Anyone with information about the homicide case, specifically any knowledge about people Jerry Harrison may have been with before his death, is asked to call 1-800-TBI-FIND.
After 37 years, DNA technology has helped authorities identify a John Doe who was found dead on a Tennessee trail, according to reports.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced in a press release last week that genealogical DNA testing has confirmed the identity of the previously unknown murder victim as Jerry Harrison, of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Harrison, who last contacted his family in 1982 when he was around the age of 25, was traveling cross country but was never heard from again, People reported.
On August 24, 1986, skeletal remains were discovered by hunters along an isolated and abandoned trail in the Caney Valley area of Claiborne County, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said their agents began working alongside the Claiborne County Sheriff’s Office in investigating the death and forensic anthropologists determined that the skeletal remains were those of a white male, likely between the age of 30 and 40. The victim had been shot, and his death was ruled a homicide.
According to the University of Tennessee Anthropology Department, the man had been deceased for six months to a year prior to the discovery of his remains, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in their press release.
“After exhausting all leads, investigators could not determine the victim’s identity, and he was classified as a John Doe,” authorities said in a statement at the time.
The case soon went cold.
However, in the fall of 2015, authorities say the University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center submitted a sample of the man’s remains to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification (UNTCHI).
A DNA profile was developed and entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System in hopes that the man would eventually be identified.
In December 2022, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents submitted a sample of the man’s remains to Othram Inc., a private lab based in Texas, for forensic genetic genealogical DNA testing. Scientists provided information about possible relatives connected to the man.
“A TBI intelligence analyst used that information to locate potential family members in Arkansas,” Tennessee Bureau of Intelligence said in a statement. “Agents made contact with two of those individuals and confirmed they had a brother they had not heard from in more than four decades.”
In late May, a break in the case came when they were able to identify the man as Jerry Harrison, who was born in December 1957 and went missing in 1982.
Now, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is asking for the public’s help in providing information that may help find Harrison’s killer and crack the cold case.
Anyone with information about the homicide case, specifically any knowledge about people Harrison may have been with before his death, is asked to call 1-800-TBI-FIND.
