I think this article is new as it contains a few new details. For example, about the gun and the cross which suddenly appeared on the place where this John Doe was found, also I do not remember reading anything about the book and the pills which were found near the body. The book is Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons
Marion Flathead County John Doe
Marion Flathead County John Doe
Police are close to identifying him, but they need the public’s help.
Josie Klakström
Jan 6 · 6 min read
On the 26th of October 2003, two hunters were walking at the top of a cliff in Marion, Flathead County, Montana. They were close to a wooded area when they came upon a black nylon ‘Uncle Mike’s Sidekick’ bag, looking rather worse for wear. It wasn’t a regular hunting bag, which they would expect to see and they didn’t notice anyone in the area that the bag could belong to.
They took a closer look inside and found a fanny pack and a .22 calibre Smith & Wesson 433 pistol. Close to the bag was a coin and a butterfly knife.
The discovery of the bag didn’t concern the hunters and they continued on their way. When they arrived home, one of them told his wife about the find and she suggested that he go back out and check the bottom of the cliff. The hunter went back to the woods to search the area more thoroughly and made a horrible discovery.
At the bottom of the cliff was a skull, alongside a water bottle and an Adidas tennis shoe. Nearby was a rat’s nest and inside he found a marijuana pipe, a pair of sunglasses, a few more coins and other small items.
The location of the remains was impossible to get to without a key to the many gates along the road. The Sheriff had to call in a wildlife officer to get him to open the locks for him, which gave them their first clue; the deceased would have been on foot, rather than in a vehicle.
Detectives and crime scene specialists arrived quickly, and the skull and artefacts were collected. They were sent off for processing, to try and find the identity of the person, while officers searched the surrounding area for clues.
There was little evidence at the crime scene and detectives knew early on that the skull had been there a long time. Because the additional bones found were scattered around the area, they didn’t know where the original crime scene was situated. Using the skull as a point of reference, they worked outwards, looking for more bones or belongings from the bag.
Most of the bones were near the skull but there was one found near the top of the cliff where the nylon bad was discovered. This indicated that the person likely died on higher ground and fell down the cliff.
Further coins were found as was an electronic handheld poker game and a bottle of Aleve pain pills. The newest coin dated back to 1990, which gave detectives a window of 13 years, in which the person could have died.
A year later, another search of the area found pages from a book, Phases of Gravityby Dan Simmons. The book was published in 1989, 1990 and again in 2001. It didn’t help narrow the timeline any further, but it gave investigators another clue as to who this person was.
The remains
The bones were examined by the anthropology department from the University of Montana. They also studied the crime scene and found additional bones on their visit.
In November, the team determined that the bones had been in the woods for around eight years, before their discovery.
They belonged to a white male, who was around 5’7” in height and wore a size 11 shoe. He was between 18 and 42 but was more likely to be in his mid-twenties. He also had fillings in his teeth.
Marion Flathead County John Doe via dnadoeproject.org
Because of his dental work, investigators believed they’d crack the case with dental records, but each time they thought they’d found him, the dental work wasn’t quite right.
The artefacts
To help close the timeline further, an investigator called Aleve to see if he could gain any information from the discarded bottle. He gave them the serial number and they were able to tell him that the particular bottle type was sold from June 1994.
They also told him that Bayer took over the manufacturing from Procter & Gamble in January 1997, and after the takeover, the bottle shape had changed. The one found near the remains was from the Procter & Gamble era, which gave detectives a window of two and a half years, between June 1994 and January 1997.
Soon after this information was unearthed, a forensic technician went down a similar rabbit hole with the Adidas shoe. Giving Adidas a description of the shoe and serial numbers, they were able to find out that the shoe had been made in May 1995.
The gun
The .22 calibre Smith & Wesson 433 pistol found at the scene was second hand and still had its serial number. Detectives quickly acquired the history of the gun; where it was made and who had bought it, and they tracked it to a man in Utah, who purchased it in January 1994.
The man who bought the gun was still alive, so he wasn’t the man found in the woods, but he told police that he’d sold the weapon and many others between March and June in 1994.
He couldn’t remember who he’d sold that particular gun to, but he likely took it to one of two gun shops nearby. It doesn’t appear that this was verified in the original investigation.
The case went cold but was reopened around 2011, but without a dedicated cold case team, the investigation was slow.
The new detective in charge of the case, visited the woods to familiarise himself with the crime scene. When he arrived, he saw that someone had placed a white cross at the top of the cliff. Despite the police’s efforts, the owner of the cross was never identified.
He also found another rat’s nest, which had more human bones inside it, that likely belonged to John Doe.
The detective looked into the original gun man’s story and spoke to the gun stores he believed he sold the weapon to. However, neither store had a record of the gun in question, meaning they never bought it.
The detective reinterviewed the gun owner, who told him that he may have pawned the gun instead, as he was going through a divorce and needed money. The man gave police the pawnshop’s name, but they also didn’t have any record of buying the gun.
The man was cleared in the original investigation because the gun stores weren’t contacted, but when questioned by
Crime Junkie, the detective said, “with any investigation, it must remain fluid, should any new evidence arise.”
Where you can help
The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office teamed with the
DNA Doe Project to help identify their John Doe. Until they had an identity for the man, they couldn’t start investigating how he may have died.
By using genealogy, they were able to add the John Doe’s DNA to the usual ancestry databases, and they managed to get matches to a fourth cousin level.
Based on John Doe’s DNA, the DNA Doe Project believes he’s from three potential counties and eleven family names. He could be related to people in the below counties.
Montgomery County, Indiana
Surnames: Ward, Linn, Barrett.
Hancock County, Tennessee
Surnames: Greene, Epperson, Seales, Trent.
Harlan County, Kentucky
Surnames: Saylor, Helton, Brock, Blanton.
He was likely out of state when he died but DNA Doe Project believes he may have been from one of these families, in one of these states.
For more information on the case, visit the
DNA Doe Project. Let’s try and give this man a name
Saylor, Helton, Brock, or Blanton from Harlan County, Kentucky
