said the Sheriff's Office came to them in July.
"This is just new technology that is able to bring new technology quickly to an investigation," Mittelman said. She said the company had identified a person from 1881, and they could go back further. They can also identify a perpetrator with only 15 cells. They can work with burnt, exploded, and chemically treated remains. She said the limits of the technology are almost non-existent.
The challenge with this case was that the remains were decades old, and contaminated by the temperature, bacteria, plant, and animal DNA, but it's something they're familiar with.
Dr. Mittelman said by extracting the DNA, building a profile, and using genealogy in September, they were able to help law enforcement identify the remains as Logan Bowman, the missing 5-year-old.
"We were able to see that this little boy belonged to these parents, we provided that lead back to law enforcement," Mittelman said.
20 years of questions are finally getting answered. 5-year-old Logan Bowman disappeared in 2003. Logan's mother and her boyfriend were charged in connection to
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