Advanced DNA testing identifies murder victim more than 50 years after body was found in Kansas

A set of remains found in Kansas in 1973 have been identified after decades thanks to advanced DNA testing, officials said Tuesday. 

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation said in a news release that the decomposing remains of an unidentified young man were found three miles southeast of Garnett, Kansas on April 18, 1973. The man was believed to have brown hair and a slender build, and was wearing a brown corduroy jacket, green long-sleeved buttoned shirt, jeans, black leather belt with a large buckle, brown hiking boots and a navy blue stocking cap. He also wore two gold rings with crosses, a ring with the number “78,” and a silver chain with a large cross, the bureau said. 

An autopsy found signs of trauma and determined he had been murdered, officials said. 

“Many attempts” were made to identify the man over the years, the bureau said, including listing the man’s description in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, but to no avail. In 2024, DNA extracted from the remains was sent to the forensic company Othram for forensic genetic genealogy testing, the bureau said. Othram created a DNA profile and searched for relatives of the unknown man. 

In early 2025, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation learned that Othram had identified a match. Agents from the bureau and officials from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office were able to locate people who DNA showed were the siblings of the unidentified man.

Interviews and a DNA sample from one sibling allowed officials to identify the remains as belonging to Jimmy Allen Dollison, the bureau said.

Dollison had been living in Kansas City, Kansas when he went missing, sometime in October or November 1972, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said. He was 16 at the time of his disappearance. He was reported missing by his parents, family members told the bureau, but relatives never received any answers. 

The bureau did not say how long the remains had been decomposing when they were found in April 1973, six months after Dollison’s disappearance. Dollison’s entry in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System notes that he “had likely been deceased 2-4 weeks” before his remains were found. 

Kansas City is about 80 miles from Garnett, where the remains were found. 

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office are continuing to investigate Dollison’s death. Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the authorities.

Othram said in a news release that the case was investigated as part of the company’s Project 525 initiative, which launched in May 2024. The project works to “bring resolution” to the 525 juvenile cases listed on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, Othram said.