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Since its creation, DNA profiling has become the most powerful method for unraveling mysteries and resolving criminal investigations. There was an era when some enigmas were deemed impossible to solve, but DNA testing can now offer conclusive answers to events that happened hundreds of years ago. Conversely, DNA profiling also serves as a reliable means to dispel myths and legends.
10. The Vanished Titanic Survivor
One of history's most renowned disasters took place on April 15, 1912, when the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg. Around 1,500 individuals perished as the ship descended into the depths of the North Atlantic. Among the presumed victims were Hudson and Bess Allison, a Canadian couple traveling with their two young children, Loraine, aged two, and Trevor, just seven months old. As first-class passengers, the Allison family had priority access to lifeboats. Trevor was successfully placed in a lifeboat, but due to a chain of miscommunications, the boat departed without the rest of his family. Hudson, Bess, and Loraine Allison tragically remained on the sinking ship.
However, in 1940, a startling twist to this tale surfaced during a radio broadcast. A woman named Helen Kramer boldly declared that she was Lorraine Allison. Kramer recounted that her father had saved her by placing her in a lifeboat beside a man known as Mr. Hyde. With her parents lost in the tragedy, Mr. Hyde raised her as his own, and she grew up unaware of her true lineage. Even more astonishingly, Kramer alleged that Mr. Hyde was none other than Thomas Andrews, the shipbuilder of the Titanic, who had reportedly died in the disaster.
Unsurprisingly, the Allison family dismissed Kramer’s account. However, a team of Titanic enthusiasts, intrigued by her claims, initiated the “Loraine Allison Identification Project.” Decades after Kramer’s death in 1992, in December 2013, they decided to conduct DNA tests on Kramer’s granddaughter and Bess Allison’s great-niece. The results revealed no familial connection, conclusively disproving the theory that Helen Kramer was Loraine Allison.
9. The Disinterment of James Hanratty
DNA analysis is frequently employed to clear individuals wrongly accused of crimes they did not commit. However, in some instances, DNA testing can also confirm the guilt of those believed to have been unjustly convicted.
On August 23, 1961, long before the advent of DNA testing, a scientist named Michael Gregsten was fatally shot inside his vehicle on the A6 road at Deadman’s Hill in Bedfordshire, England. His mistress, Valerie Storie, was also discovered at the scene. She had been sexually assaulted and shot five times, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down, yet she miraculously survived. The investigation eventually pointed to James Hanratty, a career criminal, whom Storie unequivocally identified as her assailant.
Based on Storie’s testimony, Hanratty was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to death. However, no additional evidence linked Hanratty to the crime, and he claimed to have been 400 kilometers (250 miles) away at the time of the attack. Hanratty persistently proclaimed his innocence until his execution on April 4, 1962. Prominent figures, including John Lennon, believed the case was a grave injustice and formed the A6 Defence Committee to exonerate Hanratty.
In 2002, Hanratty’s remains were exhumed to conduct DNA testing on evidence, including semen samples from Storie’s underwear and a handkerchief. The results revealed a perfect match with Hanratty’s DNA, conclusively proving his guilt.
8. The Conviction of Roger Keith Coleman
If there were an American counterpart to James Hanratty, it would likely be Roger Keith Coleman, who initially appeared to symbolize the wrongful execution of innocent individuals. On March 10, 1981, 19-year-old Wanda McCoy was brutally murdered in her Grundy, Virginia home. She was sexually assaulted, stabbed to death, and nearly decapitated. The primary suspect was McCoy’s brother-in-law, Roger Keith Coleman, who had a prior conviction for attempted rape. Coleman’s pants bore small bloodstains, and two male pubic hairs found on McCoy’s body matched his. Coleman was ultimately found guilty of rape and murder and sentenced to death.
However, the evidence against Coleman was largely circumstantial, and multiple witnesses placed him elsewhere during the time of the crime. While on death row, Coleman spent years appealing his sentence, and his case attracted significant attention, earning him numerous supporters—including Pope John Paul II—who believed in his innocence and advocated for clemency.
Despite these efforts, Coleman was executed in the electric chair on May 20, 1992. Before his death, he declared, “An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight,” and expressed hope that his execution would contribute to the abolition of the death penalty. Coleman’s supporters and anti-death penalty activists continued their fight to exonerate him. In 2006, they successfully pushed for DNA testing of evidence from the crime scene. To their dismay, the results conclusively confirmed that Roger Keith Coleman was indeed the perpetrator.
