Identified! WA - Snohomish Cty, Male UP 13502, 50-65, Jan 2015, Mill Creek Shed - Nathaniel Terrance Deggs

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

Well, it looks like it's official now. Recent update from DDP:

"We are gratified to announce that after 19 months of hard work we have identified Mill Creek Shed Man. This was a natural death, so the release of his name will depend on the wishes of his family as well as on official confirmation by the coroner.

We are grateful for the incredible job done by our volunteer genealogists who kept this man in their hearts every day. Also to those matches we reached out to who were gracious in sharing their trees with us. To our donors for helping to fund the second round of sequencing, which made a big difference in obtaining usable data. And to Dr. Greg Magoon who worked bioinformatics magic pulling out enough usable human markers from otherwise very challenging DNA.

We are deeply indebted to:

Jane Jorgensen, Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office, for entrusting us with this case.
Bode Cellmark Forensics, Inc.
Dr. Weining Tang, Genologue
Justin Loe, Full Genomes Corporation, Inc
Dr. Gregory Magoon, Aerodyne Research
GEDmatch
FTDNA
Our wonderful volunteers
Our generous supporters and followers

And to his family, our deepest condolences. May this bring you some measure of peace.

#DNADoeProject
#JohnDoeSolved
#MillCreekShedMan
#SnohomishCounty
#GEDmatchOptIn #OptIn "

 

[Triss]

He can rest in eternal peace now that he has his name back <3

 

[Legally Bland]

MILL CREEK — Years ago, a dentist found a starving man in his apple orchard.

He gave him something to eat and nursed him back to health. The homeless man told him he’d once been a guard at a New York bank, but he’d been hit over the head in a robbery. The dentist let him sleep in a one-room shed behind his house on the outskirts of Mill Creek. He worked on the man’s teeth and sometimes even asked him to babysit. His family rented out the house, telling tenants the neighbor in the shed came as part of the deal.

At least that’s the strange tale gathered by authorities since Jan. 11, 2015, when a passerby found a body in an overgrown shack along North Creek Park.

Apparently police had come in contact with the man before, and written his name as Jerry Diggs, born in May 1945; or Jerry Deggs, born in December 1949; or Jeremy Diggs, born on New Year’s Eve 1950. All were close to the truth, but not near enough to lead to his family, to tell them he had died.

His real name remained a mystery until volunteers at DNA Doe Project cracked the case over the past 1½ years. Amateur genealogist Jenny Lecus, 35, grew obsessed with the nameless man.

After 1,900 hours of research, Mill Creek man’s name is found | HeraldNet.com

 

[Mira_Eg]

The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office has confirmed identification made by DNA Doe Project. The former "Mill Creek Shed Man" was Nathaniel Terrence Deggs, 65, of Baltimore, Maryland and the Bronx, New York.

DNA Doe Project

 

[Melt71]

What a pity that LE almost had his name right - but not quite - on those two or three occasions they came across him.

Also shows again that our searches shouldn’t be limited to the geographic area where a UID is located.

 

[Al Ka]

MILL CREEK — Years ago, a dentist found a starving man in his apple orchard.

He gave him something to eat and nursed him back to health. The homeless man told him he’d once been a guard at a New York bank, but he’d been hit over the head in a robbery. The dentist let him sleep in a one-room shed behind his house on the outskirts of Mill Creek. He worked on the man’s teeth and sometimes even asked him to babysit. His family rented out the house, telling tenants the neighbor in the shed came as part of the deal.

At least that’s the strange tale gathered by authorities since Jan. 11, 2015, when a passerby found a body in an overgrown shack along North Creek Park.

Apparently police had come in contact with the man before, and written his name as Jerry Diggs, born in May 1945; or Jerry Deggs, born in December 1949; or Jeremy Diggs, born on New Year’s Eve 1950. All were close to the truth, but not near enough to lead to his family, to tell them he had died.

His real name remained a mystery until volunteers at DNA Doe Project cracked the case over the past 1½ years. Amateur genealogist Jenny Lecus, 35, grew obsessed with the nameless man.

After 1,900 hours of research, Mill Creek man’s name is found | HeraldNet.com

Just adding photos. RIP Nathaniel Terrence Deggs

Sketch as Mill Creek John Doe

Shed he was found in

 

[JovanSrna]

Thread needs to be moved to Identified.

 

[sasha17]

More information from the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office: Nathaniel Terrance "Terry" (Davies) Deggs | Snohomish County, WA - Official Website

 

[Eman317]

Good to see he finally got his name back.

 

[Blurgle]

Glad to see his surviving family finally knows what happened to him.

 

[Suglo]

More information from the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office: Nathaniel Terrance "Terry" (Davies) Deggs | Snohomish County, WA - Official Website

What a great write up. Nice to see LE give more than basic info and credit where credit is due!

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

What a great write up. Nice to see LE give more than basic info and credit where credit is due!

Enjoyed reading it also. Rest in peace, Mr. Deggs.
“[SBM]

Unfortunately, these potential matches were so far removed from the decedent that finding a close living relative was proving extremely difficult.

Then, in February 2019, a close relative uploaded their DNA to GEDmatch, opted in to share with law enforcement, and matched with the Mill Creek Shed Man at the half-first cousin level. That individual was then contacted by the DNA Doe Project team who assisted them in discovering their paternal ancestry as they did not know who their father was. Through their research they were able to determine that the half-first cousin shared a common grandfather with the Mill Creek Shed Man.

In July 2019, using the half-first cousin identified in February and several other family trees, the DNA Doe Project team identified a family that had thirteen children. Extensive research showed that all but one of the siblings were documented to be either alive of deceased. One of the siblings had very little online information and was only mentioned by two different last names in two family obituaries. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office (SCMEO) called one of the siblings provided by the DDP and she revealed that she had one sibling that was unaccounted for: Nathaniel Terrence ‘Terry’ Deggs. Terry was her half brother. This sibling had done a previous DNA test at AncestryDNA, which she uploaded to GEDmatch and ultimately matched at the half-sibling level to the Mill Creek Shed Man.

Born Nathaniel Terrence Davies in 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland, Terry, as he was known to his family, was raised by a foster family and moved to New York at a young age. He would later take on the last name of his foster family, Deggs. He was one of 15 siblings including three sets of twins (one set of twins died in utero). His half-sister was able to provide information known about Jerry Deggs that matched him perfectly, including the date of birth he provided to Mill Creek Police in one of their previous interactions, and that he had previously worked as a bank security guard in The Bronx, New York. She stated that the family had lost touch with him in the early 1980s following the death of his foster mother. They had searched for him many times over the last three decades and had no idea what might have driven him to relocate to the Pacific Northwest.

On September 3, 2019, after reviewing the findings provided by the DNA Doe Project team, Dr. J. Matthew Lacy with the SCMEO formally identified the Mill Creek Shed man as Nathaniel Terrence ‘Terry’ (Davies) Deggs.

[SBM]”

 

[Liv27]

Shoutout to Natalie Murray on her reconstruction of Terry Deggs. She did a wonderful job. It takes real talent to do something like this.

 

[Jake479]

RIP Nathaniel Deggs