Police use DNA to identify body of man who tried to bike, canoe from Alberta to Ontario in 2016
A body found eight years ago on the shores of Lake Huron has been identified as a man who set out to pedal and paddle thousands of kilometres from Alberta to his hometown in Ontario.
Police confirmed the identity of Garnet Michael Nelson using genetic genealogy, including DNA tests, on Monday.
Nelson was found on Oct. 15, 2016 washed up near Port Albert, roughly 16 kilometres north of Goderich. Police noted at the time he was wearing a lifejacket.
An investigation was launched, and police appealed to the public for information. In the end, it was an article from a northern Ontario publication, Sootoday.com, along with cutting edge police technology, that helped solve the case.
The month before his body was found, reporter Jeff Klassen described an encounter with a man who identified himself as Mitchell Nelson. He was pulling a canoe hitched to a bicycle westward on the side of the Trans-Canada Highway near Espanola, Ont.
In the article, Nelson said he was born in London and moved to Alberta during an economic boom. When he was no longer able to benefit from that boom, he decided to move back to Ontario, he told Klassen.
The last line of the article explains Nelson’s plan to pull the canoe to Manitoulin Island, after which he would canoe across Georgian Bay and down the Lake Huron shoreline to visit his family in London. Ont.
Despite the news article being on the OPP’s radar, the investigation was far from cut and dried, according to Detective Inspector Randy Gaynor, the lead investigator on the case.
Among other things standing in the way of making a strong link between the Nelson’s body and his appearance in the article, was the fact that he used a different name while being interviewed by Klassen.
“He hadn’t been in Ontario for many, many years, so his looks changed significantly from the last time family had seen him. Even with the photo out in the media, it didn’t prompt anyone to reach out,” Gaynor said.
“Since 2016, we’re working on this thing, trying to find out who this guy is, and we’re not getting a lot of leads. There’s not much to work on.”
After all other avenues were exhausted, police turned to investigative genetic genealogy, submitting Nelson’s DNA to a Toronto Police lab in January 2023.
After that DNA sample was submitted, all police could do was wait for a match, said Gaynor.
“The variable here is someone in the family has to have submitted their DNA (to a database police can access) for this to work. If there’s nobody to compare it to, it’s never going to work.”
Eventually, a match was found, and after a second test in July to confirm the findings, Police — and Nelson’s family — finally had a conclusion in the case.
Gaynor said the technology used in the investigation was instrumental to identifying Nelson, and thanked the public for their involvement as well.
Police said no foul play is suspected in Nelson’s death.
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