WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (TCD) — Officials recently identified a male homicide victim whose remains were found by juveniles playing in a heavily wooded area in the 1980s.
According to a news release from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, on Jan. 12, 1985, the children found the victim’s remains near a canal bank, and officials collected the remnants and searched the scene. The sheriff’s office and the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide.
Officials entered the victim’s DNA into the FBI’s CODIS database at the time, but investigators were unable to find a match. Officials called him “The Nameless.”
According to a Dec. 27 news release from Othram, the sheriff’s office submitted the victim’s skeletal remains to their labs in 2022, and they were able to build a comprehensive DNA profile using his remains and Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing.
Othram scientists developed leads and sent the information to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office then found a kinship match and positively identified the victim as Terry Ketron of Kentucky.
According to the sheriff’s office, Ketron had traveled from Kentucky to Florida with his “female companion named Connie or Bonnie” in the early 1980s. Ketron’s family had reportedly last heard from Ketron via phone, and he “shared information that he was having problems with his girlfriend and her family members.” His family hadn’t heard from Ketron since, and they didn’t know his location.
The case remains unsolved, but investigators are looking into Ketron’s death and working to identify the female companion with whom he traveled.
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