A decades-old cold case at the Jersey Shore has been cracked after experts confirmed that skeletal remains found on three beaches belong to a 19th-century ship captain.
Undergraduate student researchers at Ramapo College of New Jersey used advanced DNA technology to determine that bones from a leg, arm and fragments of a cranium all belonged to Captain Henry Goodsell - who died at sea 181 years ago at age 29.
The bones were found separately on Ocean City, Margate and Longport beaches between 1995 and 2013.
New Jersey State Police turned them over to researchers at the college’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center last year.
"We kind of kept going back and forth between, are they historic? Are they not historic?” NJSP Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Anna Delaney told NBC New York. "This is absolutely amazing because after all of this time, Henry has his name."
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While examining New Jersey shipwreck records, students uncovered newspaper articles from December 20 and 24, 1844.
They learned that the Oriental, captained Goodsell, was carrying five crew members and 60 tons of marble to Philadelphia for Girard College when it sank near Brigantine Shoal in 1844, killing everyone on board.
Researchers traced Goodsell’s genetic relatives back to the 1600s and built family trees, revealing ancestral ties to Connecticut. They eventually located Goodsell’s great-great-granddaughter in Maryland, whose DNA sample confirmed the captain's identity.
Goodsell's family said they do not want his remains, so they will stay at a state repository indefinitely.
“Identifying human remains is one of the most solemn and challenging responsibilities law enforcement is charged with,” said Chief of County Detectives Patrick Snyder at the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office in a news release.
“Law enforcement works hard knowing that behind every case is a promise: that no one will be forgotten, and that we will pursue the truth until families have the answers they deserve,” he added.
