REDWOOD CITY — The San Mateo County Coroner’s Office has identified remains discovered in 1985 with the use of DNA, the office announced Friday.
The partial remains, which were discovered in Menlo Park, were positively identified as being Brian Edward Jones, a 20-year-old from San Jose, authorities said.
Jones was a missing person who was last seen by his family alive when he went to work in December 1984, authorities said.
The remains were discovered April 15, 1985, in an undeveloped area of Menlo Park, authorities said.
On Oct. 26, 2023, the coroner’s office exhumed the unidentified remains of Jones in partnership with Cypress Lawn Funeral Home. The office collected a DNA sample to send to the California Department of Justice, authorities said.
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Officials found a potential biological relationship between Jones’s DNA and a reference sample of DNA submitted to the database in 2016 as part of a missing persons report, authorities added. An initial analysis found “moderate support” for a relation.
The Department of Justice conducted further testing using a Y-chromosome DNA partial haplotype, authorities said. That test found “strong evidence” of a relationship. The coroner’s office was told of the finding on April 22.
The coroner’s office alerted Jones’s next of kin of his identification on May 20, authorities said.
