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CONCOW, Butte County — Victim No. 53 was pulled from the rubble of someone else’s life.
One year after the historic Camp Fire blasted through the Sierra Nevada foothills, 84 people who died in the flames have been identified. But one person endures as a mystery — a man whose remains were found in the scorched footprint of a mobile home, burned beyond recognition, in this tiny community just east of Paradise.
He may have died a hero. And we may never know his name.
In the wake of the fire that swept through Butte County on Nov. 8, 2018, the worst blaze in California history, Victim No. 53 was carefully unearthed from the property on Schwyhart Lane in Concow. How did he come to be there? No one knew.
This was the home of Lon and Ellen Walker.
[...]
On the morning of the fire, Lon, 76, picked up a load of lumber in Plumas County. He had been about to quit his trucking job so he could take care of Ellen, who at age 73 suffered from fibromyalgia and didn’t like using her walker. She moved slowly about their place, tending to the fruit trees and four cats. The calico, Ginger, was her favorite.
The fire that ignited around 6:15 a.m. under Pacific Gas and Electric Co. transmission lines moved quickly, traveling west nearly 3 miles to Concow within an hour. Ellen was among many people the fire trapped in their homes and cars.
Lon feared the worst, that she’d indeed died in the fire. But when confirmation of her death came, weeks later, there was also a strange piece of news — the presence of Victim No. 53.
The two victims’ bodies had appeared to be one, until anthropologists from Chico State University distinguished three kneecaps among the remains. A year after he was found, authorities still have few clues to who he might be.
[...]
No unclaimed vehicles were found near the mobile home on Schwyhart Lane. And no men with links to the area were unaccounted for. One guess was that Victim No. 53 might have rushed in to try to save Ellen from the advancing flames, losing his life trying to do a good deed.
[...]
This fall, the case of Victim No. 53 landed with Margaret Press, the co-founder of the DNA Doe Project.
The organization in Sebastopol takes on investigations that have eluded coroners. It works in the field of genetic genealogy, which combines DNA testing with the type of research people use to build family trees, and was central in leading to the arrest last year of Joseph James DeAngelo, the suspected Golden State Killer who terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s.
Press uses GedMatch, a website that compares DNA to offer a percentage likelihood that two people are related. Parents and children share 50% of their DNA, as do siblings. That number drops to 25% for grandparents and 12.5% for cousins. For Victim No. 53, Press hopes to find, if not a first cousin, perhaps a third cousin that shared the same great-grandfather.
Read more (very long article): A name lost in flames: Did the last unidentified victim of the Camp Fire die a hero?
One year after the historic Camp Fire blasted through the Sierra Nevada foothills, 84 people who died in the flames have been identified. But one person endures as a mystery — a man whose remains were found in the scorched footprint of a mobile home, burned beyond recognition, in this tiny community just east of Paradise.
He may have died a hero. And we may never know his name.
In the wake of the fire that swept through Butte County on Nov. 8, 2018, the worst blaze in California history, Victim No. 53 was carefully unearthed from the property on Schwyhart Lane in Concow. How did he come to be there? No one knew.
This was the home of Lon and Ellen Walker.
[...]
On the morning of the fire, Lon, 76, picked up a load of lumber in Plumas County. He had been about to quit his trucking job so he could take care of Ellen, who at age 73 suffered from fibromyalgia and didn’t like using her walker. She moved slowly about their place, tending to the fruit trees and four cats. The calico, Ginger, was her favorite.
The fire that ignited around 6:15 a.m. under Pacific Gas and Electric Co. transmission lines moved quickly, traveling west nearly 3 miles to Concow within an hour. Ellen was among many people the fire trapped in their homes and cars.
Lon feared the worst, that she’d indeed died in the fire. But when confirmation of her death came, weeks later, there was also a strange piece of news — the presence of Victim No. 53.
The two victims’ bodies had appeared to be one, until anthropologists from Chico State University distinguished three kneecaps among the remains. A year after he was found, authorities still have few clues to who he might be.
[...]
No unclaimed vehicles were found near the mobile home on Schwyhart Lane. And no men with links to the area were unaccounted for. One guess was that Victim No. 53 might have rushed in to try to save Ellen from the advancing flames, losing his life trying to do a good deed.
[...]
This fall, the case of Victim No. 53 landed with Margaret Press, the co-founder of the DNA Doe Project.
The organization in Sebastopol takes on investigations that have eluded coroners. It works in the field of genetic genealogy, which combines DNA testing with the type of research people use to build family trees, and was central in leading to the arrest last year of Joseph James DeAngelo, the suspected Golden State Killer who terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s.
Press uses GedMatch, a website that compares DNA to offer a percentage likelihood that two people are related. Parents and children share 50% of their DNA, as do siblings. That number drops to 25% for grandparents and 12.5% for cousins. For Victim No. 53, Press hopes to find, if not a first cousin, perhaps a third cousin that shared the same great-grandfather.
Read more (very long article): A name lost in flames: Did the last unidentified victim of the Camp Fire die a hero?