7. The Reunion of the Hagans Family
On June 11, 1968, three-year-old Jonathan Hagans vanished during a family outing at Jacksonville Beach in Florida. Authorities speculated that Jonathan had wandered into the ocean and drowned, but his family remained skeptical. Witnesses reported seeing Jonathan trailing his father toward a snack bar shortly before his disappearance. The family grew convinced that two unidentified men and a woman near the snack bar had kidnapped Jonathan.
The case went cold until 1989, when a 24-year-old Buffalo man named David Bonnabel contacted authorities after seeing an age-progressed photo of Jonathan Hagans. Bonnabel informed the Hagans family that he believed he was their missing son.
Bonnabel recounted being raised in the Louisiana swamps by a Romanian woman named Rita, who allegedly imprisoned and abused him throughout his childhood. He claimed to have escaped during his teenage years and only realized he might be the missing Jonathan after hearing his story. Initially, the Hagans family believed Bonnabel, but their hopes were shattered when DNA testing confirmed with absolute certainty that David Bonnabel was not Jonathan Hagans.
In reality, Bonnabel was a cunning fraudster. For years, he had been selling a fabricated tale to TV shows about being an abducted child searching for his parents. Investigations revealed that Bonnabel was an undocumented Mexican immigrant attempting to gain U.S. citizenship by being adopted by an American family. Tragically, the real Jonathan Hagans has never been found.
6. The Adoption of Heather Robinson
For years, Don and Helen Robinson, a couple from Chicago, struggled to conceive or adopt a child through conventional means. However, in January 1985, they received a surprising call from Don’s brother, John Edward Robinson, who claimed to have an infant girl with him. John explained that the child’s mother had recently taken her own life in a domestic violence shelter. He offered to facilitate the legal adoption of the child if Don and Helen paid him a few thousand dollars for legal fees. The Robinsons agreed, and John provided them with adoption papers to sign. The baby, named Heather Robinson, became their legally adopted daughter.
Unbeknownst to the couple, John Edward Robinson had not made any legal arrangements and had forged the adoption documents. To make matters worse, he was a serial killer who had likely murdered the child’s biological mother. Robinson had a criminal past, including embezzlement and sexual assault, but his crimes escalated when the bodies of five women were discovered in barrels on his property and in a nearby storage unit. He was sentenced to death for three murders but is suspected of many more.
In January 1985, Lisa Stasi and her four-month-old daughter, Tiffany, vanished without a trace. Lisa had recently met Robinson. In 2000, DNA testing confirmed that the girl raised as Heather Robinson was Tiffany Stasi. While Lisa Stasi is presumed dead, her remains have never been located.
5. The Fate of Dr. Josef Mengele
Following World War II, Dr. Josef Mengele became one of the most sought-after Nazi war criminals globally. Infamously dubbed the “Angel of Death,” Mengele was the ruthless physician at Auschwitz concentration camp, conducting gruesome experiments on Jewish prisoners for genetic research. After Auschwitz’s liberation, Mengele was detained in two American POW camps but was mysteriously released. He eventually escaped to South America, where he evaded capture for over three decades. By the 1980s, rumors of his death surfaced, yet unverified sightings persisted worldwide, with a $ million reward offered for his capture.
In February 1985, a symbolic trial for Mengele was held in Jerusalem, where 106 survivors testified about his crimes. Two months later, West German police raided the home of one of Mengele’s acquaintances, uncovering a letter from Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert referencing the death of a mutual friend. The Bosserts, found in Brazil, were interrogated and eventually led authorities to a cemetery in Embu, where a man named Wolfgang Gerhard was buried.
The Bosserts revealed that Wolfgang Gerhard was, in fact, Josef Mengele. They claimed he had drowned after a stroke while swimming on February 7, 1979. Despite this, doubts lingered about the identity of the remains. In 1992, DNA testing on Gerhard’s remains conclusively confirmed that the body was indeed Josef Mengele, ending the decades-long manhunt.
4. The Body of Martin Bormann
Josef Mengele wasn’t the only infamous Nazi war criminal whose death required DNA confirmation. During World War II, Martin Bormann was one of the most influential figures in the Nazi regime, acting as Adolf Hitler’s personal secretary. On May 2, 1945, two days after Hitler’s suicide, Bormann was reportedly seen leaving Berlin to deliver instructions to Hitler’s potential successor. This was the last verified sighting of Bormann, and his fate remained shrouded in mystery for years.
After the war, Bormann was tried in absentia at the Nuremberg trials, convicted of war crimes, and sentenced to death. Despite numerous unconfirmed sightings worldwide, no one could definitively prove whether Bormann was still alive.
In the 1960s, Albert Krumnow, a former Berlin postal worker, informed authorities that he had buried two bodies near the Reichstag station shortly after Bormann’s disappearance. Krumnow suspected that one of the bodies could have been Bormann’s. Initial efforts to locate the remains failed, but in 1972, construction workers discovered two skeletons near the area Krumnow described. The victims had died from cyanide poisoning, and one was believed to be Bormann, while the other was identified as SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger.
Skepticism persisted about the identity of the remains, with conspiracy theorists claiming they were planted and that Bormann was still alive. The debate ended in 1998 when DNA analysis of skull fragments confirmed that the remains were indeed those of Martin Bormann.
3. The Heart of Dauphin Louis XVII of France
Few historical figures have sparked as much debate over their supposed death as Louis XVII, the son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. During the French Revolution in August 1792, Louis XVI was arrested and dethroned. While his parents were executed, Louis XVII was confined to the Paris Temple tower for three years. There, he fell gravely ill and succumbed to tuberculosis on June 8, 1795, at the age of 10. An autopsy was conducted, and his heart was removed. However, rumors soon spread that Louis-Charles had not died but was instead smuggled out of prison by sympathizers.
Over the years, hundreds of impostors emerged, claiming to be Louis XVII or his descendants, though none could substantiate their claims. The dauphin’s heart, preserved after his death, was kept in various locations for two centuries. In 1975, it was permanently displayed in a crystal vase at the Saint Denis Basilica’s royal crypt, the resting place of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. In 2000, DNA testing was conducted on the heart and compared with a strand of Marie Antoinette’s hair. The results confirmed that the heart belonged to Louis XVII, and it was finally laid to rest in the royal crypt.
2. The Identification of Scott Morris
The advent of DNA profiling has often been a lifesaver in solving missing persons cases. Occasionally, a body is discovered and remains unidentified for years until DNA testing links the deceased to a missing individual. While DNA profiling can bring closure to grieving families, there are rare instances where it instead removes that closure.
On August 14, 1978, 14-year-old Scott Morris vanished without a trace after leaving his Indianapolis home to visit a nearby market. Known for running away, Scott’s disappearance was initially dismissed by authorities. His family never saw him again, but in 1989, a family friend received a peculiar call from a man claiming to be Scott, who said he was alive and working at a carnival.
Years later, Scott’s family was stunned by news related to an unrelated cold case. On January 7, 1990, a young, unidentified man was found naked, beaten, and shot to death in Daviess County, Kentucky. The victim’s hands, feet, and teeth had been removed, complicating identification. In 2007, a search of the missing persons database suggested a match with Scott Morris due to a strong resemblance. The body was tentatively identified as Scott, returned to his family, and buried.
Unfortunately, the identification was premature. In 2009, final DNA testing revealed a grave error: the victim was not Scott Morris. This revelation left both cold cases unresolved once again.
1. The Impostor Adolescent
In 1997, Brianna Stewart, a 16-year-old high school student from Vancouver, Washington, accused Charles Blankenship, a 47-year-old security guard, of raping her. Blankenship was subsequently charged with statutory rape and sentenced to one year in prison.
This incident appeared to be another in a series of sexual assaults endured by the mysterious Brianna Stewart. During her teenage years, she lived in various foster homes, earning widespread sympathy with her harrowing accounts of past abuse. Brianna alleged that she fled her home at the age of 12 to escape her abusive father, whom she claimed was a Satanist who had killed her mother. In 2001, as Brianna aimed to enroll in college, she needed to secure a birth certificate and Social Security number. However, a fingerprint check revealed an astonishing truth: the supposed high schooler was actually a 31-year-old woman named Treva Throneberry.
Treva Throneberry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1969. Although she experienced sexual abuse by an uncle during her childhood, her penchant for concocting false narratives began at 16 when she falsely accused her father of raping her at gunpoint. As an adult, Treva spent much of the 1990s traversing the country, masquerading as a teenager under various pseudonyms. She frequently resided in homeless shelters and foster homes, spinning elaborate tales of abuse, often involving Satanic rituals.
Following the revelation of Treva’s true identity through fingerprint analysis, she was taken into custody and faced charges of theft, fraud, and perjury. Despite her persistent claims of being Brianna Stewart, DNA evidence irrefutably confirmed her identity as Treva Throneberry. Charles Blankenship’s wrongful conviction was swiftly removed from his record, and Treva was handed a three-year prison sentence.
